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TAKING PART IN FAMILY LIFE

Family life takes time. Ask the Baldwins with their seven kids.
Keep that in mind, you youngsters, when you decide it’s time to join in.
Join the club, the family club, sooner than later.
Why?
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THE TRUTH, GETTING A HANDLE

Getting a handle on the truth shouldn’t be a big hurdle to clear.
All it takes is a little self-awareness.
The truth is your friend if you’re not too sketchy.
Will it set you free? Well . . .
It depends on the sort of shackles your used to.
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‘DOING RESEARCH’ AND OTHER EXCUSES

What counts as doing research?
For writers it’s an easy answer: Everything is research.
And because everything is research, the trick is finding what matters more.
Is it writing about where you are, how you feel, the people you’re with?
The correct answer? All of the above.
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TWO STORIES + ONE MAN = GREAT LITERATURE? OK LEO

Where does great literature come from?
From more than two stories, but first about ‘that man.’
The great literature man.
Where does he come from?
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GRACE AND DIGNITY FOR AGING MILLENNIALS

I became my ‘brother’s keeper’ through misjudgment, and it wasn’t my brother but my father in-law.
Same idea, though. I think it’s the same idea.
And it was misjudgment, not a mistake.
What happened?
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toughen up

BREAST CANCER: A MOTHER JONES FACEBOOK POST ASKS IF ALCOHOL IS A CAUSE. WHAT ARE OTHER CANCER CAUSES?

    From motherjones.com:   Susan Sontag once wrote that telling people about your cancer diagnosis tends to fill them with mortal dread. But when I’ve disclosed my illness to friends and told them that alcohol can cause breast cancer, I’ve never invoked enough mortal dread to deter anyone from ordering a second drink. Most women […]

SWING HARD OR SOFT, BUT HIT THE SWEET SCIENCE

If The Heavy Bag Could Talk No matter the age or gender, we never lose the urge to fight. We fight for one thing or another all our lives. It’s not always called a fight, but it can feel like it. And you can still win. During the 1920’s Golden Age of Sports, college football, […]

GUN TALK THE WRONG WAY … AGAIN

Raw Story posted a gun column about white men and guns. It was the sort of gun talk white men with guns shouldn’t identify with. “White men stockpile guns because they’re scared of black people and feel inadequate, science says.” That’s the rawstory title. It’s raw, but even more, it’s lazy, but a site called […]

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boomer years

PICKING UP CO-EDS 70’S STYLE

Which One Was You? Before social media, meeting co-eds at college meant leaving the basement. Starbucks moved into the space on the opposite end of the block from the U of O bookstore. It the seventies it was a college bar, the best place on the street for 21 and over students. And everyone else. […]

MAN ANTHEM FOR MODERN TIMES

Every era has a song. This era needs a Man Anthem. This Man Anthem is inspired by Barney the Purple Dinosauer and the Republican National Convention. The epicenter of male testosterone in America is Cleveland, Ohio. As if to prove it, Candidate Trump took the stage the way Mr. McMahon takes to the ring. Into […]

LOVE AFFAIRS OR LEARNING AFFAIRS

Do past love affairs affect the future? What happens between two people ought to be like Las Vegas: what happens there stays there. Except it never happens that way between two people, three or four people, or a whole team of people. No judgements, just call it a social agreement between adults who know how […]

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buckle up

HOW TO FIND PORTLAND AROUND YOUR TOWN

  Exhibit A: Lumbersexuals always find Portland A gen y or later man whom is trying desperately to be masculine by looking the part instead of being the part, eg, dressing up like a lumberjack. Did anyone notice the stage clothes of the grunge movement? Jeans, plaid flannel shirts. Same clothes, different context. But if […]

PORTLAND 1980: HOW TO SETTLE IN A NEW TOWN

    One song stuck with me on the bus ride from NYC to Portland 1980: The second verse of Lodi, by Creedence Clearwater:   I rode in on the Greyhound I’ll be walkin’ out if I go I was just passin’ through Must be seven seven months or more Ran out of time and […]

INVITATION FROM PORTLAND: WHAT’S MY NAME?

An old Russian saying explains it this way: The much loved are called by many names. With that in mind, Portland must be much loved by the number of names it has. Stump Town. Soccer City, USA. River City. Rip City. Rose City. Beervana. Bridge City. And they all fit. Just like weather that changes […]

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