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GARDEN PARTY REMINISCING

Remember your first garden party when you invited people over to the house to see what you planted, what you’ve grown?
It’s a touching moment to behold after years of planning.
You build a raised bed like the picture here, and buy plants you just know will grow.
And they did.

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“CALLS OUT” PUT ‘ON THE SPOT’

What does “calls out” mean other than another way of saying “Hey You?”
““Why Do You Have To Leave Practice?”: Michael Irvin Calls Out Justin Herber.””
If you’re ‘calling someone out’ it’s most likely about something that’s none of your business.
Calls Out = Nosey Nellie? For example:

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NATURE SIGNS TO WATCH FOR

When you make a plan to see nature up close, expect nature signs.
Follow the message of the signs for best results.
Do that and you’ll return home with sweet memories and solid experiences with exciting pictures to share.
If it’s your first time out in the wild, pay extra attention.
You can thank me later. Or now. This nature sign was in the cabin:

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OFF GRID, NO PHONE SERVICE, BUT . . .

I’ve had mixed results with off grid peace and quiet.
Once I stayed in a place the had no telephones in the rooms for just that purpose, peace and quiet.
Sounded very thoughtful until a road grader started grinding across the parking lot pavement the next morning.
It couldn’t have been any closer if it had come through the front door.
My wife and I both chuckle when we talk about our honeymoon. One of us does.
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TIME TRAVEL INSIDE A LUMBER BARN

It’s just a barn, a lumber barn in the middle of nowhere, but so much more.
It’s an historical record, an archive of sawdust, splinters, slivers, and work. Hard work.
The main attraction is a train engine used to move big logs out of the woods, along with other man-killing machinery.
For me the big deal was the barn itself.
What a barn:

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toughen up

Time And The Baby Boomer Naturopath

Diet And Exercise In The Medicine Cabinet. When eating right and working out hits the news as good medicine you know something happened. Writer Alexandra Sifferlin begins her healthland.time.com article, Just Say No: When It Makes Sense Not to Take Your Medicine, with these words: “It sounds like something a quack would support, but it’s true.”

BOOMER HEALTH RISK: UNINTENTIONAL FALL

Ask Amy gives her take on baby boomers’ unintentional fall. Her numbers are big on the unintentional fall. Ask Amy doesn’t want us to take a dive. 25,000 deaths, over two million emergency room visits, all due to an unintentional fall. The Center for Disease Control even has a page, as if an unintentional fall […]

CANCER ROOM: BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES

The biggest motivation for writing a cancer room memoir like ‘LICKING CANCER, The Full Response’ is paying tribute to the people I met in there.   From staff to patients, it’s a team focused on the same goal, until it goes off the tracks, and it does in one way or the other for everyone. […]

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boomer years

GENTRIFY PORTLAND RENT

What else goes up with gentrify Portland rent? Your blood pressure. Once upon a time the chase for the lowest rent led to some pretty sketchy dwellings. It was a contest to find the worst place for the lowest rent. A young single man seeking low rent in college is one thing. A single man […]

OHS Shows ‘What They Did’

On a wicked cold December night a man lectured from the stage of the First Congregational Church in downtown Portland. James Swanson spoke to a full house, breaking down the Kennedy assassination moment by moment from his book ‘END OF DAYS, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.’ Swanson followed the characters and events from fifty […]

THE BEST BOB HOPE CHRISTMAS SHOW

When servicemen spent time away from loved ones, a Bob Hope Christmas Show helped. Christmas 1974, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. Part of joining the ranks of the new all-volunteer Army meant meeting a new bunch of guys. They weren’t sports guys, or college guys. They weren’t career guys, or upwardly mobile guys. Instead […]

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buckle up

Lighten Up While You Still Can

    When The Eagles sing Take It Easy, the line that stands out for me is, ‘Lighten up while you still can.’ It’s the same when Jackson Browne and James Taylor sing it.   Baby boomers know how hard it is to lighten up better than anyone. Lighting up too, but that’s another post. […]

MODERN OREGON FOR EVERYONE

Move Here And You Won’t Miss Where You Came From. Oregon For Everyone. Oregon is more than Portland, much more, so much more that people who’ve lived here all their lives haven’t seen it all. There’s that much going on, too much really. Visitors have no chance of experiencing the Oregon-ness of Oregon, but they’ll […]

Hitchhiking Idaho With Stewart Abbe

    Forty five years is a long time. Just ask forty five year old men or women who are just getting used to what ‘middle aged’ means.   Right around forty five people either start feeling old, or fighting old. Both are a path to futility and failure, but that’s what feelings and fighting […]

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