Wild Splendor

Check'r-mate :: Rusty's Electric Dreams :: Issue #381

Jun 09, 2026

I’ll get to this. Photo by Ben Klevayland.

But, first...

Marcia is the kind of person when she invites you somewhere, you find a way to go. Basically, her whole life is an artistic statement. She has told me that her favorite people are the ones who fall in line with the excellent plans she has for them. I aim to please, so I do my best to comply.

After some “can’t yets” and “soons” from me to go visit her “dollhouse,” a second property a couple of hours from her Seattle home, Marcia didn’t give up. Eventually the stars aligned and I had a small window to fly up for two nights.

She said she would pick me up at SeaTac in the “big vehicle,” and I thought she meant her SUV.

Nope.

This is the fine steed that awaited me outside of baggage claim—her 1967 Checker Marathon.

Now what's funny is this same gloriously impractical beast is how Marcia and I became friends. Back in 2018, when I asked you all to send me names of positive deviants doing cool things, Marcia raised her own hand. As her alter-ego Miss Direction, she was running a Kickstarter to restore this very Checker so she could offer free rides to strangers around Seattle in exchange for their stories. I even wrote about it on Boing Boing. And now here I was, years later, tossing my bag into the (incredibly spacious) back seat of that same car at SeaTac.

I think it’s important for you to see how far this car has come. This was the state of the Checker back in 2018 when she held the crowdfunding campaign to restore it.

I mean…!! (Photo via Miss Direction’s Kickstarter).

17th of May

Now the Checker is decked out. Its paint job is dichroic (a new word I learned from Marcia, whose favorite color is blurple, that means it shifts colors depending on how the light hits it). The upholstery is slick. The dash was revamped too and sports a modern, though vintage-looking, stereo. No expense spared on this beauty.

We left SeaTac and headed to her place to drop off my stuff and pick up her vintage picnic basket full of fresh banh mis, a bunch of weird-looking, meat-floss topped Vietnamese savory rice snacks from the same shop, and a package of Chuckles candy. From there, we headed out for the Norwegian independence day parade in Ballard (a neighborhood she lovingly calls “Puerto Ballardo”).

Not to watch the parade. No, no. To be IN IT. I WAS IN A PARADE, YOU GUYS.

In that souped-up Checker:

Look at that marvelous dichroism! Photo by Marcia Wiley.

I could have died perfectly happy right then.

But, wait, there’s more

I’m skipping over a bunch of happy-fun-times right now. I was here for the parade but really I was here to experience the “dollhouse.” She has put in a ton of work into beautifying it. The property is naturally stunning — lush green, giant ferns, big towering trees, a field of daisies, up high on a hill with views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens if you time it right — but somehow she made it even more so. (Artists, amirite?)

You may already know that Washington state is full of little islands and this property is on one of those. So, beach access is part of the dollhouse’s deal. The day after the parade, we hustled there to catch an exceptionally low tide. We chowed down day-old banh mis, hiked down through a steep jungle of trees and ferns to the beach, and went beachcombing.

And that’s when, my friends, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. I clocked it as something unusual right away and before completely understanding what I was looking at, I called Marcia over.

“Come here, come here. You are going to FLIP OUT.”

In those few short seconds between seeing it and calling Marcia over, my brain parsed it out. It was those chompers that gave it away.

They're practically begging for tooth gems. Photos by Rusty Blazenhoff.

I was looking at a motherscratching BEAVER SKULL. Absolutely covered in barnacles. Are you KIDDING me?

After marveling at it for some time, we set it aside on a big driftwood log up safe where the sand meets the forest. We’d come back for “Bucky” after our long walk on the beach.

But, what’s all this about “Wild Splendor,” Rusty?

Marcia just happened to have the perfect rotating stand for the skull. And the very moment it was placed on it, “Bucky” became “Wild Splendor” and history was made.

The story doesn’t end there. On my flight home the next day, I saw that She Chimp, that sign-painting primate I adore, was selling custom signs for $50 each (a steal!). Before we took off, I’d ordered a “Wild Splendor” one for Marcia, and a “Professional Free Spirit” one for myself.

—Rusty Blazenhoff

P.S. Look at how deep those teeth go into their skull!