The Grand Unveiling August 17th, 2008. by The J.P. Patches Webmeister,

Hi Patches Pals! Ace reporter for the City Dump Gazzette here. If you've already read this you can click on over on the menubar on the left to get into the main website.

If you haven't read this and you still want to skip ahead into the main site ... go right ahead and click ... though you'll hurt my feelings for the rest of the day.

As you all know August 17th was The Big Day. You may have heard about it. The Earth stopped rotating on its axis ... there was a full eclipse of the sun during the middle of the night ... but those were small potatoes compared to what occurred in the charming Fremont neighborhood in Seattle.

Patches Pals from all over came to Solstice Plaza to witness the unveiling of the statue, Late for the Interurban, honoring J.P. Patches & Gertrude.

(From now on there will be thumbnail pictures of the event scattered all over this article. If you don't want to get out your magnifying glass because it's in some drawer somewhere ... just click on the little bitty picture and a full size image will pop up as if by magic. Your kindly old webmeister has learned a few web-page tricks over the years.)

Look at all the people who showed up!

I understand that earlier in the morning a certain Boris S. Wort had put up a Huge poster proclaiming "FREE MONEY!" but that was hastily taken down and replaced with this one after a large enough crowd had assembled.

Incredibly Funny-Guy Pat Cashman was the Master of Ceremonies for the event and kept the crowd laughing in between the times the audience was laughing at something else.

Our governor, Christine Gregoire, attended the event, as well as Congressman Jim McDermott and King County Executive Ron Sims.

But in this reporter's opinion, the emotional highpoint of the day was when Christina Frost read her moving tribute to our Northwest Icon, her Grandfather. While Christina was talking about J.P. there wasn't a dry eye in the house … that's because we were all out in the plaza … and there weren't any dry eyes out there either.
You can read the full text of Christina's tribute by clicking here.

I couldn't get a picture of the statue as J.P. and Gertrude unveiled it. It was wall to wall Patches Pals and I could barely snap a picture of the "Patches Pavers" around the base of the statue.

A couple of days later, after the crowd thinned out, I went back to take some pictures of Late for the Interurban. But there were some guys hanging around the statue and I couldn't get a clear shot. The guy in the middle, Kevin Pettelle, claimed to be the statue's sculptor.

I never found out exactly who the other two guys were. I think the guy on the left said his name was "Mr. Weeds" and the guy on the right referred to himself as "FAB."

They finally left and I was able to take this shot.

I took a zillion shots during The Event and you can see them by clicking here or click on "J.P.'s Appearances" on the menubar up there on the left and then clicking on "The J.P. Patches & Gertrude Statue Unveiling! August 17, 2008" Patches Pals took hundreds of pictures too. And sent them to me. I'll be adding them to the site soon so ... as always ... Check Back Every 15 Minutes! WebMeister