GROWING UP AMONG TOUGH PEOPLE HELPS

The best thing about tough people is how nice they can be.

Lucky for me, I grew up near a tough town, Coos Bay.

One of my North Bend classmates said he started telling people he was from Coos Bay because he got more respect.

People know Coos Bay for its toughness, North Bend not so much.

But we tried.

Stepping foot within Coos Bay city limits used to bother me.

The city line was at the end of the road I lived on. I never checked.

As I turned into an adult with adult responsibilities, I changed my attitude.

No big pirate is going to swoop down and haul me off, which is what it felt like after getting trucked season after season of high school sports.

No one is going to be held prisoner inside Marshfield, even if it looks like a jail.

The teams that pounded our teams weren’t full of dangerous criminals, just high school kids with an edge.

Coos Bay was the leading community on the southwestern coast.

I think it’s the name association with the body of water the town is named after?

Or maybe it’s Steve Prefontaine?

Naw, they were just tough people, guys who shaved in the seventh grade.

 

Lack Of Recognition

The offshoot of growing up next to a rival town is knowing one before you move there.

Where I’ve lived the past thirty years has been a motherlode of rivalry towns.

At the top is Lake Oswego, a beautiful city with water features all over including lakes, rivers, and streams, along with the rain that falls equally on everyone.

Next is West Linn, an equally lovely town, followed by Tualatin, Beaverton, and Tigard.

By growing up among tough people in North Bend who had thumped, and been thumped on, by Marshfield Pirates enough to know they weren’t all that superior, it was easy demonizing other communities.

And fun.

Everyone in Lake Oswego was born on a golf course on Country Club Way and raised in the clubhouse with a popped collar shirts.

It was fun until they beat my kid’s team and started winning state high school football championships, which is no soft feat.

When he was small I took my kid to LO for swim lessons in the local pool.

It wasn’t named after Don Schollander who had won four gold medals in the 1964 Olympics.

What’s a guy got to do to sponsor a pool?

I’m no hype-man, most of the time, but you’ve got to give Lake Oswego it’s due.

Where else in the state compares to Lake Como, Italy.

Beautiful properties with lake front boat houses? World class.

I haven’t been everywhere, but I’ve seen pictures and from what they feel like, walking out the back door and down the ramp, onto the dock and hopping into a boat for a quick spin, is living the dream.

It’s a dream of a maintenance crew, of housecleaning staff, roof guy, window guy, yard guy, boat guy, and the rest of the guys needed to go broke sooner than later.

That’s my lottery hot-dream, keeping everything operable without me screwing around and breaking things.

Where’s the fun?

 

Stay Tough For Others

This is Roy Pittman, Hall of Fame wrestling coach.

I met him recently after decades of hearing about his program’s success.

After thanking him, I told him my kids would have been better if they’d joined in.

I knew it, he knew, they know it.

He’s been tough for eighty years, knowing that he’s a role model for hundreds of thousands of kids, and their kids, and grandkids.

I wanted him to know he was a role model for guys like me too, wrestling dads, wrestling moms, anyone who’s seen a match and thought, “That’s what I should have done.”

If you see someone striving to achieve, let them know they are on the right track.

You might make their day just for noticing.

 

PS: If you’re out to metal show and the band doesn’t draw a huge crowd, let them know you’re glad they’re there if you get the chance. (Hey Tyler, hey Rusty)

PSS: If you read an obscure blog that resonates with you, let the writer know. Throw them a bone. I’ll wait quietly. Lol