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HISTORY LESSONS? WHO SKIPPED THAT CLASS

October 13, 2020 by

History lessons come the hard way. All the dates and names pile up. We give up on history, and stop paying attention when history reads like a phone book. But once the connections hit and we start linking names, dates, and places, we seek out history lessons. I walked between the Portland Art Museum and […]

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PORTLAND APARTMENTS, A BOOMERPDX LEGACY

September 12, 2020 by

Renting three consecutive Portland apartments over five years on the same city block means you’ve either found the right neighborhood, or you’re a NW Portland kook. I knew I wasn’t the kook when I first moved in. That guy lived in the house across the street, a large older man dressed in crotch strangling overalls […]

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SUBURBAN LIFESTYLE DREAM VS REALITY IN OREGON

August 7, 2020 by

I heard a reference to suburban lifestyle dreams from someone who was raised in urban apartments. There’s nothing wrong with city living, except when a city slicker claims to know about life in the suburbs. In my time, I’ve lived small town, urban, and suburban, though I’m not a fan of the suburban lifestyle tag.

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OREGON EXPERIMENT: WHO WALKS TWO THOUSAND MILES

July 28, 2020 by

Every state, every nation, has a creation story, but none have the Oregon Experiment. “Come to Oregon, it will be fun,” said no one on a wagon train. Was Oregon really an experiment?

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AMERICAN CITY ON THE LEFT COAST: PORTLAND

July 26, 2020 by

Normandy, not Portland Portland, Oregon is an American city on the west coast. Not too big, not too small, but just right for a big rural state on the edge of the North American continent. (Think top left corner of America. That’s Seattle. Everybody knows Seattle. Portland is down from there.) For an extra reminder, […]

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PORTLAND PROTEST SCORECARD FOR THOSE PLAYING AT HOME

July 23, 2020 by

Portland Mayor Image via boing boing Portland protest review: Last night Portland mayor Ted Wheeler hit the streets. How did it go? He got heckled and gassed for his effort. In short, it didn’t go well. What the hell, Portland, if the mayor joins in, where’s the welcome mat? Would past mayors fare as well […]

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PORTLAND DREAM DIES? NO, THIS ISN’T DETROIT, BUFFALO, OR MINNEAPOLIS

July 21, 2020 by

Big question: Is the Portland Dream dead? From a coin flip on the banks of the Willamette River, to a human shield of protest moms downtown, what was the dream to begin with? It’s a big question, one that gets asked when the biggest town in the state pulls a federal response to Black Lives […]

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK? COME ON NEW YORK

April 19, 2020 by

Doing the right thing in New York is the same as doing the right thing in Oregon: Stay home, keep a social distance. My social distance from NYC is 3000 miles away, but it wasn’t always that way. Frank said it best:

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OLD PORTLAND BECAME NEW PORTLAND RIGHT AFTER I MOVED THERE

April 2, 2020 by

The term Old Portland usually applies to the city with pictures of a flood, like the flood of 1861, or the floods of 1894, 1948, 1996. By the way, it rains in Oregon, sometimes a lot. Will that ever change? No, but attitudes will change, have changed. But that’s not the Old Portland on boomerpdx.

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THE HISTORY WRITER YOU NEED, THE STORY YOU GET

March 29, 2020 by

Every history writer has a To Be Read stack of books. I like to think most people have the same stack. The difference for a writer is most of their books To Be Read explain how to write. I’m finally able to say they helped me. How? Thank you for asking.

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