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BASIC APPRECIATION OF COMMON THINGS

A basic appreciation is important for context.
Things are usually more complicated than they seem.
A brick is a brick, just some fired up mud, until you see them working together.
In the hands of a skilled craftsman, a brick is a jewel.
What else deserves a second look? A towel rack.
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TALKING DOWN TO SOMEONE? WHY

How can you tell when someone is talking down to you?
It might be the clarification questions you ask that gets them annoyed to the point of explaining everything a few times, very slowly.
Or it might their regular way of communicating.
Which leads to more questions, like, “Why be a jerk?
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FALLING LEAVES OF AUTUMN

Falling leaves are the rule of the season.
The only place without a carpet of leaves is a parking garage.
But that’s Oregon, famous for trees.
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toughen up

BILL GATES KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HPV AND HIV?

    Bill Gates is not a doctor. Nor is he a college graduate. So how is it he’s smart enough to know the difference between HIV and HPV?   This is a man smart enough to give medical advice to the most powerful man in the world, leader of the Free World, President Donald […]

Health Writing? Start With Cancer And Drill Down

  Health writing is about bringing hope to the afflicted. Cancer writing, not so much. One is about the future and the steps to make it better. The other is layered with dread.   One is about improving conditions, about personal bests, about gains; the other is layered with dread.   Health writing brings nutrition, […]

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

AUTHOR PHOTOS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS? Pt.2

    Exercise your laser beam eyes?   Nothing says “buy snake oil” either in print or bottle, than an expression that includes laser beam eyes.   This author looks like a button downed English professor forced to read WR121 funnel essays year after year. With that in mind does he have laser beam eyes, […]

THE BOOMER END OF THE SPEEDO CHALLENGE

    Any challenge but the Speedo Challenge?   Even without a dashing, single-ski dock start, or the dive team Speedo, the man carried a lethal air. He looked like he could fight death and fear, and win. It made him an icon. Leaping off a houseboat deck rail into thin air with one foot […]

AGING OR GETTING OLD, THE BOOMER CHOICE

Do You Know The Difference? Let’s Take A Shot. Aging makes things better. Aged cheese is better than Velveeta. Wine from a certain year is better than yesterday’s Night Train. Beer is better aged than green. Barrel aged whiskey is better than fresh squeezed white lightning. Aged beef? I’d like to hear more about it […]

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buckle up

THE DEAD PLAYS BABY BOOMER BY THAT CLOSE

If you’ve been to a Grateful Dead show, then you know about the long strange trip. If it was a Dead show at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington, it’s longer and stranger. But it was more than a Dead show. It was the Allman Brothers and the Doobie Brothers too. A Boomer-fest, but that’s […]

Breitenbush Retreat: Advancing Forward In Peace

    Tell a conservative baby boomer man about a Breitenbush Retreat and expect to hear:   Yeah, sure, we did it all back in college. Sure, it’s all about whatever. What? Oh sure.   The idea of a retreat is foreign to them now that they’ve hit the years that aren’t so kind.   […]

LOVE IN THE TIME OF TACOMA

One sure measure of a city on the way up is the people who move there. When the smart crowd shows up, things change. Of course it takes more than intelligence. It also takes commitment and patience. Combine intelligence, commitment, and patience in newly weds who choose to make Tacoma their home, and the fuse […]

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