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Way Back When Turning Thirty Was Old Age

    I asked a fifty year old man what turning thirty really meant. I was twenty nine at the time.   He said, “It’s easier wearing a shirt and tie without feeling like a fraud.”   Fraud? That’s it? Shirt and tie?   Way back when turning thirty was old age I asked old […]

Theater In Portland And Tigard, How To Dress

    At some point I’ll probably get used to going to live theater, but it hasn’t happened yet. Actors and clowns still feel a little suspicious. So do writers, but what’re you gonna do.   No one dresses to write, everyone dresses for the theater, at least everyone with gray hair and I’ve got […]

Smart Boston Loves Boomerpdx Portland But It’s Not Enough

    Smart Boston got it’s name by being smart. No news there, not when the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education list of top colleges came out Wednesday, September 27th, 2017.   Do we all agree that the WSJ/THE poll helps smart Boston? With two of the top three colleges in town, there’s […]

John Grisham Novel Camino Island Includes Portland State And A Portland Story Idea

I was cruising Costco and in between food samples of tangy chicken, yogurt drinks, and a new pasta, rolled through the book aisle.   There’s something magic about stacks of books in a big box store. If you’ve got a book on the table you’re a real writer? You’ve arrived? Or is it something worse? […]

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 […]

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 […]

Wellness Luxury: Feeling Good For Doing Good Again

To do good you don’t have to feel good. If you do it’s a wellness luxury, an expression I just made up. Google wellness luxury. This isn’t that sort of post.   Take mental health for example. Nothing makes any difference to you? No one cares about you? Feeling earful about the future? Feeling sad […]

Jenny Forrester Widens The River, Brightens The Sky

  On a night of ash falling across Portland, Willamette Writers gathered inside the Old Church. Wildfires be damned, they came and listened to Jenny Forrester talk about her burning memoir, Narrow River, Wide Sky.   I’ve never been more prepared to hear an author talk it out. First because my exchange student came with […]

Leadership Luxury Between Laws And Lies

    Leadership luxury on boomerpdx say if you testify in court you do it after being sworn in with the same words as anyone else who ever testified in court. I know this from watching TV, since I’ve never testified. Which I believe is a credit to the people and places I know and […]

Blog Relaunch Shoots Blanks, Misses Writing Target

    Thinking of starting a blog, relaunching a blog? Good.   If you’re a writer, then I’m talking to you. Whether you dabble with words, put a few things on paper, or carve out time to organize the book you’ve been writing the past few years, it’s you.   The world of bloggers, columnists, […]