It makes me wonder: Where does a sense of humor come from, anyway? Is it genetic? I can’t say that my parents were laugh-out-loud funny, but the legacy that they left indicates a predilection to the comic. My father was often transferred and promoted, so we sometimes moved to a new city before we even had a chance to memorize our latest address and phone number. My sisters and I were forced to create a self-sustaining, insular social model so that when we moved to the next strange place, at least we had each other. Maybe that kind of familiarity breeds either contempt or a sense of humor to combat it.

The first time I realized that I was considered amusing was when I was in the seventh grade. Our assignment was to give a five-minute speech on any subject. I wrote about the space between my teeth (no longer existent) and how it made it easier to spit out watermelon seeds, and I included a poem about my two little sisters being irritating and loveable at the same time.

It was not that big a deal to me, just another homework assignment. When I presented it, the waves of laughter shocked me. More shocking was the fact that the nuns made me do it again and again in front of every class in the school. It was my first tour, and what I loved the most was getting out of seventh grade assignments to allow for it.

All of these musings regarding the origin of humor came to mind when my sister Susie Detmer was chosen for a Seattle version of “Dancing With the Stars.” It’s a benefit to combat homelessness put on by the Plymouth Housing Group. Each amateur dancer’s interview was posted on their website, and I’ll guarantee you that my sister’s answer to this question didn’t look like anyone else’s:

Why are you dancing for Plymouth Housing Group? I should say I am dancing because Plymouth Housing Group is a terrific cause. While that is the case, truth be told I would dance for Bernie Madoff’s defense fund if it meant I could learn to dance with a pro.

You can reach Pat Detmer — who really is Laughing All The Way — at patdetmer@aol.com.

The application period is now open for sponsors and for vendors to host booths during Newcastle’s annual Earth Day celebration.

File Glenn Wallace, Gary Hansen and Mark Yormark (from left), all of Renton, hear from Larry Ostrom about a 1986 Pontiac Fiero altered to be 100 percent electric during the 2011 Newcastle Earth Day.

The earlier businesses and nonprofit organizations get their applications in, the more exposure they’ll receive on the Earth Day website and other promotional materials, she said.

The event is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 21 at Lake Boren Park. It features informational mini seminars, a master gardener clinic, the opportunity to recycle appliances and cellphones, the Pacific Science Center’s Science in the Environment interactive display and geocaching. Food vendors and music by the Hazen High School Band and the Boeing Employees’ Concert Band will also be available.

The event is held in conjunction with the city of Newcastle and the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce.

Download a sponsor or vendor application by going to www.newcastleweedwarriors.org and click on the “Earth Day 2012” link in the center of the page.

Learn more by emailing gracestiller@comcast.net or calling 228-7927.

One car sported an elaborate R2-D2 paint job.

Others boasted more intricate carving techniques, taking the shapes of a banana and a skateboard.

But 9-year-old Will Slaton’s gray Pinewood Derby car maintained a more modest approach.

By Christina Lords Pinewood Derby champion Will Slaton (left), second runner-up Dillon Gyotoku (center) and third-place finisher Nicholas Disney receive trophies for the fastest car entries in Newcastle Cub Scout Pack 738’s annual Pinewood Derby on Jan 13.

Sure, special precautions were taken to make sure the wheels and axles had been sanded down to offer the least resistance on the track.

A small amount of graphite had been added to the back end to give the rear some weight, while the sides of the car had been whittled down to create a more aerodynamic end product.

But what Slaton’s car lacked in pizzazz, it made up for in speed. It was crowned champion of Newcastle Cub Scout Pack 738’s 2012 Pinewood Derby held Jan.13 at Newcastle Elementary School.

As champion, he’ll go on to face more formidable foes at the district level, he said, though he isn’t changing a thing.

“I worked on it for about a week, about an hour at a time,” Slaton said. “I thought I was going to do good. I thought coming in I was going to win. I might put more graphite powder on the wheels to make sure it still goes fast, but I’m not going to change it too much.”

As a four-year participant in the derby, it was Slaton’s first win.

