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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 […]

PORTLAND RENTS A LIFESTYLE, WHO PAYS THE FREIGHT

  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

  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

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

  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

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 […]

BOOMER TIME, FEED YOUR MIND, MAKE A RHYME

Boomer time is the right time, and it’s now. If Baby Boomers live up to the current predictions, one in eight will get Alzheimer’s. No cure, bad ending. Is it caused from eating too many modern aluminum foiled TV dinners in childhood? Modern food production and delivery promised unheard of labor savings. The Hungry Man […]

FOUNDATION WORK, BETTER BALANCE, STAND UP

Even giants need good balance.   You’ve heard the saying “You can’t know someone until you’ve walked in their shoes.” Or their footsteps. Take their path. They all mean the same thing: Your feet. On the ground. No matter what the reason, your feet on the ground defines you. From barefooting to mountain climbing boots, […]

PEARL HARBOR, NEW HISTORY STUDENT GUIDE

How to explain Pearl Harbor in 2016. While years speed by history lays at risk, Pearl Harbor in particular. Names and places change, motives revealed, but the dead stay dead. New students may have trouble gripping the scope of WWII, but Pearl Harbor needs to stay constant. The sneak attack that will live in infamy […]

JFK ASSASSINATION: THE AMERICA THAT NEVER WAS

New research on JFK assassination reveal broken promises.   A young American President landed in Dallas, Texas. A man with family fame, WWII fame, and Pulitzer Prize fame, left town the way no one wants to leave anyplace. History students cover the JFK assassination as part of class. The rest of America, and the world […]