Russellville Lives. SM

 

                                                                                   Sharron Morita

My friend Vincenza Scarpaci told me I should meet her friend Sharron Morita because Vincenza knew of my mission to discover the most interesting residents of Russellville Park and share their stories with our other cabin-mates on this mysterious voyage. Those who know Vincenza are cognizant of the truth that Vin is never wrong.

Sharron and her husband, Paul, have lived at Russellville for the past six years of their 55-year marriage and it did not take long for Sharron to become immersed in the social life of the community by serving as treasurer of Russellville's Community Service Board. Life patterns of community service seldom change.

Raised in Auburn, NY, she moved to Bridgeton, NJ, to take a job on the local newspaper after graduating in Journalism from Syracuse University. Sharron's editor sent her to write a story about an anti-poverty agency in Bridgeton and it was just another assignment until she interviewed the CEO of the operation. His evasive responses when she started asking questions about the collection and disbursement of money set off warning bells in her reporter's mind and it would launch an investigation that became a two-year episodic series of articles. Interviewing hundreds of sources, her compelling search for facts about the agency resulted in Sharron being awarded the prestigious New Jersey Press Association's Lloyd P. Burns award for responsible journalism and public service.

Sharron's editor at the paper kept after her to meet this friend of his, Paul Morita, who had a dental practice in Bridgeton. They met and Sharron cleverly became Paul's patient because you can learn a lot about a man by the way he shoots novocaine into your gums.

Paul is a Japanese-American whose family was sent to an internment camp in Amache, CO, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They were allowed to leave the camp toward the end of the war to move to a small farming community outside Bridgeton, where Paul's parents worked for a large food processing company, Seabrook Farms, that hired a diverse body of employees. They included refugees from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Germany and Poland, as well as some residents from Jamaica. Sharron would later submit a manuscript about that unusual community to a publisher and to her delight it was accepted. The title is Bridgeton, New Jersey: City on the Cohansey.

Paul went to high school in Bridgeton and then after graduating from the University of Maryland earned his dental degree from Baltimore Dental College. He practiced in Bridgeton for 45 years and was much loved by his patients. He retired when his dexterity no longer met his own high standards.

The Catholic Church has played an important role in Sharron's life, although she admits it's hard to be a woman in that institution. She supported the ordination of women in the '80s. In her parish in New Jersey she chaired the liturgy committee while serving as a Eucharistic minister and lector (a person chosen to read holy scripture in the church services). She is a lector at Russellville for Catholic Mass. In 2007 Sharron earned a Master's degree in Theology from LaSalle University.

Wow.

Tim Morita, one of their sons, moved to Portland and loved everything about the city; he was a principal factor in bringing his parents to the Pacific Northwest. When Paul experienced some medical issues, Tim urged them to make the move to Russellville. Sharron agrees that it was a wise choice.

Thanks, Vincenza. You're batting a thousand.

Jungle Jim Loscutoff

Anyone who followed professional basketball in the ‘60s will remember the small forward for the Boston Celtics, Jim Loscutoff.  At 6’5” and 220 lbs of solid muscle. he was an opposing player’s worst nightmare.  He learned the game on the streets of Palo Alto, California and became a legend playing at the University of Oregon.  Jim and I lived in the same fraternity and shared the same birthday (Feb.4, 1930) but he got all the good stuff.

The son of Russian immigrants, Loscutoff was a charismatic figure on the small campus of the university where he acquired admirers for his ability to find where the fun was, whether it was occurring, on or off the basketball court (He once left the bench when pulled from a game Oregon was winning big and went to a hallway hotdog stand and returned eating the weenie).

Jim was a master manipulator of yo-yos and would do pre-game exhibitions of amazing yo-yo tricks.  Those antics, of course, brought the house down in historic MacArthur Court.

And, oh my, was he a hit off the court as Jungle Jim and his entourage roamed the campus looking for the action.  If they didn’t find it, they created it.  One time at a charity auction fund-raiser, Loscutoff and Jack Faust (a talented musician and creative showman) were purchased by the Alpha Chi Omega sorority to do their act which involved Faust singing while strumming his banjo as Loscutoff flexed his muscles and did dance moves.  But shortly into their act, Loscutoff spontaneously leaped onto a chair next to Faust and started playing the zipper of his fly like a musical instrument, up and down in rhythm with Jack’s banjo.  Can you hear the shrieking, stomping, and clapping of the sisters of Alpha Chi Omega? Can you see the sorority house mother  powering her way to the performers, arms waving and screaming for them to leave immediately?