Dillon Gyotoku claimed second place at the event and Nicholas Disney came in third.

Slaton said the event, where each Cub Scout designs, carves, paints, weighs and races a car with the help of a parent or other adult, is one of the most popular Cub Scouting events of the year.

The first Pinewood Derby was held in 1953 by Cub Scout Pack 280C, of Manhattan Beach, Calif. Since then, more than 90 million Pinewood Derby model car kits have been sold across the country, and more than 1 million boys and parents team up each year to participate in the annual contest.

“It’s really a parent-child geared event,” event chairman James Likes said. “There are books you can buy. There are YouTube videos you can watch. It gets pretty serious.”

Winning cars are determined by the average time of four races for each contestant. Each car goes down each of the four lanes on the track one time to ensure one lane isn’t faster than another, Likes said.

Each car entered into the race must be 5 ounces or less and must pass an official committee inspection prior to the event.

Times are recorded and posted in real time via a projector — with cars clocking in at times equivalent to 200 mph if they were the size of a real automobile.

While each contestant starts out with the same derby kit with the same block of wood, wheels and axles, the variations Scouts come up with offer surprises every year, Likes said.

Special recognition was given to standout cars in five categories at the Newcastle derby: Best Scout Theme, Most Patriotic, Most Futuristic, Most Unique and Funniest Car.

“This really gives these kids a good sense of how to start a project,” Likes said. “It teaches them how to use tools and safely sand and paint something that they’ll remember for a long time.”

But to Jeff Gaidjiergis, it’s an event he refuses to forget.

The local business owner and May Valley resident, along with four other members of Renton’s New Life Church, will make his third trip in two years to help residents in the Port-au-Prince area rebuild.

“There are very few buildings that have been constructed since the earthquake,” he said. “There are still a lot of tent cities that are down there. There are still people living in these tents and looking for food every day. Part of the problem is that yes, this happened, but it never was a very prosperous area to begin with.”

Contributed Jeff Gaidjiergis (center), a Newcastle business owner and New Life Church member, meets local children as he helps rebuild a church near Port-au-Prince during a recent mission trip with the New Life Church.

Gaidjiergis will spend 10 days beginning Feb. 3 to help rebuild a church and school that had been destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake. He uses a portion of the profits of his Mr. Scrappy Recycling company to volunteer in Haiti, and also makes a mission trip to Mexico with his wife and children every year.

The work is one leg of a series of trips to work on the project, which includes building a new church building and two additional structures to provide a safe, covered place for residents to gather.

The church sends a group of between five and 15 people to volunteer on the same project several times a year, he said. Anyone interested can volunteer for a trip.

“It’s a huge improvement to how they’re living now,” he said. “The church there now has a dirt floor. This is going to have a concrete floor and actual ventilation in the building to help move air around. This will mean better living conditions and a better space for the kids to go to school.”

While the church takes offerings for the mission work, most individuals who go on the trips do so on their own time and their own dime, Gaidjiergis said.

The church aims to continue the work with upcoming trips slated for April and October, said Deanna Adler, assistant to senior and executive pastors at the church.

Adler, who volunteered for the church’s November mission trip, said few buildings or homes in the area remain intact and the church will provide a place for school, church and community activities.

“This neighborhood in particular is one of the poorest areas in Haiti, and they just don’t have money to rebuild,” she said. “The area is still in a state of complete destruction … they still have debris all over the place because there is no way for them to get it out.”

Adler said the church began to provide volunteers and aid for the project following the earthquake when Bill Smith, a missionary who has lived in Haiti for 21 years, put out a call for help after the disaster.

“The need is there — big time,” he said. “Even the strongest, biggest people we’ve gone down there with … we’ve shed some tears. It’s heart touching.”

Learn more about the project by calling Adler, Pastor Ricardo Quintana or missions director Bert Fields at 226-0880.

I am a creature of the sun, so I am mightily affected by the lack of it. I’m not a sun-tanner or worshiper, but I do naturally rise in the morning at the earliest hint of light, and I find the need to climb into bed as the sun fades, which means that in December I’m in bed around 3:55 p.m.

