Volunteers make tradition out of luminarias
Friday, December 16, 2005
By ATHIMA CHANSANCHAI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Even with a full moon, it was pitch black outside.
But Brogan Thomsen is hard to miss.
Nicolas Ringgold, 5, helps Brogan Thomsen light luminarias at the South Ferdinand Street boat ramp on Lake Washington as the Christmas ships pass in the background.About this time every year, you'll hear him before you see him.
He's the guy yelling, "Woo-hoo! Luminaria! Lighting at 6!" at the top of his lungs.
Wearing a worn fireman's jacket and a Santa hat Thursday night, he whirled up and down Lake Washington Boulevard South in a beat-up blue van, its doors hanging open. Volunteers ran alongside it and grabbed thousands of white paper sacks filled with sand and votive candles, setting them along the path bordering the lake. They were in a hurry, beating the cold by rushing to beat the Christmas ships before they passed this part of Seward Park.
Soon, the sky was lit not only by the moon, but also by nearly 2,000 flames flickering inside the sacks.
So went another year of a homegrown Seattle tradition, luminarias at Seward Park, an annual gift from a guy who liked how the path lit up the way to the Christmas ships.
"I thought the city did it! I've seen it every year and I thought, what a good city to live in! Now, I think, what a great city to live in with people like this," said Sandra Kurjiaka, a Capitol Hill resident who had come down to see the Christmas ships with friends of Thomsen's and gotten drafted to help out. "I had no idea it was regular people and an individual loving the world!"
Thomsen, 55, a local general contractor and volunteer with the deaf/blind community, started the tradition in 1991 after being inspired by the luminarias at Green Lake. But he thought it was getting a little too crowded there, so he checked out other venues where he could provide an extra add-on of the holiday spirit.
At first, the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department balked at helping him. He couldn't pull it together in five days, they said. Thomsen said he could.
Thomsen, who said he's tenacious when it comes to cutting through bureaucratic red tape, got through and put out 600 bags -- almost a mile long.
The parks department now helps clean up and provides sand, but Thomsen hopes the event will be more official in the future.
It's a ragtag operation that's cost Thomsen about $4,000 over the years on votive candles, No. 8 paper sacks, cigarette lighters and the sand that keeps the luminaria from floating away on the wind. Sometimes the lighters don't work and they improvise, using blowtorches or larger, long-handled lighters. Volunteers keep warm by sneaking a snack of boiled potatoes dipped in curry mayo or hot apple cider Thomsen keeps on a camp burner nearby.
This year, Thomsen and volunteers -- some he'd met through Thumbs Up! years ago when they painted over graffiti -- laid out nearly 2,000 of the bags along the path from the South Ferdinand Street boat ramp to 50th Avenue South. About a dozen volunteers showed up, including newcomers Alex Blanton and his wife, Jenna White. They saw Thomsen's flier at the Seward Park PCC Market and linked it to the lights that had enchanted them the year before. This time, they wanted to help.
Blanton dropped off the bags while White set them up in a process relatively unchanged over the years: unfold, load with a can's worth of sand, insert candle.
As she's done in previous years, Gretchen Thomsen, 79 -- Brogan's mom -- held down the fort, loading bags into one of several vehicles and guiding volunteers who streamed through.
Marcia High met the younger Thomsen working on a job at Kubota Garden and got hooked after helping out last year.
"I had so much fun last year, I couldn't wait to do it again this year," she said.
