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ON VETERANS DAY 2024

November 11, 2024 by

Veterans Day is for the old folks who remember their youth and those who were young with them. They remember the young people who didn’t have the chance to get old. My Dad got a chance to get old. He out-lived his Dad, just like I’m out-living him.

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HOW OLD IS ‘OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER?’

December 23, 2023 by

How old were you when you first heard it? My memory says I was a seven year old who couldn’t field a grounder after my last ‘bad hop’ bounced off my face. I wasn’t technically afraid of the ball, except I was afraid of what the ball might do. When one of the baseball fields […]

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THE INTIMATE PERSONAL, BUT WHY?

April 30, 2023 by

The intimate personal is the #1 Rule of memoirists, novelists, poets, playwrites, noodlers, doodlers, and bloggers. Their readers want to know things, not necessarily first hand. Something on a page, or screen, is more than enough. But, someone’s still got to get it there. Some of my favorites:

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VIETNAM VETERANS ON BOOMERPDX

March 29, 2023 by

My Vietnam Veterans show up on BoomerPdx not as veterans but as guys I’ve met along the way. Extraordinary guys I’ve been lucky to meet. What’s my plan to meet anyone? Get out of the house and walk around and you can’t go wrong.

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LATE SIXTIES GATHERING: 500K IN VIETNAM, 400K AT WOODSTOCK

July 21, 2022 by

A late Sixties gathering in the air: We would take off at max gross weight 6000 pounds light on fuel. At the first refueling we would fill up to the inflight max gross weight to head North.   Refueling here was a “piece of cake.”  Try it at night and in the weather and was […]

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CHANCE MEETING WITH A F4 FIGHTER PILOT

June 3, 2022 by

A chance meeting along the banks of the Willamette River in downtown Portland was the best break I’ve had in a while. I met a man named Jim after I asked about his dog. Dogs are a good icebreaker, and we shared a common breed, a doodle dog. One thing led to another, and I […]

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McNAMARA’S MORONS? WE’RE ALL MORONS WITH GUN LAWS

May 30, 2022 by

McNamara’s Morons was a government program for filling the enlisted ranks during the Vietnam War. But, that wasn’t the official name of the program. In 1967, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered military recruiting standards as part of a program called Project 100,000. Doesn’t Project 100,000 sound better than McNamara’s Morons.

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CHECKING OUT THEN BEFORE CHECKING BACK IN NOW

July 21, 2021 by

Checking out, dropping out, call it what you will, but leave the back door open. Why the back door? Because you may want to check back in and avoid the scrutiny out front. The nice picture above was not taken at an Amish farm last week, or a pioneer homestead in the 1860’s. Nope, none […]

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BETTER DAYS AND THE RANDOM MOMENTS THAT INSPIRE THEM

March 23, 2021 by

We had a table discussion about historic moments that led to better days. Four adults, three of whom don’t like things called table discussion. Me: But we’re at the table. One in the group gave their version of a history and moved on. But another in the group made a correction. The rest of group […]

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VOLUNTEER ARMY SUCKER, ENTHUSIASTIC LOSER

September 9, 2020 by

At nineteen I told my dad I was joining the service, that I was looking at the Army or Navy because they had two year enlistments. My feeling was I’d know all I needed to know after two years, like any nineteen year old know it all since I already knew everything. Nineteen year olds […]

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