Bill Moeller Commentary: New Farmers Market Location Is a Very Welcome Change

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As you read this it’s probably sometime around Thursday, Aug. 4, but I wrote it Saturday morning, July 29.

At the time, I was debating whether or not an old geezer should even be considering attending the usual Saturday noon session spent holding a sign for Veterans for Peace in front of the Centralia Library — in over 90-degree heat. 

So, I turned my attention to what I wanted to write about — the Centralia Farmers Market’s recent return to its original Pine Street location.

I’ve often wondered why such a perfect spot was ever abandoned but, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve assumed that too many vendors were trying to crowd into a limited space and the only solution at the time seemed to be to look for a larger location. The only trouble was that other locations just weren’t as easily accessible as Pine Street.

It’s something the Chehalis Farmers Market solved earlier by closing off an entire downtown block of a street one day per week. I visited there a week ago and was impressed as always by the easy access to vendors.

In a previous column, I had hinted that the original Centralia market could gain more space if the parking lot next to it could be turned over to vendors for a few hours, once per week. My surprise when I visited the “new” Centralia market yesterday (as I write this) and found that that’s exactly what the city has done! 

It seemed like such an easy solution when I mentioned it and I hope the additional space will become and remain to be a part of the market for many years in the future.

In other news (well, it’s hardly news if it is expected), if you are interested in knowing whether I managed to exist for an entire week without injuring myself, the answer is “of course not.” 

This time, I was setting out my heavy 100-foot-long garden hose for an evening watering when the weight of it caused me to — yup, again — lose my balance and fall backwards into a flower bed, pulling something or other loose in my right shoulder.

It’s strange that I was able to commence and complete all the watering that evening with no problem but woke up the next morning with the need to look for the sling I had recently put away after a similar incident.



I think that I might be safe from more such similar incidents, at least unless a December snowfall is already being planned for me to slip on some ice and feel something crack in either my left or right arm. You can be sure I’ll let you know when that happens, when I regain my typing ability.

Meanwhile, the tree and other shrubbery along my back fence are keeping me as comfortable as can be expected in our recent heat wave.

The shade that they provide seems to actually decrease the temperature by several degrees (although, truth be told, I found out later that the thermometer I placed there read the same as the one on my porch). 

Maybe the whole temperature thing was my imagination, creating a welcome environment to help temper my thoughts and language when I tried to remove the ivy and blackberry shoots that are also trying to settle in the ground on my side of the fence? 

Maybe I was just suffering the after effects of another fall.

Oh, well, life is interesting, isn’t it?  Stay cool.

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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.