And so the legend of Jungle Jim Loscutoff grew and grew.  Some time later Loscutoff was expelled from the University for another incident, but that’s another story.

Rus'vil''Echo 12/18/'21

 As a resident in the Russellville Park retirement community,  I am privy to much of what’s happening in this remarkable encampment of citizens who have stepped back from playing the role of slave to the the dictates of a clock and now march (however slowly) to the  cadence of their own drum.

What a crew. Take Bob who once ran a maximum security state prison in New Jersey and once a week, in the evening, would walk alone among the inmates. These were not choir- boys. Or Rodney who spent his working life among archival treasures, including those of the New York Public Library.  Or Lou the one-time California state patrolman who would chase you down at 100 miles an hour and run you into the ditch if you didn’t pull over. Then smile and wish you a really nice day as he handed you your summons. Or Betty who is 102 and will sprinkle an expletive or two in telling you about her adventures in San Fransisco during WWII.

And on and on. This place is full of residents with great stories.  Which results, if you keep your ears open, in entertaining eavesdropping.

Lady seated at a table for lunch greeting her approaching friend: “ Hi, I see you found your teeth.”

“Oh, look, is that the new woman from the fifth floor?”

“Which woman?”

“That one, with the grey hair”

“Well, you’ve narrowed it down to 50.  Thanks.”

Diner to server who has just delivered a plate of food to him: “What’s that supposed to be?”

Server: “Not sure, but there’s a lot more of it in the kitchen.”

Mary Barrett greets a new resident: Hi,  my name’s Mary, welcome to Russellville.”

“Hello, Mary, my name is Ruth”

                       (They chat)

Ruth: “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

“My name is Mary, Ruth”

“Your name is Mary Ruth?”

“No, Ruth, my name is Mary.”

That’s the news from Russellville.

Russellville Lives J&B H

Joan and Bob Hatrak

Joan and Bob Hatrak are recent residents in the Russellville family of no-longer-young citizens and in addition to being a very nice couple, they have a terrific backstory.  One of these days you will be able to read all about it in a book the two of them are writing. They have a publisher and when it comes out it is going to get a lot of attention.

Between 1973 and 1979 Bob Hatrak was Superintendent (Warden) of the high security  Rahway State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey.  Two years prior to Hatrak’s arrival the convicts rioted causing horrific damage to the prison and almost killing its then warden.  Violence continued to be an issue as Bob Hatrak was sent in to clean it up.  The book will be the story of that restoration of order and the national attention it brought to that troubled institution.

At the time he became chief executive of Rahway he was the youngest prison warden in the nation and that complicated his mission as he introduced creative new programs that were not admired by many of the old boy administrators in other prisons.  Prophets of change are not universally loved

Bob’s a big guy, hard to miss (somewhere up his family’s genetic stream a grizzly bear might have been involved), and Joan the writer is alway by his side, ready to catch any slips in Bob’s memory. If you see them in the dining room, go over and say hello.  They are a welcome addition to our small village of former lives.

Dolores Taylor

 Missed the Saturday dance, heard they crowded the floor, couldn’t bear it without you, don’t get around much anymore.

Sometimes I think my life is dancing to the beat of old WW II songs.  Since losing Georgann in 2018 and moving to Russellville Park, I don’t get around much anymore.  But Dolores Taylor died a couple of weeks ago and the trip to Grants Pass from Portland for her memorial service was not given a second thought.

Dee was a member of the class of 1948 at Grants Pass High School.  As was I.  From that class of 300-plus in 1944, I know of only nine or ten who could answer, “Yo” to the roll call now. There may be a few others. But for us survivors,  Dee’s passing had a special sense of loss because among our classmates she was the central unifying force; the one who organized the reunions every five years and kept the trains running on time.

