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PORTLAND PARK BLOCKS IN DECEMBER WITH DOG

The Portland Park Blocks, the south side, deserves a good look this time of year. Call it a learning moment, my dog did. Who’s a good girl. We started at Portland State University to see what the youths were up to.

LIFE WRITING RULES

Rules for life writing: Get a life. Pay attention. Find a favorable form. Then what?

SCOREBOARD TRAINING FOR SPORTS FANS

Scoreboard training is a class to take just in case things don’t turn out the way you wanted. At this point in  the college football season Oregon Duck fans have graduated. You get that when you show up for the last game of the regular season undefeated. Then they start over for the College Football […]

TALKING DOWN TO SOMEONE? WHY

How can you tell when someone is talking down to you? It might be the clarification questions you ask that gets them annoyed to the point of explaining everything a few times, very slowly. Or it might their regular way of communicating. Which leads to more questions, like, “Why be a jerk?

ON VETERANS DAY 2024

Veterans Day is for the old folks who remember their youth and those who were young with them. They remember the young people who didn’t have the chance to get old. My Dad got a chance to get old. He out-lived his Dad, just like I’m out-living him.

WRITING REWARDS YOU MISS IF YOU DON’T WRITE

Writing rewards come in flavors other than green. JD Salinger said the act of writing is reward enough. That from a guy who locked himself up for his reward. But he didn’t throw away the key.

NEXT YEAR, MAYBE THE YEAR AFTER

Next year shows up fast, so fast that you haven’t gotten over anything from the last year. Suddenly you’re stacking the new ‘get over it’ on top of the old ‘get over it.’ You used to care about getting over things. What happened? This happened:

NEW YORKER THURSDAY IN THE MAIL, A LESSON IN READING

The New Yorker magazine is my only subscription and I’m surprised how much fun it is. I actually look forward to it, which has been a surprise over the past year. I know what I’m doing on New Yorker Day:

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE? A REVIEW

A healthy lifestyle doesn’t start after you recover from a dreaded disease. Some people take illness as a reminder to step up their health routine, some ignore the whole thing. Which one is the right response? Both work, just one better than the other. But there’s that other part.

DAD DAYS TO GRANDDAD AND BEYOND

Dad days never end, and I’m glad. I didn’t sign up for the part time version. There wasn’t a switch to throw for the eighteenth birthday that said, ‘I’m done.’ I’ve been a dad since my first born, then doubled up with my second. Since then a few surprises joined up, just not those surprises.