Know Thyself

  In the summer of 1992, after college, as I considered what course to take in the world, my mother suggested the law. I might have considered it more thoroughly at the time had she not followed it with; “You could be a judge, maybe even sit on the Supreme Court!”. She always had delusions…

Plum Chutney and Manhood

  Summer brings a plethora of fruit; the plum tree drops it’s bounty in a ten day span and I was lucky enough to be between jobs to catch it. A weekend spent in the kitchen making jam and chutney. The jam was slow to set and soft when it did, but the chutney tasted…

The road to Tokeland

Heading north from the furnace of Portland was like heading back in time. The smell of firs and spruces sweeter and rounder in the ebbing afternoon heat softer than the sharp pines and oak meadows of my adopted home. The roads I traveled were the roads of my young adulthood; when I was the age…

AM Radio

“The word of God is Love” While working on something and this sentence came out in quotes. At first I could not remember the source. Google was no help, and so I have been trying to decide to use it without citation or rework everything to avoid saying it. Its been a stumbling block.  The…

Dreams are always cleaner.

I knew a man who lived in a small house in a city out west. Overall it was a good life, he had a nice home that he remodeled himself with beautiful oak floors he laid by hand and the sweetest tall legged gas cook stove from the twenties, a good dog and teen age…