There were no students of color in our school because Grants Pass observed Sundown laws until the late ‘50s. One of the few beacons of light in our community was the Newman Methodist Church where the Reverend Ed Aschenbrenner preached sermons of racial enlightenment and where one of his sons, Lawrence Alden, was a classmate of Dee Braden and Bill Landers.  Who knows if Larry’s and Dee’s “going steady” in high school led to Dee’s lifelong membership in the church, but there is little doubt the preaching of Ed Aschenbrenner planted the seeds of social justice in the mind and soul of Dolores Braden. 

If you polled our class as to who the stars turned out to be, Dee and Larry would head the list. As a young lawyer in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Larry opened a law office in the belly of the beast, Jackson, Mississippi, at the height of the Civil Rights movement to defend African Americans. He ended his career in Anchorage, Alaska as an advocate for Native Alaskans (we called him Lawrence of Alaska).

In less dramatic fashion, Dee made public service the focus of her life. Standing tall in the shadow of the Reverend Ed Aschenbrenner, she lived her life in Grants Pass as a high school teacher of English, all the while taking active roles in a multitude of public service organizations.

So, on a warm autumn day in October, her friends and family gathered to celebrate her life well lived as a Christian soldier, marching as to war.  Dee and I were special friends with a bond that became closer over all those years. I will miss that girl a lot.

We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.

 

Russellville Lives. NP

                                                                                                  Nadine Patterson

There are probably few Russellville residents who lead lives as busy as that of Nadine Patterson.  Finding the time to honor her commitments is nothing new to Nadine because running on that hyper-speed treadmill has defined her life for as long as she can remember. Start with her childhood family where she had four brothers and three sisters.  That puts all the leaves in the dining room table and makes a social environment that is a powerful character builder.  The lessons learned from those interactions with her siblings translated easily to the social contract we have with our fellow citizens: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  You know, the Golden Rule.

It’s interesting that Nadine chose nursing as a career path. She is a RN who used her medical training to make people’s lives better but took it beyond nursing to organize programs that brought in other volunteers to expand the impact of what she could accomplish working alone. After Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida in 1992, Nadine led a movement from her South Carolina home that gathered quantities of rescue supplies that she and her son transported to that stricken state.

We should note here that Nadine Patterson did not spend her life on the left coast. Her home base was in Ohio and South Carolina for her first 81 years.  Nadine’s marital scoreboard during that time read:  Husbands 2, Sons 1.  That one son is why Nadine is in Portland.  He brought her here so he could know she was living well.  That was seven years ago and we are pleased to report she is doing just fine.

Meanwhile, back on the right coast in 2005 there was Hurricane Katrina, a huge Category 5 storm that killed 1,800 people on America’s Gulf coast and, again, brought Nadine into full action mode. When her rescue plans met obstacles, she went around them by renting a big truck with a 15-foot bed which she piled high with survival supplies.  She and a fireman friend drove the truck to a small Mississippi town overflowing with storm refugees.  Between hurricanes, Nadine was a perpetual motion rescue machine. She used church affiliations to participate in setting up a medical clinic in a church in the Ukraine. Just as she did working with medical missions to remote villages in Mexico.  It is not surprising to learn that a Fraternal organization in Ohio, in 2008, recognized Nadine Patterson as Co-Worker of the year.

Since arriving in Russellville Park,  Nadine never slowed down. She became active in the Community Services Board for charitable actives that included getting school supplies for students and staff, as well as support for Raphael House, the shelter for abused women and family members.  Also, HomelessVeterans is one of the charities they  took on.

Someone needs to film the Nadine banana bread operation in her small kitchen (background music of an orchestra playing the William Tell Overture) as pounds of flour fly into mixing bowls and the power blender assaults ancient bananas,  See the cooling rack on the counter that will welcome the hundred little loaves that will go on sale for $3.00 each.  And guess who paid for all those ingredients?

Our world would be a poorer place without the occasional Nadine Patterson who separates from the pack to show us the way to a humane life of meaningful consequence.  Nadine would make the point that in celebrating the completion of large projects we must not overlook the thousands of small individual contributions made by other helpers that ultimately wins the day.

