UNFINISHED BUSINESS? OK BOOMER

What’s the first rule of ‘unfinished business?’

Set a goal.

Once you reach the goal, you’re finished. Done. Stand back.

Then learn to accept your work, for better or worse, etc.

Boomers, known as Baby Boomers, not some Oklahoma rendition, were once the most populous demographic across the land.

From picky teenagers in the Sixties and Seventies, to over-critical old people in the 2020’s, we’ve got plenty of unfinished business.

And we ignore it. Why? Because we walked away for a reason. We just can’t remember the reason.

If our lives resembled a home remodel, we’d remember.

We’d remember to pay the workers, remember to be patient for the building permits to pass, remember that contractors have a schedule to fit us into.

Remodel goals are simple: You run out of time, or run out of money. Then it’s a wrap.

But, it’s not quite the same with Boomers, Portland, Oregon baby boomers in particular.

They’ve turned a big page of life, and the next one is blank.

What’s that story going to be?

Unfinished Baby Boomer Business

Portland was supposed to be different, like taking a break from a cold wet day with a warm Starbucks Grande Latte with oat milk.

(The oat milk is $.70 extra, spendthrift.)

The myth was you could come to Portland with nothing and still make it.

You didn’t need the armor of a bullet proof resume, interview suits, and shiny shoes.

Those are the people who transferred here on their way up the corporate ladder, guys who aspire to the corner office in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, or Houston.

For them, Portland is a stepping stone on the way to a better life, a happy wife, and kids who mind because daddy is busting his ass for them.

The Portland myth held that you could hop off the bus, buy a knife, carve up some scrap Myrtlewood, open a booth at Saturday Market, find your way to the Made In Oregon Store, and gain international acclaim and fortune.

Then you buy a new life in the West Hills.

I will buy you a garden
Where your flowers can bloom
I will buy you a new car
Perfect shiny and new
I will buy you that big house
Way up in the West Hills
I will buy you a new life

And you live next to someone who can’t wait to leave Portland, who complains about the weather in front of a window framing the city from the St. Johns Bridge to the Marquam against a Mt. Hood background, the dream-view of every non-profit grinder living in a studio apartment above a parking lot.

Old Portland, 1980’s Old

I stepped off a Trailways Bus in Old Town after a three day ride from the west side of Manhattan’s Port Authority.

It was my own Oregon Trail.

There was someone waiting, someone with plans.

We had the same plans, then had a moment with her old boyfriend.

He was in a phone booth near Cleveland High School on the corner of 26th and SE Powell. We were at the stoplight.

The guy kept staring. I noticed, she noticed, he gave a tricky hand signal wave, then she explained.

It made everything better. We broke up in three months, which was two months behind schedule.

By my mid-twenties, getting together and breaking up was a regular theme.

I had dropped out of UofO and uprooted from Eugene so I could break up with someone on their home turf of Delaware since our two campus break ups didn’t take.

Next stop New York City, then Portland. And I wasn’t leaving.

My single guy goals were to find a job only done in Oregon, which was tough since I’d already pulled green chain and fed dryers in a Coos Bay plywood mill, and packed frozen salmon for a summer at Hallmark’s Fishery in Charleston.

The other goal was dating women who I imagined could have been North Bend Bulldog babes.

When you don’t want to waste time, set the bar high.

2

At first, Portland felt as trashy as New York, which was a comfort.

Pioneer Square was a dirty parking lot, Front Avenue had swinging hot spots that flowed out the front doors to the wide sidewalks.

The main difference was the garbage strike in NYC when I showed up. Bags of crap from city towers climbed a story high against the windows with rats migrating back and forth.

Portland only had one tower, First Interstate, along with a pledge to never make another one. So the trashy feel came from wind blown debris, not neglect.

Now we see piles of garbage in homeless camps and we complain about the trash, the visual, instead of the people who need help.

I hear you when you say, “You can’t help people who don’t want help, or don’t know they need help.”

Walking away doesn’t make it all go away, but you know that.

Giving Up On Unfinished Business?

Call me sentimental, but either I like Everclear, or any song with West Hills in the lyrics.

It gives Portland a little shine when a rocker wants to live here and knows about the fancy neighborhoods.

What’s Everclear’s take on unfinished business?

I am still living with your ghost
Lonely and dreaming of the west coast
I don’t wanna be your downtime
I don’t wanna be your stupid game

With my big black boots and an old suitcase
I do believe I’ll find myself a new place
I don’t wanna be the bad guy
I don’t wanna do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just wanna see some palm trees
I will try and shake away this disease

We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die

2

If Boomers have so much money, so much power, along with so much kumbaya, then how can anyone explain the neglect creeping into the mainstream of American life?

American life, by the way, isn’t defined by how many guns you own.

It isn’t defined by the good folks who believe they ‘hear voices’ telling them to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6.

A good life isn’t defined by a disgraced ex-president trading his penthouse for the White House, then a Florida golf resort.

Living a good life is watching the world grow and live together in sweet harmony, and adding your voice to it.

Any group marching around a suburban neighborhood in camo-gear with face coverings and AR-15’s at port arms does not know the joy of a two year old sharing a book, a toy, or a smile.

A better life for baby is the goal.

Alpha-males know their role in making a better life for baby.

Alpha-male baby boomers know it by heart.

Do you?

Are you awake enough, woke enough, or just plain decent enough?