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AUTUMN LEAVES, AUTUMN DOGS, BEST TIME OF YEAR

    How often do dogs change my day? Every day.   And it’s not always my dog.   A walk on a trail, a lady with two frisky hounds, and it’s a lively moment.   Just two middle aged people on a hillside in the wilderness. Sharing the wonder of it all.   Autumn […]

Fighting Chuck Palahniuk, And Portland Inertia

    I didn’t have anything to prove by fighting Chuck Palaniuk, but I did with the fight against inertia on a Sunday where the NFL was on TV and Wordstock was happening on the park blocks. It was a good day to do nothing and there was plenty to back up doing it.   […]

Walking Portland Memory Lane One Alley At A Time

As much as you hear about people moving to Portland, loving Portland once they get here, it’ll never be their home until they’re walking Portland on memory lane.   Like, “This is where I used to play basketball, where I got beat by a five foot six opponent,” didn’t ring up the oooos and ahs […]

Travel Bans From History, Who Should Be Banned

    Travel bans tend to be specific in terms of where to go and where not to go.   Travel bans say one thing: Don’t go there, girlfriend. Stay away, pal.   Like a dress code in the NY disco dancing prime time of the late ’70’s, while punk rock was getting ready to […]

Breitenbush Retreat: Advancing Forward In Peace

    Tell a conservative baby boomer man about a Breitenbush Retreat and expect to hear:   Yeah, sure, we did it all back in college. Sure, it’s all about whatever. What? Oh sure.   The idea of a retreat is foreign to them now that they’ve hit the years that aren’t so kind.   […]

Music Fills The Air, Joy Fills The Body, Repeat

    Music in the Floyd Country Store is more than a radio station. The old time music jams on Sundays bring young and old with fiddles, guitars, mandolins, and banjos.   A big circle passes the song from one to another; new player, new song.   It’s American roots music at its finest and […]

Japanese Exchange Student A Perfect Portland Fit

    What’s better than traveling to new places and meeting the locals? Being the locals and meeting travelers. A Japanese exchange student proved the rule this summer.   With kids out of high school and college you’d think a couple of empty nest boomers would enjoy themselves with the usual things baby boomers get […]

Lighten Up While You Still Can

    When The Eagles sing Take It Easy, the line that stands out for me is, ‘Lighten up while you still can.’ It’s the same when Jackson Browne and James Taylor sing it.   Baby boomers know how hard it is to lighten up better than anyone. Lighting up too, but that’s another post. […]

Run Away From Home, Family, Life. But To Where?

If you were lucky growing up you couldn’t run away. Well you could, but would you end up someplace better?   My hometown is North Bend, Oregon. I attended the same grade school, junior high, and high school all in the same school district. So did most of my graduating class.   We didn’t hear […]

Travel Education Fatigue Makes Well Rounded Snob

  The first time I heard an acquaintance talk about travel education I was impressed as hell. They made me want to do it, to go where they’d been. Then I heard it again, and again. And again. Has this happened to you, travel education fatigue? You need to fight through it.