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LET THEM, LET YOU, OR LET ME?

The Let Them Theory book has a lot of lets in the letters. My favorites are the parts that address my problems, which come with a writing habit from what I can tell. Will I discover why I’m not a better writer? Learn what I should have done by now, or find a lingering message […]

RECLAIMING MY TIME ON SOUTHERN OREGON COLLEGE SIXTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

Southern Oregon College Graduating Class of 1960: My dad. He transferred after two years at Central Oregon Community College in Bend. It was a well used path to the first college degree in his family. He was thirty years old, an old 30. Back then thirty was older, fifty was a grandparent. Hit sixty and […]

MUSIC MUSCLE: USE IT OR LOSE IT

Where is the music muscle? In your fingertips? In your ear? In your voice? No wrong answer here. It’s all three, but there’s still something missing. Whether it’s ambient noise, sounds, notes, or whether it’s so important you buy tickets and make travel plans, there’s something about music I still don’t get. On one hand […]

BUSY LIFE IN THE FAST LANE, PASSING LANE, OR . . .

A busy life means making a difference to someone, to something, to somewhere. Take your pick. Pick more than one. What you can’t pick is anyone else’s priorities for their busy life. You can try, but why?

MONDAY MORNING STARTER: COMPLAINING?

Monday morning, like every morning of the week, starts with a quick look online to see what’s up in there, to see if anything sticks past the first scroll. What stuck? Complaining. My online peeps are disappointed in their engagement numbers. No one reads their posts. And it hurts soooo bad.

COLD WET OREGON WITH EXTRA WATER

On a cold wet Oregon day the beach was covered as far as the eye could see, and since it’s flat you can see a long way. Jelly fish, man of war, or whatever it was, it was a mass die-off of squishy critters up and down the beach, a purple carpet of goo to […]

ELDERLY TRUTHS FROM OLD MAN

I watched a video clip of an old man speaking elderly truths. He looked good in his v-neck sweater and button down collared shirt. He said he was ninety-one in the most sincere way. His talk was aimed at the younger crowd, you know, around seventy. Made me feel like a teenager.

STORY SHAPE: MORE SAG IN THE MIDDLE?

Story shape and physical fitness have that in common, the middle. From the beginning of ‘good fortune,’ the main character has a few moments until things dip downward. Think of the fanatical diet and exercise demon losing their edge in a Las Vegas buffet and taking off from the high dive into the Mexican, Italian, […]

YOU TIME + ME TIME = OUR TIME

‘Our time’ is full of hope and promise for a better world. That’s what I learned in kindergarten and it set me on my path. Maybe it’s a baby boomer notion, or maybe it’s everyone over a certain age who feels that hope. Either way a better world has been a long time coming and […]

HISTORY BUSINESS MINDS THE STORE

History business is a museum, a class, an artifact. It’s all of that and more: it’s you, me, and the guy down the road. If you ask someone about it, you might hear something like, “I learned history in school.” There are other responses to the question, “What does history mean to you?”