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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

MILLENNIAL SELF CARE = SELF RESPONSIBILITY

  You know it’s not pledge week when NPR rags millennials about ‘self-care.’ Instead of pledging money to them, they’ll buy an ‘experience’ instead. Cue Jimi Hendrix? Gracy Obuchowicz says it’s more than just social media that has pushed millennials to the forefront of the self-care discussion. “Our generation has seen enough,” she said. “People […]

WORK ON HABITS, COMPULSIONS, ADDICTIONS, NOT GOALS?

Work on habits, not goals? What about goal oriented people?   Long term goals don’t happen overnight. You achieve them by doing the little things. For instance, you decide you’d like to run a marathon. Do you find the nearest race with the closest date and just sign up? Some people do, but what would […]

CDC SAYS OPIOIDS SHOULDN’T BE FIRST CHOICE? THAT HURTS.

Pain relief moves from legal heroin to physical therapy, exercise, and over the counter pills? Who knew? I wrote a post about an author’s reading called BLACK TAR HEROIN, SAM QUINONES, AND DREAMLAND. Sam Quinones showed up in Powell’s City of Books and talked about pill mills supplying zombie customers with their opioid prescriptions; about […]

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boomer years

MARRIED LANDSCAPE WINNING TACTICS

    We play a game at my house called, “I’ll hire the ___ if you can’t do it.”   I like to think it comes with being married to the right person, a visionary.   Fill in the blank with electrician, plumber, carpenter, landscape crew. As long as husband isn’t on the list there’s […]

BOOMERPDX ARCHIVE, c. 1983

1-10-83 (Monday) A former Oregon governor died last Saturday. Tom McCall breathed his last in the hospital up the street. Good Samaritan. A student nurse in my building cared for him at the end. She said he’s a great guy. Everyone says it. He seems like someone you’d like to know. Oregon history’s Tom Vaughan […]

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. […]

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buckle up

BOOMER FUTURE, WITH BELLS

Paolo Soleri Sets The Stage With A Desert Vision Of Boomer Future. It might be a Star Wars set, a home on a distant planet, but it’s not. Instead you see the cement/earthen buildings of Cosanti in Arizona. Some of you might mistake Arizona for a distant planet, and you wouldn’t be far off. With […]

EXTRA ROOM AIRPLANE SEATS? FOR WHO?

  From the crowds I’ve seen at airports, people have learned to negotiate the hurdles. With the hope of not being the only old and confused passenger, OCP, I pay attention.   Walk up to a screen near the airline you’re flying and key in the info you copied at home from a confirmation email […]

HOW TO INTERACT WITH RAJNEESH CULT MEMBERS ON PORTLAND STREETS

    Most days after work in the 80’s I walked the same way to my NW Portland apartment. The path took me past a place called the Martha Washington on SW 11th. I walked the same way so I could talk to an interesting woman from the museum.   Note to remember: All museum […]

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