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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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PIE DELIVERY FROM NICOLETTA’S TABLE

Pie delivery is easy with such elegant packages.
Two pies, pumpkin and pecan, all wrapped and ready.
Nicoletta’s Kitchen is full of surprises.
But how do they get from point A to point B?
Me.
[Read More…]

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toughen up

HOW TO COACH CANCER SURVIVORS

    The impact of cancer news hits far and wide, but it is a fastball to the face of the patient and they have no defense. Imagine getting clocked in the head like Tony C and waking up to that ‘new normal.’   Watching it happen in 1967 made a lot of Little League […]

DOES YOUR FAMILY HATE YOU ENOUGH? GET BUSY

  Family hate means family values 0.  Are you the right gender? Check early pictures to see if you’re wearing the right clothes. If you’re a guy and your baby pictures look like a girl, relax. General Douglas MacArther wore a dress and long hair as a child. It was the fashion, and it didn’t hurt […]

CANCER IN THE CANCER CLOSET: GROWING TREND

  “The first time we got cancer we told everybody. We gathered the team and cheered.” It’s a good idea to rally the troops, focus the force. Then cancer-time sets in. One day. The next. Weeks. Months. “How do you feel?” “Are you feeling better?” “You must be exhausted. Are you exhausted?” You don’t want […]

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boomer years

THE SOUND OF CIVIC DUTY

Ask An Academic Professional About Civic Duty And Listen Hard. You won’t hear about their civic duty or your civic duty, but the shared community. Might not be your community either. Keep listening. Civic duty is more than boundaries and lines drawn on a map, they say. An academic pro, the teacher, counselor, the administrator, […]

THE BIRTHDAY BOY: HOW TO CELEBRATE YOUR DAD’S DAY

The Gillaspie children Wayne, Cleo, and Rex, c. 1948. This May 8th my Dad would have been 84 years old. Birthdays are important. To all baby boomers: Call your parents on their birthday. To all hipsters: Get off your scooter and show your parents you were raised right. Call them. To all millennials: Follow the […]

BABY BOOMER ANTHOLOGY, A LIFE IN COMMON

Every family has a man with so much backbone you’d think he has two of them. Such a man might have been injured on the job and took up another line of work. Maybe that man was a logger who broke his back in the woods and took up ranching. His biggest regret was missing […]

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buckle up

Fighting Chuck Palahniuk, And Portland Inertia

    I didn’t have anything to prove by fighting Chuck Palaniuk, but I did with the fight against inertia on a Sunday where the NFL was on TV and Wordstock was happening on the park blocks. It was a good day to do nothing and there was plenty to back up doing it.   […]

BOOMERPDX ON ICE

One Man’s Chilling Journey ICE stand for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Who knew? (It also stands for an In Case of Emergency number on your cell phone, but that’s another post.) A ICE story landed on the BoomerPDX desk, a story of concern. ICE is a hard time for hard core people who need to leave […]

PORTLAND’S BOOMER CASTLE ON BROADWAY

You don’t have to go to France to feel the grandeur of a beautiful room. Or a cathedral in Spain for the ornate. Walk into the Benson Hotel on Broadway for the same feeling of WOW. The size is different, but the details are wonderful. For an Old World taste in the New World, this […]

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