Bandwagon Toenails

Sports fans jump from team to team, but not in Portland.  Where else is there to jump after the Blazers?  If you’ve been away from the Blazers but feel the pull to rejoin the crowd, then do it right.
You can’t just start being a fan again.  Oh you can, but that makes you something you [...]

The Line

A man from Oregon’s southwest coast tells about his neck of the woods:
One line across Highway 101 separates two cities, Coos Bay sitting below North Bend.  You could spit from one to the other.
North Bend’s high school, called North Bend High School, does not have the athletic tradition of Marshfield, the Coos Bay high school.  They [...]

Dad Duty

Parents still hold primary responsible for socializing their offspring; fitting them into a cultural framework.  In the end, if they stay out of jail, the whole village celebrates their success. 
If they crack the top ten call list with the local police, there’s only one person to blame, to shun:  The father.  Everytime.  But it’s even [...]

Timing

A guest in the Respite Penthouse has been to a memorial for a friend.
“Dying is an art.  Do it too soon and it’s a tragedy everyone remembers; die too late and you’re the last one out the door.  A beloved middle school teacher dies after twenty years in the classroom and he fills up a [...]

H-O-R-S-E

When it’s more than a game.

Old Dog, Old Tricks

An older couple stayed over last week.  The man did push-ups every morning while his wife counted.
“You’ve noticed that older people need to prove they are more together than you.  Smarter, stronger, richer.  That’s why your dad’s friends size you up, your girlfriend, and your car.  They are competing and they always win.  You didn’t [...]

Wooton Killer

One of the museum guys stayed a night.  He and his wife are reorganizing their home.  He wants a new desk:
“If you piled every desk on earth onto Desk Mountain, a Wooton would be on top.  If desks were outlawed you would hide a Wooton in an attic.  It is the King Of Desks.  After [...]

Your House

A mid-week visitor to DG’s B&B sits on the deck with a glass of wine.  She had been to the Gordon House:
“Americans share a common desire.  We like to sleep under a roof.  We like housing with walls and plumbing and electricity.  We’re funny like that.  No refugee tent for us.  No grass hut, mud [...]

Little League Pays Off

The city is never far away.  If something bad happens, it’s always worse when it’s in the city.  At least it seems that way when small town bully turns into an urban problem.  A visitor explains:
“A woman strolls along the city streets with her date one night.  They turn a corner and see a man [...]

Live The Blues

 

There’s no fanatic like a work-out fanatic.  Those people are also food nuts.  They miss the connection between gym time and beer time.  But not this guy:
“Exercise is a good thing, we hear it all our lives.  Once I got past feeling like dying each time I started running again I started liking exercise.  I look [...]

Dirt Blanket

 
A man with heavily calloused hands tuned up the side yard at DG’s B&B.  He told those within earshot about his specialty.
“If you want to know a city you have to know dirt.  Take Portland, Oregon for example.  From a pleasant canoe stop at a bend in the Willamette River, until the moment two land [...]

Wrong Re-hab

The  meth story ends at a mom and pop funeral parlor where the owners live upstairs.  A shiny metal coffin sat in the chapel with a beautiful young woman inside. 
She wears a conservative suit, the sort of clothes that get people hired at job interviews.  Her four year old son runs up and down the [...]

The Yard

 
A few people reserve rooms at DG’s B&B for guitar weekends.  They play bluegrass and blues one time, jazz the next.  Ray makes the call for the group.  He’s the guy who teaches after-school guitar lessons.
“The special-ed teacher and I talked about guitars at a parent/teacher meeting.  Next thing I know we have a classroom of kids for [...]

The Champ

We keep a copy of The Passion in our video collection.  You never know how some guests at DG’s B&B will react to it.  One time it went like this:
“This was a movie, first of all, not a church service, and needs to be considered in the arena of movies and not religious experience. With [...]

Tea For Daniel Pearl

The ghost of Daniel Pearl visited DG’s B&B recently.  He stopped by to tie up a few loose ends:
“For my next beheading I want a Japanese guy with a samari sword who thinks I’m an allied flier from WWII; I’m asking for a French guy from the revolution who thinks I’m a nobleman; at my beheading [...]