Considering all that Jay Inslee has accomplished in his life I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t share some of what I know of him. If you are familiar with Washington State politics at all then you for sure know of Jay Inslee. A life-long Democrat, he is currently serving his second term as Governor of the State of Washington (elected in 2012 and re-elected 2016) and before that served a total of 8 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, first from the 4th congressional district in Yakima (1989-1993) and later from the 1st congressional district in north Seattle and King County (1998 to 2012). Liberal, an ardent critic of President Trump, and a strong advocate of government environmental measures to control global warming, Jay has even recently decided to throw his hat into the U.S. Presidential ring. As I sit here, it’s hard for me to believe he has a legitimate shot at the White House. On the other hand, I never thought he would become Governor either, so we’ll see—the guy just might surprise us.

       What I know of Jay has nothing to do with his political career, however. I first met him in 1956 on the playground at Shorewood kindergarten when I was five years old. His mother, a very kind and attractive lady who smiled a lot, was with him at the time. The Inslees, it seemed, were new to the neighborhood, and she wanted to ensure that her son got off on the right foot. For the next ten years we attended the same schools, Shorewood Elementary and Cascade Junior High, and were in many of the same classes. By mid first grade we had become pretty good friends, to the point that on one occasion he invited me to a sleep-over at his house, which I took him up on. I don’t remember much about what we did to entertain ourselves that night, but I clearly recall waking up in the morning to a delicious pancake breakfast made for us by Jay’s mom. I ate nine pancakes that morning, and for years afterward it was a standing joke between us that I owed Jay nine pancakes—a debt I have yet to repay.

       “Shorewood,” by the way, is a south Seattle middle class neighborhood, located between White Center on the north and Burien on the south, but west of both, and closer to Puget Sound. Of course, there were more kids than Jay and I in that kindergarten class. Two of them, Greg Brooks and Barry Marshall, would go on to become good friends to us both as we moved through our grade school years. As time went on Greg and Jay, who lived close to each other, would become especially good friends; most likely each other’s best friend—at least that’s how it seemed to me. The four of us were passionate about sports; baseball, basketball and football, and that formed the reality at the core of our friendships. By 4th or 5th grade another kid named Mike Jury had joined us, and the five of us excelled at all the Shorewood intramural sports and became starters on the school varsity sports teams as well.

       We, and our teams, were good. In our 6th grade year of 1962-63 the football team I captained won the school intramural championship, and the school’s intramural basketball championship was won by Greg’s team. Our varsity football and basketball teams were easily the best in the elementary school league we played in, and the Little League baseball team Jay and I starred on took the championship of our division. It was a proud moment for me when I was named  that team’s MVP by our coaches. In short we had a blast, and I’ve never had as much fun playing sports as I did with my friends during that 6th grade year. Together we were the “Boys of Shorewood,” but even amongst us Jay Inslee stood out. There was just something exceptional about him.

       Following 6th grade we all moved on to our middle school years at Cascade Junior High, located about a mile or so due east of Shorewood Elementary. Going to Junior High was an adjustment for me, but Jay seemed to handle it just fine, becoming more popular than ever. Sports remained our focus and we played on Cascade’s football and basketball teams during our 8th and 9th grade years. By then it was becoming obvious that, of all of us, Jay was the superior athlete (though I will swear to this day that I was a better baseball player) He became the starting quarterback on the Cascade football team for our 9th grade season; but the sport he excelled in, which put his athleticism on full display, was basketball. By 9th grade Jay had become one of the tallest kids in school, and he could leap out of the gym. He was also smart, with a great basketball IQ—the best player on our team by far. I really think he could have played at the major college level if he wanted to. He had that kind of talent.

       After that 9th grade year (1966) Jay and his family moved away from the old Shorewood neighborhood. He would go on to become the star quarterback during his senior season (1968) at Seattle’s Ingram High School, leading his football team to the city’s Metro League Championship game, which Ingram lost. He also starred on Ingram’s basketball team that senior year; a team that went undefeated and took the state Championship. After he moved I didn’t see him again until our college years at the University of Washington, where we played on the same intramural basketball team as sophomores (1971). Since that sophomore basketball season our lives have taken different directions, mine initially becoming more steeped in the hippy counterculture and new left politics of the time, while his went toward the more traditional middle class, normal and profitable goal of becoming an attorney; which he accomplished when he graduated from the Willamette University College of Law in the mid 1970s.

       Looking back at it all now it seems obvious that Jay was destined for success from the start. He was intelligent, good looking, personable, popular and a superb athlete; for sure the best of the old Shorewood boys. He was a leader, always got good grades in school and never got into serious trouble during the time I knew him. He was the kind of guy who seemed to be good at everything, even art.  I well recall a project he did for 7th grade art class. We were all given the assignment to make a sculpture from toothpicks. Most of us came up with rather ordinary and forgettable designs and motifs for our projects, but not Jay. His sculpture, made entirely of toothpicks glued together, consisted of the slender splinters of wood placed at odd angles to each other and connected in such a way that they created three or four separate long extensions emanating in random directions from a common source. The impression conveyed by the structure was of a person confused, going first one way and then another, while never completing or fulfilling anything—the exact opposite of the impression made by the artist himself, who always seemed so self-possessed and certain. Jay called his creation “Frustration,” which I thought was a brilliant title for such a work, and I have never forgotten it. It was by far the best toothpick sculpture in the class.

       You could think that since I knew and was friends with Jay during his formative years, I might have some understanding of how he arrived at his extremely liberal and big government political views. The truth is I can only speculate. Many of our baby-boomer generation who went through the late 60s and early 70s had our basic notions of country, politics and morality seriously challenged by experiences we had in college and the “anything goes” counter-culture milieu of the times. As an example, when I was at UW in those days I had a couple of professors (Economics and Philosophy) who were outright socialists and revolutionaries and who actively promoted these views to their students. One of them, a man named Michael Lerner, ended up co-founding a local left-wing radical movement called the Seattle Liberation Front. The last I heard of Lerner he, along with six of his cohorts, was arrested and charged with conspiracy to incite a riot during one of the many anti-Vietnam War protests that took place in those days. (At the time then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover even considered Lerner—my Philosophy 101 professor—to be one of the most dangerous radicals in the country; the irony of which was that in reality that title applied to Hoover himself) For a while, until I managed to sort things out, these influences colored my thinking greatly, so perhaps the same was true for Jay. I suppose it’s also possible, though I doubt it, that somewhere along the line in his political career he sold his soul to gain an advantage of some kind, like that corrupt Senator in Frank Capra’s classic film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

None of these things can I speak to with any certainty, however. What I do know is that today Jay has become the kind of politician my conservative father, who passed away 10 years ago, would’ve made fun of at the dinner table. (My Dad’s political pulpit was always the dinner table, particularly during the Cold War years of the ‘60s.)  He would have come up with some clever yet degrading play on Jay’s last name; like he did with former Arkansas Senator William Fullbright, dubbing him Senator “Half-bright.” 

       As for me, while I don’t agree with much of what Jay stands for politically, I don’t doubt that he feels he is doing the best he can and what he thinks is right. I am not saying this as a reason that you should vote for him—personally I think there are plenty of reasons you shouldn’t. You should do your own due diligence. What I am saying, however, is that from all I know, based on my experience with him during our Boys of Shorewood days, Jay is an honest and good guy. As we all know, for a politician, you can do a lot worse.

      Plus, Jay Inslee is a helluva basketball player! To the old Boys of Shorewood that meant everything–and still does.

Copyright © 2019

By Mark Arnold

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