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HOW TO WRITE, WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT

January 2, 2026 by David Gillaspie

How to write seems self-explanatory. Why bother is the real question. My Grandma on my Mom’s side passed this pearl of wisdom along: “Smart people talk about ideas, normal people talk about places, dumb people talk about other people.” With that mind, who are the big gossips in your group?

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: America, autobiographical blogger, autobiography, biography, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, boomers, education, family, history, learning, millennials, Oregon Ducks, Portland Oregon, proust, sports, story, Thomas Wolfe, wife, write about, writer, writer heaven, writers, writing

ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY DOES THE WORK OF TWO

December 30, 2025 by David Gillaspie

The entertainment industry is where you go with time to kill and you don’t workout. Pick up a book, a screen, go to a play. The last one, go to a play, is different because now you have to make plans for your anticipated spare time, which means scheduling, which is another word for work. […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: Baby Boomer blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, crime, education, entertainment industry, family, fate, government services, history, learning, leisure time, Love, MARRIAGE, married, millennials, Portland Oregon, prison, punishment, spare time, story, travel, watergate, wife, writer, writers, writing

GET TO THE WRITING POINT

December 26, 2025 by David Gillaspie

People who feel like their head might explode in the middle of the night because their brain won’t calm down need to get to the writing point. No writer has ever felt the internal pressure in their mind because they’ve already gone over things. Gone over, and over, and over, and over. Let me rewrite […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: baby boomer, Baby Boomer blogger, boomer blogger, boomer kids, boomerpdx, fiction, new yorker, non-writers, opinion, over and over, Portland, Portland Oregon, public education, revision, rewrite, sentence structure, shared history, story, surveillance, teachers, writer, writer's worth, writers, writing, writing point, written memory, WWII

HOW TO GROW A SENSE OF WONDER IN PORTLAND OREGON

December 22, 2025 by David Gillaspie

Most of the time a sense of wonder in Portland means a painful memory from the days of old, of Meier and Frank downtown and the Georgian Room for tea. The place had a special aura during the holidays. The painful part? It hasn’t been there for years, Meier and Frank and the Georgian Room, […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: baby boomer, Baby Boomers, blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, Christmas, december, education, football, georgian room, history, hustle, married, Meier and Frank, Oregon, Oregon Ducks, painful memory, Portland, Portland Oregon, sports, story, streets, travel, urban, urban canyons, writer, writers, writing

ADULTHOOD MISUNDERSTOOD, AND THEN … ?

December 17, 2025 by David Gillaspie

You’d think adulthood misunderstood would come from some kid with ideas on who they’d want to be. But, noooooo. It’s the adults. If it were a kid, they’d have time to figure things out after a misunderstanding. What if it’s a baby boomer? What’s their excuse?

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: adult, adulthood, adulthood misunderstood, baby boomer, Baby Boomers, blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, education, facebook, good manners, grown man, history, learning, MARRIAGE, misunderstood, podcast, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, priorities, rossi radio, story, time passes, writer, writers, writing

NO KITTY GENOVESE FOR YOU

December 13, 2025 by David Gillaspie

Would an Oregonian save Kitty Genovese? A few years back a little boy in Portland, Oregon was accidentally left on a train platform. He made it home safely with his dad. A young woman stayed with him until his father returned, just a bystander who saw what happened and took time to care. Those few minutes ended happily; it […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, Cinema 21, genovese, kitty genovese, learning, MARRIAGE, NW Portland, Oregon, Portland, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, story, writer, writers, writing

PUBLIC GOOD IS GOOD ENOUGH?

December 11, 2025 by David Gillaspie

The idea of doing something for the ‘public good’ is a high standard in America. Why? Because the public, of which we’re all a part, is so broad. What’s good in one place is not so good in another, but no one talks about the ‘public bad’ as a goal. Or do they?

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: America, baby boomer, Baby Boomer blogger, Baby Boomers, blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, china, Oregon, Portland, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, pubic good, public, public transportation, writer, writers, writing

WE THE PEOPLE, NOT PEE-POLE

December 10, 2025 by David Gillaspie

‘We the People’ are the difference makers others count on. Maybe not you or me, but the folks out there agitating for change, for better outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. Loved ones? You know, the people you think of when you get a warm fuzzy feeling that things are going the right direction […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, Constitution, education, freedom, history, ideologies, ideology, illegal order, justice, learning, liberty, magna carta, MARRIAGE, married, millennials, Oregon, pee, pee pole, Portland Oregon, story, things happen, Thomas Jefferson, travel, veterans, we the people, writer, writers, writing

GREAT WRITING: WHEN WORDS MATTER MORE

December 6, 2025 by David Gillaspie

From Google AI on current sentence construction: Basic Structure: Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) Subject: Who/what the sentence is about (e.g., Matt). Verb: The action or state of being (e.g., eats). Object: Receives the action (e.g., pizza). Example: “Matt eats pizza.”

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: Baby Boomer blogger, books, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, Death, education, family, fitness, GenX, genZ, great writing, history, inspiration, learning, married, matter, millennials, music, North Bend, Oregon, Portland, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, reading, sentence, sentence structure, story, structure, travel, words, words matter, writer, writers, writing, writing books

NOBODY FROM NOWHERE? SO FAR SO GOOD

December 5, 2025 by David Gillaspie

Some people lament being a nobody from nowhere. Not me. I’ve heard enough big shots complaining about their loss of privacy to the point of living like a shut-in. “I used to be able to go out with no one noticing. Now every time I leave the house is a big event.” Who wants to […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: Baby Boomer blogger, be there, blogger, boomer blogger, business, dressing room, education, history, margaritas, mexican food, museum, museum business, nobody, nobody from nowhere, normal, nowhere, Portland, Portland Oregon, stories, strip club, the masses, timelines, want more, writer, writing