YOU TIME + ME TIME = OUR TIME

‘Our time’ is full of hope and promise for a better world.

That’s what I learned in kindergarten and it set me on my path.

Maybe it’s a baby boomer notion, or maybe it’s everyone over a certain age who feels that hope.

Either way a better world has been a long time coming and it’s not here yet.

We still check the clock just in case we missed it.

From kindergarten and Miss Spooner, to college and the professors, I’ve passed many milestones.

So have you if you take the time to notice.

This is me on stage at Memorial Coliseum thirty years later during the Portland State University graduation of 1991.

 

 

I started higher education in 1973, quit in 1974 to join the Army.

My English major restart in 1976 ended in 1978 with no degree in sight.

I got married in the mid-80’s and signed up for the duration of night classes and noon classes, racing the clock to graduate with class hours I already had instead of taking them over when requirements change.

It was an extra motivation, along with a wife and two kids, a demanding full-time job, and a mortgage in the suburbs, for a History major.

Did I need extra motivation?

 

Wife: It’s always interesting to me when a parent and a kid graduate from college at the same time. What were they doing for all those years.

Me: I could be one of those.

Wife: No you won’t.

 

Me + You + Time

This is your’s truly over a span of forty-odd years, from Brooklyn NY to Portland suburbs.

Have I always been a big hair guy? Sure looks like it.

What I’ve always been is fair, always tried to be fair.

I haven’t looked to blame anyone or anything for my existence, for how I’ve turned out, and neither should you.

Who do you blame for believing lies and living with mistrust, you ask?

I don’t know since I believe everyone has a story behind their story and I trust they will eventually tell it.

 

 

If you take someone at face value, and it turns out they have more than one face, who do you blame?

The fresh-faced shot of me on the left is what I looked like when I moved to Brooklyn.

With no job, no leads, and little money other than rent and food and subway tokens, I walked all over Manhattan for a few days.

Day One: I wasn’t ‘discovered’ and became a star.

Day Two: I wasn’t the answer to ‘who is the next big thing’ question.

Day Three: I tested and interviewed for an office job in lower Manhattan.

Day Four: I went to work.

The center picture is mid-Wall Street career working in an open-floor office surrounded by people who’d been their months and decades.

I couldn’t tell the difference.

The you-time with my wife changed my habits from what I like to call an urban drifter, the guy with enough money for rent and food but no commitments or time constraints, to locked in husband-father with enough commitments and time constraints to fill eight days a week.

It’s worked out like a prophesy:

 

Ooh I need your love babe,
Guess you know it’s true.
Hope you need my love babe,
Just like I need you.
Hold me, love me, hold me, love me.
Ain’t got nothin’ but love babe,
Eight days a week.

 

Looking back, it’s a routine I still follow every morning of my married life in a compressed time frame.

Discovery, answer, testing, then cleaning the kitchen and emptying the dishwasher.

That’s me on the right five years ago.

 

Yesterday’s Time

Yesterday, Sunday March 1, 2026, in Sellwood.

Jade.

Not this Yesterday:

All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh I believe in yesterday

Suddenly
I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh yesterday came suddenly

 

We had no troubles in Jade yesterday, then cruised the Portland Sellwood neighborhood from magic store, to gift store, to antique store, and nearly got away clean.

It was an afternoon where I looked around for who and what takes up the most time, and made it better.

If you’re half the man you think you are you’ll notice the changes in loved ones, friends, and neighbors.

They may not ask you anything out loud, but you have perceptions, so pitch in.

Be the man you think you are with Me Time, You Time, and Our Time, but pay special attention to Their Time.

‘Their time’ is with the kids learning all about parents and grandparents and dogs.

If you’re a grandparent, try not to make their time all about you.

‘Their time’ is kid time and it’s defined by the parents, not you, so watch and learn.

Do it right and the kids you spend ‘their time’ with will communicate with you in their special way.

Have a role, play a part, in what they’re doing.

If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. The kids will find a role for you, a part to play.

Play your role as if everything depends on it.

 

PS:

I’ve got a dingo family living in my house, but it’s okay since I’m Baby Dingo.

Why am I Baby Dingo? Because Daddy Dingo said so.

Daddy Dingo is a five year old. I didn’t ask how they worked it out.

Momma Dingo is my dog. We’re all happy.

 

PSS:

Being a part of the Dingo family takes a big step.

In the movies it’s called ‘suspension of disbelief.’

In dingo we believe, but I think it’s a phase.

We switched to coyotes and I was still the baby.

In the wolf family? I was baby wolf.

If it’s not a phase, is that a bad thing?

I’m no doctor, but I’m good with the roles we play.