TO: Dean of Extraterrestrial Studies Galactic University, HomeStar FROM: Agent-in-Place, Planet Earth, North American Continent SUBJECT: Local native customs and rituals: “Independence Day” DATE: July 3, 2019, local time Honored Superior: With some trepidation I forward a report on the so-called “work ethic” of this species. Their social system and attitudes toward what […]
While traveling down the Columbia River on Sunday, November 3, 1805, Captain William Clark wrote in his journal: “The Fog so thick this morning that we could not see a man 50 Steps off, this fog detained us until 10 oClock at which time we Set out, accompanied by our Indian friends who are from […]
August, 1932. Mack Hall’s job had taught him it was lonely at the top. Hall was not the commanding officer of a military operation or the CEO of a large industrial conglomerate. He was the Forest Service lookout on the summit of Mt. Hood, the twelfth man who had held that position since its construction […]
The boy was nine when his parents parted company. As the oldest of four children, and the only boy, he naturally assumed he would take his father’s place as man of the house, but a little over a year later his mother remarried. He gradually realized he was just one of the kids. He stubbornly […]
We’ve all seen billboards and newspaper ads saying, “Let’s put Christ back into Christmas.” Back in the day, the argument seemed to be that Christmas had become so commercial and sometimes so downright pagan that Christians everywhere ought to concentrate on restoring the holiday to its former spiritual significance. In the last couple of decades, […]
TO: Dean of Extraterrestrial Studies, Galactic University FROM: Undercover Agent, Planet Earth SUBJECT: Native Customs and Rituals Honored Superior: The vast emptiness of space, coupled with technical difficulties and “sunspot” activity affecting dozens of stars between your system and the one I am occupying, have delayed by ten years (this system’s quaint designation for solar […]
A five-year-old boy is sitting in the middle of the kitchen eating raw oatmeal. The kitchen is one of the two rooms in the tiny house. When his family had moved in, there was only one room, but his father built a cardboard partition to make a distinction between the kitchen and the bedroom. Five […]
Some years ago I attended the Wild West Rough Stock Rodeo at the Northwest Equestrian Center on Highway 26 and Haley Road. Along with most of the audience, I removed my hat, and placed it over my heart when the graceful teen-age girl rode her horse around the arena carrying the American flag. And I […]
With my four little children, on a MAX train bound for Gresham, I met up with a Grandma; she helped me rock the twins to sleep. Then we took turns a-starin’ out the window at the darkness. A saintly glow came over her and she began to speak. She said, “Son, I’ve made a life […]
TO: Dean of Extraterrestrial Studies Galactic University, HomeStar FROM: Agent-in-Place, Planet Earth, North American Continent SUBJECT: Local native customs and rituals: “Independence Day” DATE: July 3, 2019, local time