Thirty-five years ago my wife and I had to make a life-altering decision as to where in this country we would like to settle and raise our kids after 20 years in the U.S. Navy. My roots were in Holland, my wife was from west Kansas and neither one of us wanted to go back to those places. My wife looked at an atlas and decided she wanted to go to the Everett area in Washington state; I asked why there and she replied, look how nice and green it is. (The Amazon rain forest appears green on a map also).
Anyway, we made our move (never having been in this state before) and wound up living in Arlington Heights. Through the years we have raised our kids, put them through good schools, a couple of grand kids are also going through the same schools, we have made great friends, have had great neighbors and have often mentioned to each other how lucky we were to wind up in such a great community. Seeing the response from all of the Arlington/Oso/Darrington area after the disaster was fantastic to say the least. It took this disaster to confirm our thoughts about our fortunate decision. Our condolences to the families who lost loved ones and our thoughts go out to those who were affected negatively by the disaster and to those people still working hard at the scene.
Dutch and Carol Hartman
Arlington