The Secret Lives of Feral Aardvarks

A recent poll sponsored by the National Geographic Magazine found that the least interesting mammal in the world is the North American aardvark and a close second is the South African aardvark. This suggests why only 24 people in the world kept aardvarks as pets and four of those people were cousins. (Probably 28% to 46% of the people who started reading this column have stopped reading two  sentences back).  But there is more to learn about aardvarks.

The reason they make terrible pets (besides being gobstruck ugly) is that they are nocturnal and will keep you awake all night with their grunting and burrowing. Good luck with your backyard landscaping because that long pig-like snout of the aardvark will have it upside down in a matter of hours.

Also, the aardvark will eat anything from your shoes to your couch pillows and your good intentions. That last item, eating good intentions, is a mystical, almost unbelievable, supernatural gift the animal has for capturing people’s positive thoughts and converting them into aardvark sustenance.  It sounds crazy but the research that documents this phenomenon is indisputable.

Trying to make pets of aardvarks causes them to go feral, which leads to their full arsenal of bad behavior.  Another thing: they have notoriously bad breath and can’t see colors.

Russellville Lives. BG

                                                                                               Betty Greer

My next door neighbor, Betty Greer, was born in Portland, Oregon on the 20th day of October, 1919.  Yeah, do the math. The defining feature of Betty, however, is not her age but, rather, her warm, delightful personality.  The easy laughs that color her conversations lets you know you've found a person with whom you want to share some time.

As an only child, Betty Dunlap received the full loving attention of her father, which was probably an off-putting circumstance for her mother, who developed a contentious relationship with her daughter.  As a little girl, Betty recalls being forced to cut willow switches (no wimpy little ones were acceptable) for her own applied discipline.  This had the effect of making the bond with her father even closer.

The stock market crash of 1929 brought on a financial disaster for the Dunlap family.  Her father's construction business that had supported their privileged lifestyle was wiped out along with millions of others in depression-era America.  Betty attended the prestigious Ulysses S. Grant High School where now she wore clothing from low end stores.  But clothes don't affect the life spark that fuels the spirit and Betty didn't miss a beat. She and her friends weathered the storm.

Betty's parents couldn't afford college for her but they managed to send her to a secretarial school and she absorbed those skills and found employment as a secretary although those first jobs only paid 30 1/2 cents an hour. She later landed employment with a government bureau that paid better. A favorite colleague at work was a young, Japanese-American woman who, after the Pearl Harbor attack, was swept away to the holding area in the Portland Stock Yards for people of Japanese descent. This cruel treatment of American citizens enraged Betty's mother and even though the Dunlap family had little spare money themselves, she and Betty went on a shopping spree for groceries and personal hygiene items, filling two large bags, which they took to the stock yards for her friend's family.  After the Japanese families were moved to Idaho, Betty lost track of her colleague. 

Early in the war, Betty and her friend Isabell went on a great adventure to Baghdad by the Bay, San Francisco.  Both of their mothers were out of sync with their daughters so the girls, who were 19, just ran away from home. If you live in Oregon, San Francisco is California's magic city and it became  home for Betty and Isabell for the next three years.  One evening they visited the bar in San Francisco's iconic Palace Hotel and Betty noticed a group of seven soldiers checking them out.  An advance scout from the squad approached Betty and told her he and his friends were new to the city and wondered if the two girls would consider showing them the town?  A nervous Betty confessed that neither of them knew the city to which the scout announced that would be perfect with all of them discovering the charms of San Francisco together.

Can you see the movie?  Betty and Isabell escorted by a platoon of the U. S. Army's finest, dancing up and down San Francisco's famous Lombard Street?  Their limo negotiating those San Francisco streets with the occupants leaning out the windows, waving to the crowds?  Open up that Golden Gate for Betty and Isabell as they lift the morale of our country's warriors. 

In 1944 as World War II was coming to an end, Betty met and married Stan Greer.  Stan worked for Pacific Metal Company of Tualatin, Oregon, where, over the years, he became president of the company. During those years, Stan and Betty brought along two daughters and two sons to brighten their home and the family became active in the Rose City Presbyterian church. Stan's job as president of the company allowed them the opportunity to travel internationally which they both enjoyed.

A hobby of Stan's led him to becoming a skilled magician who entertained at children's birthday parties. In Betty's words, "He was really good."  Stan Greer became a popular city celebrity. 

