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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 […]

AGING FEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME

Aging fear kicks in when you start wondering about tomorrow. Will you be there for it? Why wouldn’t you? Oh, that’s why.

CHILDHOOD ENDING LEADS TO BLURRED LINES

A childhood ending comes in several varieties. The people you meet in early childhood often signal the end later. It might be a parent, a teacher, or the latest bully on the block. All of them are the problem, beginning with parents.

DIVISION STREET, NOT DIVIDED PORTLAND

  Division Street is not some hotbed of urban problems with people taking sides. In the southeast 30’s it’s a home stretch for Portland people moving to Oregon. Even better, it’s been a neighborhood, a changing neighborhood, for people who put down roots decades ago.