[Spoiler alert: This column is a reprint of one written in December of 2019, before most of us had ever heard of COVID-19. How our thoughts of Christmas celebration have been altered since that time, which seems so very long ago!] Some are suggesting we resort to small, scaled-back, restrained observances. Some are thinking there’s […]
“Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.”— William Cullen Bryant I’m looking out my kitchen window at Mt. Hood on the day before the first day of autumn and see no indication of any change of color in the trees. I imagine by the time you read this, there will be a riot of color as the […]
I have the best job in the world. It’s not because I’m paid a lot of money. It’s not because I’m famous, or because people tell me what a wonderful thing I’m doing. It’s not even because I think I’m helping to make the world a better place. Maybe I should just tell you what […]
When I moved to Boring, Oregon, 46 years ago, it did not take long for all my friends who lived in other places to ask with a smirk, “Is it boring in Boring?” I soon tired of the plethora of jokes and puns about Boring—some of them not printable in a family newspaper like the […]
The title for this column is taken from the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s signature poem The Waste Land: “April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with […]
The windstorm in East Clackamas County last week took us by surprise. It might have begun in the late afternoon, but we were not really aware of it until after dark. To be honest, we didn’t pay much attention till the power went out. We spent the rest of the night idly considering whether we […]
I had just settled my weary bones down in my favorite chair, thinking I ought to go to bed, even though it was early, but too tired even to brush my teeth and undress, when I heard a faint tapping at the door. Not quite cursing, but grumbling, I took my time trudging to the […]
It’s the day after Thanksgiving at the house of my brother-in-law on Mercer Island. I’m helping him and my nephew put up the outside Christmas lights. “I’ll go inside,” he says, “and come out the upstairs window so I can string the upper row of lights. You guys can run three strings across the front […]
Lately I’ve suffered through a spate of films, TV specials, and even novels about adults who had been neglected, mistreated, or abandoned when they were children. In almost every case they grew up to be neurotic, depressed, criminal, psychopathic, or even sociopathic. I got to wondering whether I had missed out on some childhood trauma […]
T.K. Foss never existed. He was a figment of the imagination of generations of sailors at the Naval Academy Prep School at Bainbridge Naval Station Training Center near Baltimore, Maryland. The details of his origin are lost in antiquity–probably sometime in the mid-20th century. At any rate, by 1961 he was established as one of […]