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NORTH BEND HEROES START HERE

 Calling North Bend a small town is a disservice to real small towns everywhere.
Driving south on 101 and crossing the North Bend Bridge takes you under this sign.
If you’re not paying close attention and keep going the same direction, the entire area of the largest metro complex on the Oregon coast feels like it’s all North Bend, especially if you miss the little coos bay sign.
How can the biggest city on the coast be a small town?
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READING HISTORY LIKE IT MEANS SOMETHING?

Reading history is the same as reading a story, but it comes with a bonus:
You can check the validity of the history story, check the sources, visit the places history happened and is still happening.
When old people check sources it’s because they have nothing else to do?
Baby boomers visit historical sites not to learn anything new, but to confirm their already established believes?
If this sounds like a load of crap, you are correct.
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THE LONG VIEW

As most people eighteen and over know, there is a future and they will be in it.
The big question is where?
At least it should be a big question unless you come from ‘down in the valley where mister when you’re young, they bring you up do to like your daddy done.’
Those guys never had to figure things out too much, like where will they be five years from now, and five years after that.
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TAUGHT IN SCHOOL, LEARNED AT HOME

Where I come from what I learned in school, what I was taught in school, was echoed at home.
What I learned at home made me a better student.
Can I blame my parents that I wasn’t the valedictorian? Or salutatorian?
Or top half of my class? Maybe.
I just asked my wife, “What’s the most important thing you learned in school?”
(Since she’s soon to retire she’ll have time to appear here.)
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DIFFERENT SOLDIERS? HOW DIFFERENT

The men in uniform during WWII were different soldiers, different kind of people.
The Axis powers carried an extreme devotion to duty, an extreme devotion to their emperor, and an extreme devotion to cruelty over helpless victims.
By the way, this isn’t new, not breaking news, but a reminder for short-memoried morons who ought to know better.
All of the extreme devotion of the German and Japanese armies ended with their defeat?
What exactly ended?
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toughen up

PREPARE FOR A DOCTOR VISIT

Do you get in shape for your doctor visit? For too many men it takes an force of nature to schedule a doctor visit. Women, not so much. That force of nature is called a wife after she makes an appointment two months away. She knows you’ll go; you know you’ll go. How you show […]

BABY BOOMER DEATH MARCH

What Happens When That Music Starts? From the Washington Post: “In January, the CDC reported that an average of six people die every day because of alcohol poisoning and that 76 percent are ages 35 to 64. Three-quarters are men.” That party bus of life shifted gears when we weren’t looking. The baby boomer mantra […]

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

BOOMER FAMILY AND PAT CONROY

If The Great Santini Couldn’t Break His Family, What Broke Your Boomer Family? The author Pat Conroy, one year older than the first baby boomer, had a traumatic childhood by most accounts. He’s a good boomer spokesman for the voiceless masses who wonder why things go wrong. Call him a senior boomer. He mined his […]

Bob Dylan Time Shift From Second Gear To Overdrive

    Like so many today, I also feel change in the wind, and like any baby boomer worthy of the tag, I consult the only text reliable enough to lay it all out in understandable language.   No, not the Bible, or any religious narratives.   I turn to Bob Dylan, and so should […]

BOOMER ENTREPRENEUR: GOOD IDEA?

Our newspaper of record, the Oregonian/oregonlive.com, broke the boomer news. Baby Boomers too young to retire and too old to hire embrace what they’ve always embraced: Themselves. Can’t believe it? The book ‘I’M OK, YOU’RE OK’ started out with a working title of ‘I’M OK, I’M OK, I’M STILL OK, OK?’ The ME GENERATION reminds […]

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buckle up

SOUTHERN HISTORY THE RIGHT WAY

A New Southern History Flag For The South? History is like a cat. Once it’s out of the bag, it won’t back. Andrew Jackson won’t fit under anyone’s hat and if he did you’d probably have a lot less hair. The uproar over the Confederate battle flag throws the South for a loop, but not […]

OREGON HISTORY, EXCITING AND DEADLY FROM THE BEGINNING

Don’t mistake real Oregon History for polite/academic Oregon History The history of Oregon, a U.S. state, may be considered in five eras: geologic history, inhabitation by native peoples, early exploration by Europeans (primarily fur traders), settlement by pioneers, and modern development. This is the sort of Oregon history you get from Wiki. It’s nice and […]

PORTLAND: THE FOG OF HISTORY

Yesterday’s Tomorrow – A Portland Journey. From the street under your feet to the places you walk by everyday, the untold story unfolds. Except you never see it. We live in the moment. Moving from one place to another is our goal, and it’s enough. But it’s not enough for everyone. It’s not enough for […]

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