To help me through these dark times, I bought a 10,000 Lux S.A.D light. “S.A.D.” stands for “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” which means that if you don’t get enough brightness in your day, you may do things like snap at your better half even if his nickname is “The Sainted One.” I bought this box years ago, pre-digital age, and it’s the size of a suitcase. I saw a new one recently on a friend’s desk, and it was the size of a ham sandwich and looked like it was designed by Apple™.

Based on the size of my light alone, I should be ecstatic.

I prop it up in front of me while I read the paper in the morning. Newsprint is pretty much transparent in front of a 10,000 Lux light, so I can read both the front and back of the page at the same time. When The Sainted One comes downstairs for breakfast, he staggers backwards, throws up his arms to shield his eyes and wonders aloud if any planes have been cleared for landing.

In spite of my light box, I still find myself S.A.D. now and again. I’ve decided that this is due to the fact that there’s an especially virulent strain in the Northwest, one so powerful that you could rig a boson’s chair and hang in front of the lights at CenturyLink Field for 24 hours and it still wouldn’t cheer you up. I help myself survive this malady by celebrating the Winter Solstice, planning some trips to Palm Springs and making sacrifices to the sun gods.

I’m in the market for a fatted calf. Anybody?

Maybe craigslist.

You can reach Pat Detmer — who may snap at you but never bites — at www.patdetmer.com

The Parks Commission will consider entries and ultimately recommend a name for the park on the west side of Newcastle at Southeast 80th Street and 113th Avenue Southeast to the City Council.

Entries are due to the commission by 5 p.m. Jan. 31.

The site is about .15 acres or 100 feet by 60 feet; has small native plantings and pine trees; and includes picnic tables, benches and a gravel pathway.

The naming of park spaces should be based on the site’s relationship to certain criteria, including natural or geographic features, historical ties or features, individuals (living or deceased) who have made significant contributions to the park system, individuals who have contributed civic service to the city or neighborhood or common usage identification qualities.

Call Parks Program Manager Michael Holly at 649-4444, ext. 142, or email him at michaelh@ci.newcastle.wa.us for more information.

The changes affect whether a Sno-Park permit or a Discover Pass will be required to access state-managed winter recreation areas and Sno-Parks.

Visitors who have a current seasonal Sno-Park permit will not need to purchase a Discover Pass to visit a designated Sno-Park area between now and March 31 for winter recreation activities.

The seasonal Sno-Park permit is $40. A one-day Sno-Park permit is $20. Some nonmotorized Sno-Parks require a Special Groomed Trail sticker for an additional $40.

An annual Discover Pass costs $30 and a day-use pass is $10, and transaction fees apply when purchased from a retail provider.

Learn more about the changes by going to www.parks.wa.gov/winter/ nonmotorparks.

The group will go through neighborhoods several times until 2 p.m. for its annual fundraiser.

Homeowners may place their tree at the curb of their home for pickup. Donations for the Scouts are accepted by placing a Ziploc bag and envelope addressed to Troop 499 at 8042 116th Ave. S.E., Newcastle, WA 98056 on the tree. Donations can also be mailed to that address.

If the troop misses a tree, homeowners can call 206-579-7732 or 206-817-8323 for pickup.

It is not uncommon for trees to be picked up a week after the official date, and each year, the troop collects about 500 trees that get chipped and recycled.

Donations to the Troop Scholarship Fund can also be made at HomeStreet Bank anytime during the year.

Camping equipment donations for the growing troop are also needed.

In 1981, Vickie Baima Olson took a trip with her father to the tiny village of Piano Audi, Italy, where her great-grandparents were born.

The trip would change how she would come view her family, and herself, for years to come.

“We went to a cemetery where a lot of the headstones had the same last name as mine,” Olson said. “They put pictures on their graves there. There was a picture there of a woman, and I thought, ‘My gosh, she looks like she could be my twin.’”

Vickie Olson’s father’s side, the Baima family, emigrated to Newcastle to mine coal in the area as early as 1900. Photo contributed by Vickie Baima

That moment sparked an interest in Olson, a third-generation Newcastle resident, and her family since.

