Frank Edward Anderson

The world will be a smaller place without Frank Anderson for sure. Everything he touched had his own unique twist of creative whimsy and design. From wooden sculptures, photography, his writings, designing electrical grids for the city of Seattle, driving police cars from the maintenance sheds down to Ivar’s to get dinner for the cops, his many years of working as a volunteer fire fighter here on Bainbridge Island…I mean, honestly the list of things he managed to accomplish is long.
Frank and my mom, Barbara, spent over fifty-three years together, entwining their shared lives with lots of laughs and close friends.
As a dad, Frank was a sly opponent in cribbage and unfailing in his support of anything I put my mind to. He will be so very missed.
Frank always said the closest he ever felt to whatever it is that might be greater than ourselves was to be found in being outside. To him, standing in a grove of evergreens surrounded by the resin scent of crushed pine needles felt like the right place to get closer to the essential mysteries of life. His greatest joy was being out in the woods with a chainsaw and a chipper. He loved shaping the environment around him to match the vision inside his head.
He was a man who loved to tell weird jokes, created beautiful things, and cared for his friends and family in his own inimitable way. He didn’t plan to slip out of the world quietly. Know that if things hadn’t progressed so suddenly, he would have reached out to let you know how much he admired and cared for you.
I want to end with a piece of his poetry. This is titled Duckabush Valley
How many words
must I use
to let you participate in what I feel?
I fear that words alone will surely fail.
I’d rather show than tell you.
Join me in a place free of artificial light and sound just west of Highway 101
at streamside
by the Duckabush!
Can you feel soggy wet moss soaking the knees of old faded jeans? The soft fuzzy mushroom caps, the painful cold of rushing glacial melt?
You’ll not put these little gems to words once sensed for real:
Half tasted scents and berries spat from bitterness,
Spiky Devil’s Club
Twittering Pine Siskins
Trade away your carpet walls
And rules
And paper forms
For trees, and leather boots, old denim pants, and a shaggy loose-fitting coat. Bring yourself, your eyes your ears, your soul, here.
To be alive and real,
to share the love of places past the ends of paved roads.