Kernville house for Ken Kesey’s Sometimes A Great Notion In some parts of America I balk at driving the back roads. I drive on, but carefully. Those roads show more about a shared history if you look hard enough. The Siletz Highway, OR 229 headed east off of 101 north of Depoe Bay, is one […]
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS IMPROVE MEMORY
April 18, 2017 by
Memory problems? Let the Portland Trail Blazers help. This Easter a sign kept popping up: “At my age I can hide my own eggs and half an hour later won’t know where they are.” Ha. Ha. Ha? What’s so funny? I forget. Except memory loss is no laughing matter. You want to remember important things, […]
THE REAL WESTERN AMERICA OUT HERE IN OREGON
April 12, 2017 by
The real Western America isn’t Texas or California Readers around the world see the American west through movies. From John Wayne in his cowboy costume, to private eye Jack Nicholson in LA’s Chinatown, to policeman Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry franchise, they view the west through a distorted lens. Forget about the red rocks of Colorado, […]
DURABLE PORTLAND CAST IRON FINDS
April 4, 2017 by
Portland cast iron over your head in an earthquake? It’s still art. I see the stuff and think health hazard. Cast iron is heavy enough on the ground, let alone falling any distance. That’s one of the cautions about historic preservation: save yourself first.
LEARNING FROM WHERE YOU LIVE, PT2: BABY BOOMER ERA
March 24, 2017 by
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 […]
PORTLAND RENTS A LIFESTYLE, WHO PAYS THE FREIGHT
March 18, 2017 by
One solution to rising Portland rents At first tiny apartments got the shit because they went up in neighborhoods with streets jammed by normal parking. Now the micro havens are a solution, a reason for a drop in the rent crisis. And those bikes? Millennials and bikes and small apartments? It happens. Add […]
OREGON’S BIRTHDAY: WHAT YOU MISSED AT 158
February 15, 2017 by
If you skip Oregon’s Birthday party, you’ll never know Oregon. You read the same stories from around the country. People matching their vibe to a location show up in Portland. Families planning a big move, choosing between ten cities, come to Oregon because Portland checked all the right boxes. Students enroll in colleges […]
PERSONAL PRIDE vs MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS
February 8, 2017 by
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 […]
CHRIS COLEMAN, ASTORIA, A WORLD PREMIERE
February 3, 2017 by
From Washington Irving to Peter Stark to Chris Coleman, Astoria never looked better. History readers are a funny bunch. They range from professional historians to hobbyists to just people looking for something to engage them. Then there’s Chris Coleman, Artistic Director for Portland Center Stage at The Armory, and Director of Astoria. What […]
WRITERS, WRITING CLASSES, ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS
January 14, 2017 by
Best advice from writing classes? College freshman might change their major. More than once. But over and over? Relax, it happens. And it’s not pretty. Finding yourself in college is expensive. Even if Major Changer milks it long enough they finish with a degree others call worthless, as in, “what were you thinking?” That’s […]
