By LARRY LANGE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Located far from a major highway, traffic in town is light and many people walk the narrow roads for recreation or to visit.

A frequent destination is the community beach, located below a bluff where Indianola Road ends its four-mile sweep around Miller Bay to the old dock, a town focal point.

Low tides still go out most of the length of the dock, used until the early 1950s by ferries that called there. Locals walk the rocky stretch with their families, and some keep boats stashed beneath the dock for a quick launch when the water is high enough.

"If the tide's up we like to jump off the dock" into the bay, says Rod Weiss, 22. At dusk, other locals say, the phosphorous in the water gives swimming bodies an eerie hue, and a thrown rock can glow like a laser beam.

"Indianola Beach has always been a place to be if you're anywhere around Indianola," Weiss said. The Beach Improvement Club also maintains four other waterfront access points, on easements granted by private landowners and linked to the sand by stairs.

With all this walking around, neighbors get to see and know one another. They chat in the street about who won the "Garden of the Month" award or tip each other to the mischief of local kids and pets.

Another communication outlet, the town newsletter called the "Indianola Breeze," is published 10 times a year. Those wanting their news more frequently head to the Indianola Country Store, just up the bluff from the community beach, where steady streams of tidbits and gossip converge.

Sitting at a table, sipping a drink or eating a sandwich, the casual observer sees many people walk in, sharing whatever's on their mind.

"You get to know if their car's broken or if their parents aren't that well, or they just got back from vacation," said Rob Trueb, the store's owner for eight years. Trueb, 42, managed a market on Seattle's Beacon Hill before he, wife Tia and their sons moved to Indianola.

"This is much more diverse," he says of his Country Store clientele. "You get everything from the Microsoft millionaires with weekend places to people who haven't worked in years and just eke by. It's a very interesting view of the world out these windows."