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BETTER LISTENING SKILLS FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING

If practicing better listening skills isn’t a life goal, it should be. How hard is it to pay attention? You did it in the classroom with the encouragement of a teacher. I still remember Mr. Kraus singing ‘Toot toot tootsie goodbye’ when he tossed little tootsie rolls to students with the right answer in algebra. […]

NBA CHAMPION CROWNED, AGAIN

Becoming an NBA champion is a lifelong goal for every basketball player in the world. The best want to play the best, beat the best, to tell themselves they’re good enough. It’s that along with contracts and money and fame. All of that goes along the wayside when you stop playing in ninth grade like […]

FENDER TELECASTER, MORE THAN A FEELING

Playing notes and chords on a Fender Telecaster is an act of history. Even more if it’s a butterscotch Tele. Why? Because it has a legacy. It’s an historical artifact, a throwback, brought up to date every year. Playing one puts you in the legacy no matter how long, whether from 1950 to yesterday. But […]

LIFETIME MEMORIES FOR THE WHITE KNIGHT

The man in white has made more than a few lifetime memories for me. But why the white knight? Because he came to the rescue a few times.

STARTING OVER ONE MORE TIME

Calling it a day and starting over after forty five years? Not me, my wife’s business. After five moves beginning in NW Portland and ending in Lake Oswego, delivering hundreds of babies, treating thousands of patients, the timing couldn’t be better. We met at the start, teamed up for her business, and now it will […]

GOOD PARKS FOR A BETTER LIFE

I didn’t move to the suburbs for good parks, but I would have if I knew how important they are for living a better life. The first time I took my tiny kids they weren’t impressed. I was. It was Cook Park in Tigard, Oregon and it was beautiful with paths and forests alongside the […]

SENDING THE RIGHT MESSAGE TO WHO?

I’ve heard the right message all of my life: Do this and this; don’t do that. Sometimes the right message comes from the right place. Other times?

REMEMBER TO VOTE: BE SOMEBODY

Remember to vote at this late date. Late? Well, this is the last day to drop ballots at collection sites. Mine dropped yesterday. Felt pretty good.

SHARING SPECIAL DAYS, EVERY LAST ONE

Special days have special meaning which don’t hit the same for everyone. For some it’s repeating, “Why bother,” for the fortieth time. Others like to say, “I thought we’ve moved past all that.” But you still find those looking for something special in every day, and keep looking until they find it. Hell or high […]

OLD PORTLAND, YOUNG PARENTS

Make that old Portland, youngish parents. Or not so old Portland, and not so young parents. We weren’t teenagers, but if you ever want to feel like one push a stroller around downtown. With two kids it’s like a double punishment, like sent to your room AND missing dinner. What else?