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POWAY WRESTLING, HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING THE RIGHT WAY

    High school wrestling in Poway, California is a calling. It’s the same calling kids felt in North Bend, in Newberg, Crater, Roseburg, and Burns, Oregon.   Call it tradition, or answering a challenge, just don’t make the mistake of calling it less than what it is. All Poway High School wants is all […]

A TIME LONG AGO AT A HIGH SCHOOL FAR FAR AWAY

North Bend Oregon High School, class of 1973. What’s so special?   Like later generations staking their claims to, ‘the first digital generation’ or ‘the first paperless generation’ or ‘the first generation raised on video games,’ the generational niche of 1973 is ‘the first modern generation.’   Born of the roaring ’50’s with TV dinners […]

APACHE TEARS HAPPY ENDING

    “Let’s meet one of my facebook friends,” I said one day during a Mesa Arizona visit.   “You met someone on facebook and you want to meet them?” she asked. “You never want to meet anyone.”   “Yes, I do. We’ll go prospecting. He knows where to find Apache tears,” I said.   […]

High School Football Explained For Better Understanding

    It doesn’t take a genius to understand the risk of playing high school football. But if you need a genius to explain football from top to bottom, ask retired Baltimore Raven John Urschel.   He’s enough of a genius.   At the old age of twenty six he hung his jock on an […]

HOW HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING PAYS THE BILLS

No matter how you see the video of President Trump fighting a CNN bobble head, it’s not high school wrestling. It’s not Olympic wrestling. Is it yard wrestling? Not even. Instead it’s a demonstration of what happens when a man finds himself in a situation and wishes he’d been on a high school wrestling team. […]

OREGON DROPOUT TOO HIGH? KGW SAYS YES

  Oregon students drop out of high school more than any other state? Education statistics work to show progress, decline, indifference. You’ve seen those graphs. Chances are good these aren’t dropouts analyzing the data. They are smart people working the numbers. Depending on the point being made, the numbers are the name of the game. […]

BABY BOOMER LIFE QUIZ FOR NOSY MILLENNIALS

Ask your parents about these life quiz situations   Life Quiz 1 Ever made to sit at the childhood dinner table until you finished everything on your plate…or fell asleep in shame? If a millennial asks their parents, and mom and dad say, “No, of course not. We weren’t raised in a gulag,” do a […]

LEARNING FROM WHERE YOU LIVE, PT2: BABY BOOMER ERA

  The baby boomer era state of mind.   What is there to learn from the baby boomer era? Every passing year the nostalgia grows stronger, but that doesn’t change history. Consider the boomer time line from 1946-1964. The oldest boomers were twenty year olds in 1966. The youngest were twenty in 1984. My cohort […]

THE BOOMER END OF THE SPEEDO CHALLENGE

    Any challenge but the Speedo Challenge?   Even without a dashing, single-ski dock start, or the dive team Speedo, the man carried a lethal air. He looked like he could fight death and fear, and win. It made him an icon. Leaping off a houseboat deck rail into thin air with one foot […]

PERSONAL PRIDE vs MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS

Go ahead and be selfish just this once, keep your personal pride personal.   Who among us admits personal pride? Raise a hand. All up? Good. Pride for you and yours is a cornerstone of civilization, something to build on. You can tell personal pride people when you see them in full blossom. They wear […]