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NORTH BEND IN THE OREGON HISTORY CENTER

This is North Bend in 1940. Something is missing, though. I-5 is missing, but there’s something else. These baby boomers and their memory, you never know what you’re getting.

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 […]

TAXES PAID, SERVICES DELIVERED, AMERICAN DREAM

You settle back after you close the books on your taxes paid and that new life waiting just around the corner. Those taxes are the money paid to live the American Dream. Who among us thinks of taxes paid every time we get jolted driving over another gaping pothole? “Why do I bother when they […]

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?”

AMERICAN IMMERSION CLASS STARTS NOW

An American immersion class is more than how to fold a flag without dragging it in the dirt. Still, when you do get to that part don’t drag it in the dirt. No, my friends, an immersion class begins with requirements. Just as we’ve seen in old WWII movies, you need to know a few […]

ONE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE AFTER ANOTHER, 659 words

Consider, if you will, the attraction industry’s ‘immersive experience.’ Go here, do this; Go there, do that. Repeat as needed, as desired, as often as you feel like escaping the life around you? If that’s the goal, sign me up. So far I’ve immersed in what no attraction industry would offer. Maybe I’m not in […]

PROMISES MADE IS ONE THING, THEN WHAT

Make a promise, keep it, and you’ve got promises made. It’s that easy, and that hard. It’s a badge of honor, but not a permanent one. Screw up, break your word, and you sink back into the muck with the rest of us losers trying our best to remember what we said we’d do. So […]

CUTTING WOOD WITH A CREW

Like most kids growing up on the Oregon coast, like most people with a fireplace, I’ve spent time cutting wood. My brother and I hauled and chopped rounds my dad sawed from the logs washed up on the causeway connecting Hwy101 to the sand dunes. The old man was the boss. He said we could […]

OLD STANDARDS UNDER STRAIN? HOLD MY BEER

Old standards are only for old people. Wrong. What’s wrong is the idea of standards, which I’ll clear up right now in case there’s any doubt: The Standard is the standard, no matter the age, young, or old. Got it? Good. So what exactly is The Standard?

WAY OF LIFE. WHOSE WAY OF LIFE?

I hear the words ‘way of life’ and automatically think of tribes deep in the Amazon who have never been out of the jungle. Instead of the variety of life found in America, I go straight to pre-contact indigenous people, who of course have had contact since we know of them. Pre-contact? Amazon jungle? In […]