Portland Archives • Page 3 of 73 • BOOMERPDX

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DIVISION STREET, NOT DIVIDED PORTLAND

February 15, 2026 by David Gillaspie

Division Street is not some hotbed of urban problems with people taking sides. In the southeast 30’s it’s a home stretch for Portland people moving to Oregon. Even better, it’s been a neighborhood, a changing neighborhood, for people who put down roots decades ago.

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: beer, beer city, big city, blogger, divided portland, division street, mid-century modern, North Bend Oregon, old portland, Oregon, Portland, Portland Oregon, urban problems

DREAM STREET: 82ND AVENUE PORTLAND OREGON

February 6, 2026 by David Gillaspie

Dream street? 82nd Avenue? Somebody wake me up? No, it’s not a dream, but a street of dreams. And those dreams came to life.

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: 82nd Avenue, baby boomer, BOOMER, boomerpdx, boomers, dream street, foggy mountain breakdown, gray gables, husband, MARRIAGE, newly wed, Oregon, Portland, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, wedding plans, wife

WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I GET

January 17, 2026 by David Gillaspie

Did I want a big fluffy dog? Noooo. But here we are and she’s the best darn dog I’ve ever known, heard of, or seen. Better than Bullet and Rin Tin Tin? Waaaaay better. She’s my dog, and just what I want. But I didn’t know that before hand.

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: America, baby boomer, Baby Boomer blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, education, history, king, learning, majestic mountain, my kingdom, Oregon, politics, Portland, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, programing, regular programing, story, what I want, WWII

SOLVING PROBLEMS ONE WAY, (and the other)

January 13, 2026 by David Gillaspie

I started solving problems early with a traffic court appearance. I was sixteen and charged with speeding. On a Honda 100 motorcycle. It wasn’t known for speed. What was the problem?

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: acid, America, baby boomer, Baby Boomer blogger, blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, court appearance, decision making, drugs, education, family, kid problems, learning, millennials, narcotics, Oregon, Portland, Portland Oregon, problems, solutions, solving problems, traffic court, writer, writers, writing, young man

WORLD CLASS WINE WORKING OVERTIME

January 12, 2026 by David Gillaspie

This is a glass of wine, world class wine. Mmm, mmm. It originally comes from the Hawks View Winery in Sherwood, Oregon. Today it came from my basement, racked with the other wine in the house. If you’ve heard of Sherwood, it’s probably from reading about Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. Is it world class? […]

Filed Under: What's Up Tagged With: America, American, baby boomer, Baby Boomer blogger, blog, blogger, boomer blogger, boomerpdx, discount wine, drink, drink wine, education, facebook, freedom, freedom ring, gin and tonic, hawks view winery, learning, map, Oregon, Oregon wine, police record, Portland, PORTLAND BABY BOOMERS, Portland Oregon, story, twitter, wine, wine spectator, world class, worlds class wine, writer, 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

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

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