Communities can exist in almost any place – even in the alleys behind businesses where people smoke cigarettes. Smoking is, of course, very bad for you. And no smoker is deceiving themselves that they are engaging in a sort of healthy social behavior. If you smoke, you are required by law to smoke outside and at least 25 feet away from a door. The places where you are allowed to smoke have become de facto community spaces where you might run into colleagues or see someone new for the first time.

For many people, community ties come from keeping up to date with the goings-on of your neighbors — someone’s graduation, a new restaurant opening up, or a long-time resident passing away. These days we mostly turn to Facebook for that sort of information. However, for a certain generation of black Seattleites, a weekly newspaper called The Facts has been an important community news source. It’s a free paper, just a couple of pages, distributed around Seattle’s Central District. For over 50

There are some things you might only be able to notice if you happen to be an insider. If you have lived in Tacoma for any extended period of time, there is a pretty good chance that you feel a bit territorial about it. It is a city that gets told that it can't measure up to Seattle. It is often associated with a certain aroma, while residents know that the smell doesn't really exist anymore, or at least doesn't compare to how it did decades ago. And if you ask around, residents would probably

Eric Andeen first encountered the Klingon language like most people, while watching the film "Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock" as the crew of the Enterprise contended with the Klingons, a fictional alien race. However, when he spotted a Klingon dictionary in a bookstore a few months later, Andeen took it a step further. He decided to learn Klingon. Over 20 years later, Andeen is now one of just a handful of people fluent in the Klingon language. He attends yearly conferences with other Klingon

This week on Sound Effect, we explore the ties that bind. We hear stories of the unique and surprising things that connect people and communities from alien languages to cigarettes.

Erika Lee Bigelow was out for St. Patrick’s Day in Portland when she saw a card advertising a contest hosted by the beer company Guinness. You had to write a 50-word essay finishing the sentence ‘The perfect pint of Guinness ...” The grand prize was a pub in Ireland. That’s right, you could win your own pub. So she wrote her essay: “The perfect pint of Guinness is simple: dark, rich, cool. A shamrock imbedded atop a creamy white pool. Guinness glides gracefully into glass, time woes, worries

Maxine Linial is a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and one of the world's leading researchers on an obscure group of microorganisms called simian foamy viruses.She’s been at the Hutch for 40 years looking through microscopes in the lab and studying swirling cells in petri dishes. However, that changed very suddenly five years ago.While Linial was going for a run, a car ran her over. She was rushed to Harborview and spent months in the hospital, only to go blind. Sound

I have never considered myself a musician. My father paid for more weeks of piano lessons for me than I was willing to attend and my stretch as a bassist in a high school rock band lasted just long enough for me to learn the bass line to Pink Floyd’s "Money." But for some reason, after turning 33, I decided to take up the drums. I took one lesson from a friend and felt more enchanted by music than I have, well, ever. Coming from a musical family and having seemingly no musical talent I always

One way to get a different view and to exit your comfort zone is to trade the warm and dry home you live in for a camper van that will take you around the country to meet and help the homeless. You'll also bring your nine-year-old along for this adventure. This is what Jennifer Underwood of Seattle is doing with her daughter, Rory. They are on a national tour called, “Just Say Hello.” “Just Say Hello” is also the name of a campaign that started here in Seattle by the nonprofit, Facing

Imagine growing up in a state to total innocence and freedom. You're a child, and you have an infinity of woods and mountains to explore. You eat fresh blackberries your mother picks in the forest. All the dangers of the modern world are miles away. Everyone in town is like an uncle, a mother, a grandmother. They dress up as Santa Claus for Christmas and stage a big egg hunt every Easter. That's how people describe growing up in Grisdale, a remote logging camp nestled for decades deep in the