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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

AUTHORITARIAN PARENT? WHAT OTHER KIND IS THERE

    A scene from the movie Vision Quest shows Louden Swain’s buddy Kuch at home with his dad. Instead of a bonding moment of shared struggle, the dad slaps Kuch around, telling him he’ll never be nothing.   Nothing. Wrestling might make him feel like a big shot, but he’ll still be nothing.   […]

MICHAEL BECKER WALKS WITH PURPOSE

I like people who channel their problems constructively. They’re effective in making me feel like the whiner I’ve always taken pride in.   Michael Becker channels his problems constructively, and he’s a big boost. I found him in a search of cancer memoirs. We’ve exchanged pleasant emails. Have I told him I’m scouting for my […]

CANCER TREATMENT NEEDS THE ROCKY TALK FROM DR. BALBOA

When you need a pep talk who do you listen too? I go to Rocky Balboa for the good stuff. When he started out with, “Let me tell you something you already know,” he had me hooked. It’s like the doctor telling me I’ve got HPV16 tongue cancer. He had my attention. He told me […]

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boomer years

BABY BOOMER YOUTH GAMES

Could Kids Today Benefit From The Game Of Stretch Or Mumbly Peg? If Millennials and the rest of us want to meet on level ground, we must learn to share our games. A game on television is the easy part. Click a station, then another, until you find a game you both want to watch. […]

ALL DOGS MATTER, NORTH BEND BULLDOGS MATTER MORE

  Of all mascots, North Bend Bulldogs rise to the top.   You probably heard this before? “You may forget names and faces, but you’ll never forget how you felt being there.” North Bend is where the ‘there’ is. It started early. Those lucky enough to finish their primary and secondary education in one place […]

D-DAY PRACTICE: DIEPPE, SLAPTON SANDS

History of D-Day practice neither grand or glorious. The real D-Day turned the tide in World War Two, but the two D-Day practice events left more dead than the real D-Day. Through those deaths communications improved. Coordination improved. And suppressing news improved. No one wanted it out that commanders had screwed up a D-Day practice […]

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buckle up

BUNKUM STONE FINALLY DEBUNKED BY LOAD OF BUNK

Good luck and gifts of Bunkum Stone? ‘Tis the Season to talk it out. The gift of ‘loquacity?’ Gift? The incessant jabbering of the loquacious is a gift, not the reason earplugs were invented? Now you know. Now you know even more. From dictionary.com: Word Origin and History for loquacity n. c.1200, from Latin loquacitatem […]

THOMAS WOLFE PACK PART 2

The rest of Thomas Wolfe pack part 2 begins with big shoes to fill. (Click here for Wolfe Pack One.) How big? Wolfe was six feet six inches. He didn’t prance around in ballet slippers. His sleds probably rolled to size fourteen or fifteen. Like a forty inch waist in mid-life, and shopping at the […]

OREGON LOVE IN THE DISTRICT

Reluctant traveler finds Oregon love on the road. The best part of traveling to the other side of North America is answering the question, “Where are you from.” The easy answer is, “Oregon.” The one that gets across is, “Portland, Oregon.” Saying anything else needs explaining, like Tigard, but since I get mail marked Portland, […]

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