As a longtime humanities and social studies middle school teacher for the Issaquah School District, Olson said she’s always been interested in research and learning more about the past.

In 2000, Olson said she got serious when it came to uncovering her roots. She started learning more about her family through records, such as birth certificates, death certificates, marriage documents and others through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Center in Bellevue, online and through family testimonials.

She’s even started to learn the Italian language.

“It’s something that you just kind of get hooked on,” she said. “People will start looking for something and discover something, and it’s almost like things just start falling into place.”

Olson knows both sides of her lineage emigrated from Italy, but she said she still has questions about how — and why — they came to this country.

“As Italians, they were looked down upon,” she said. “They were discriminated against. The struggles of leaving everything familiar behind and then coming to a country where they’re completely unfamiliar … for them to be able to surmount all of the barriers and all of the things they had to go through, for me, was pretty inspirational.”

“My dad’s side of the family is fairly transparent,” she said. “Then, I started trying to find my mom’s ancestors and there still are so many mysteries. There are so many twists and turns. There were a lot more difficulties.”

Although Newcastle was only incorporated as a town in 1994, Olson’s family has been in the area for at least 110 years, showing up on the U.S. Census as early as 1900.

Olson’s father’s side of her family, the Baimas, worked as coal miners in the Newcastle area. The Baima House, an original coal company house that has been preserved and listed on the historical register, and one of the few historical structures still standing in Newcastle, bears her family name.

Olson’s mother’s side of the family, the DeLeos, farmed 180 acres of land that remains intact near the south side of the Cougar Mountain Wildland Park. The family received the acreage under the Federal Land Grant Act before Washington was established as a state.

Anyone interested in their family’s genealogy should start interviewing living relatives as soon as possible, she said.

“If people want to do this, they really are a gold mine of information,” she said. “I still think about things that I wish I could go back and ask my father since he passed away.”

A wealth of information can be found in guidebooks and online, as well as documents available through the Family History Center. The centers are a branch of facilities of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and can be used by anyone interested in looking for answers in the past.

“Who we are, really, and not just what we look like, but a lot of our values and our cultural characteristics, we owe to our ancestors,” Olson said.

I once called in sick and went to the Seattle Center, location of a national barbershop quartet conference, just in the hopes that some spontaneous singing might break out. My mother and two sisters and I could produce some pretty decent four-part harmony ourselves, and my step-daughter (brave child) has asked the Detmer sisters and Newcastle niece to sing “Going to the Chapel” at her wedding in April.

The above history explains why you might spot me striding along the sidewalk singing to my iPod, or abruptly striking a dramatic pose a la John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.” I’ll do that in store aisles as well if the piped-in music moves me. Sometimes I simply cannot help myself.

This brings me to a couple of weeks ago. I was walking to a hair appointment, happy to be able to hit the streets without wearing a rain slicker in November. It’s not a tough walk — a couple of miles, tops, from Olympus to the 44th Street exit — but it does go up and down some pretty substantial hills. I was lost in the effort and the moment, listening to my iPod, which is filled with singles that I love but was too cheap to buy in an album or a CD.

Linda Ronstadt was singing “When Will I Be Loved” as I hurried across the parking lot to the hair salon. As I was nearing the door, I knew that Linda’s plaintive final line: “Tell me wheeennn will Ahh be-e-e <pause> looovvved!” was coming up. Through the salon window I could see Malinda, my hairdresser, leaning against the front desk. The timing of my entrance was perfect, so I threw open the door, crossed the threshold and sang the above line at the top of my lungs.

I’m self-employed, and usually get my hair cut at nonpeak times like … oh …9:30 on Wednesday, or 2 on Tuesday afternoon, so I figured that belting out Linda Ronstadt with no preface was going to be heard by Malinda and a few others. But this was Saturday at 11 a.m. Imagine my surprise when I realized that not only was every station filled, but people were waiting as well.

Malinda gave me a new nickname: The One-Person Flash Mob.

I think I’ll keep it. It makes for a handy excuse.

You can reach Pat Detmer and see a picture of her singing at a Family Services fundraiser at patdetmer.com.