Starting sometime wayyyy back in that other century, Betty Dunlap did something truly amazing: She started writing a journal in lined notebooks.  All those notebooks today occupy multiple stacks on her closet shelf and it is my belief the Oregon Historical Society would love to get their hands on them.

Break out the candles and stand by with the fire extinguisher.  October 20 is just around the corner.

   

Russellville Lives JG

                                                                      Jane Gregory

Jane Gregory talks to her plants but only the corn has ears. Wait a minute, she doesn't have corn, but she swears there is communication between herself and her botanical family.  She might be right because everything seems to be in harmony with her wishes. Jane's garden is simply a delight to ponder.  Kind of like the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, but without the admission charge.

Jane, Jane, please explain,

How does your garden grow?

Loving words, and stuff from birds,

And pretty pots all in a row.

Some people have the gift of communicating with vegetation and some people make flowers wilt. Jane comes by her talent honestly in that she chose to be born in Idaho, then when she was 3,  her education in Agriculture 101 began after the family moved to the big farm country near Ontario, Oregon.  The vegetable garden was her classroom as it was an important food source for her family.  In her later adult life wherever she lived, Jane would always grow vegetables and flowers. 

A graduate of  Eastern Oregon College, Jane took her degree in Education, met and married her husband of 45 years, moved to Portland, where she taught and with her Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Portland, served as a classroom teacher-librarian for 32 years.  Jane gave up her Mrs. degree when she and her husband went separate ways 21 years ago.

Jane is in her third summer at Russellville Park.  Her total focus when choosing an apartment was how it would fit her plans for an elaborate garden. How would the garden site relate to the rays of the sun during the changing seasons? The large second floor deck adjacent to her garden was a plus as was the high south wall that was acoustically enabling of Jane's conversations with her plants.  It would help her understand when they were happy and when they were sad.  To know when a hydrangea’s neighbor was creating too much shade or when a flowering maple tree needed a drink.  The long strip of real estate next to that wall would become her garden and that was the deal maker for Jane. 

Roy Garbarino is a friend who provides heavy lifting when needed as well as supplying encouragement for Jane's green spirituality.  Roy is considered the Electrician Emeritus for the greater Portland metropolitan area and he regrets his Italian heritage doesn't give him better gardening chops. He has provided a small greenhouse, which will allow Jane to work from seeds next season to add to the many plants brought from her Gresham yard.  Almost three years ago she went to a Gresham nursery and engaged the services of professionals to insure that her plantings would be in harmony with each other.  Then friends and relatives contributed plants while Jane continued to find just one more indispensable acquisition and soon .the magic of alternate life forms transformed a corner of her Russellville home. Jane welcomes visitor who come to view her green world and she asks everyone to help identify unknown species.

If Jane Gregory keeps her patch looking more and more like the Biblical Garden of Eden, Roy will be obligated to scout around and find her a serpent that speaks English.

             .

My Way With The Subway

We need to celebrate people in our society who get their concept vision right and then maintain the integrity of their accomplishment and resist the temptation to monetize small changes to increase profits. I applaud the owners of the Subway Sandwich franchise who have done that.  Their moderately priced offerings are fresh and delicious but the satisfaction of eating the sandwich can be enhanced if you know the secrets I have discovered by years of experimenting.

First, always order the full 12” option because the cost difference for the 6” one is minor and the fabrication process just results in a better product working with the longer bun.

The designers of the sandwich cleverly made the connection of the upper bun and the lower bun (let’s call it the  "hinge”) a good solid bridge that allows the backstopping of limitless additions to your basic meat or veggie option.  I prefer cold cuts (baloney in my mind) and then I load it untoasted with stuff. Cheese. Lettuce. Tomato. Onion. Cucumber. Olives.  The fabricator slams it all in there because that hinge withstands the pressure of the final folding over and the tight wrapping that keeps everything together.

Here's the final secret:  Do not eat it as if it’s a hotdog.  It will be cut in half so start at the cut end but take the first bite at the opening of the top and bottom bun.  Bits of all that stuffing will be pressing out along the length of the bun so by taking small bites you seal that edge, pressing everything against the hinge.

