The Mayor of Upper Preston

There is no official mayor of Upper Preston, but for a while there was an unofficial one. 

Down at the end of Upper Preston Road, after you go across the wooden bridge spanning the river, a large Douglas Fir fell on a woman's property, blocking the road. It was really large. The neighbors got together and cleared the road, but there were tree rounds left that were so tremendously big that no one knew what to do with them. 

Another neighbor is a "black powder" hunter, meaning that he hunts with a muzzleloading rifle. He had an ingenious idea to split the large tree rounds: He packed a charge of black powder in aluminum foil, drilled a hole in the middle of the tree round, and inserted the charge with a long fuse. 

Boom! The black powder charge worked beautifully, splitting the rounds so that they were more manageable. News of this feat spread, and over the next few days residents at the end of Upper Preston Road would hear an explosion and know the work was progressing well. The man who related this story to me said that for a time, he was so popular for his charity and wisdom that it was as though he was "the mayor of Upper Preston."

The woman was so grateful that she provided beer to keep the volunteers happy during their labors. Our hunting neighbor said this might have been a mistake because later that winter, the woman called him. "My wood stove exploded!" Thankfully, no one was hurt. Apparently, some black powder had been left unexploded in some of the wood and the woman inadvertently put this into her wood stove to burn. I think the moral of the story is that explosives and alcohol don't mix.