Now you have a sealed torpedo (or submarine) that you eat while always slanting slightly in, compacting the add-ons against the core ingredient and the hinge.  If you’re up to it, repeat the procedure with that other half or put the other half in the fridge for later.

Trust me.

Russellville Lives CF

                                                                                              Charles Foss

As a child Charlie Foss didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up and then he grew up and it came to him. Like all of his friends in that southern town of Sportsburg, South Carolina, he was smoking cigarettes at age 13 but it didn’t stunt his growth as he grew to be 6’ 3” by the time he graduated from high school. He was a good student and was accepted for admission to the prestigious Yale University where, in his Sophomore year, he made a life changing decision: more about that later.

Early in his life his family was what he called stay-at-home Episcopalian but later they began attending church on a regular basis and Charlie became involved in those ecclesiastical activities. Those early 1960s were troubled years for everyone in America including students. The assassinations, the Vietnam protests, the Civil Rights marches were all contributing influences that led to the dramatic life changing decision Charlie made in his Sophomore year at Yale: he would devote his life to the church by becoming an Episcopal priest.

About that same time, one morning after a night of drinking and smoking with fraternity brothers, he found a burned hole in his favorite shirt and that day Big Tobacco lost another one.

After leaving Yale, Charlie was working in the Fourth Ward Clinic in Houston, Texas in a run down ghetto, heavily African-American and Hispanic. The clinic, established by The Church of the Redeemer, a charismatic Episcopal parish, was the only healthcare for 10,000+ people in the shadow of oil-rich central Houston.  The supervisor he reported to was a young woman named Gwendolyn Frieson.  Although Charlie and Gwen had separate parents, they both shared the same DNA that guided them into working 60-hour weeks and living in a 35-resident mansion rented to the clinic for a dollar a year.  Like wild flowers that can grow out of cracks in concrete, romance can flower from long days and nights of two people working together to bring comfort to other lives. After a year and a half they married on Texas Independence Day, 1974, before over 1,000 people followed by a reception for 450 thrown by an African-American congregation near the clinic.  In the years to come Charlie and Gwen replaced themselves with a son and a daughter, and eventually three grandchildren.

Gwen gave up an offer of a PhD program at Columbia or a chance to set up a baccalaureate  nursing program in Madras, India to marry Charlie and within a year he started his seminary training.  After obtaining his PhD at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, he started working as an assistant Rector at St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal church in La Jolla, California.  It was frustrating to the young priest to bring fresh eyes to old rituals and have his ideas given no consideration because, “This is how we’ve always done it.”  But Charlie persevered.   And he was among a limited number of Episcopal priests who also played the pipe organ.    

His last 14 years before retiring after 30 years as a priest was spent as Rector of an Episcopal church in Rock Hill, South Carolina where it all began.  The small brick building was graced with a magnificent stained glass window a patron had purchased from a well known artist in New York City.  It was installed by a team of German craftsmen and when hurricane Hugo came through in 1989 the window survived even though bricks were blown off the building.

Charlie’s sermons were originals from the pulpit on Sunday morning.  He had not spent hours composing and rewriting and polishing phrases.  The words just came from his inner vault of beliefs applied to the moment. His preaching was well received by his congregation because his style was “down home” but it came from a solid Christian philosophy that had marinaded in his soul for decades.  His pleasant baritone voice carries tones of South in the mouth which adds to the charm of his delivery.

It did not surprise me to learn a favorite hobby of Charlie’s is gardening.  You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to discover his connection with plant culture and his fascination with the mysteries of the human comedy.  

Charlie and Gwen’s lifelong rituals of volunteering their service to various charitable programs has continued while living at Russellville Park.  That includes working both in church activities as well as general public projects such as Schoolhouse Supplies, the organization that collects and disperses school items for needy students and office staffs all around the Portland Metro area.

If Russellville Park has an epicenter where spiritual and intellectual thoughts combine it could well be in apartment 227E.

       

                                                                  

Russellville Lives TM

                                                                                                     

                                                                       Taka Mizote

Award-winning author Daniel Brown (The Boys In The Boat) has written a current best seller,  Facing The Mountain. It is a true story of Japanese American heroes in World War II.  Taka Mizote and her sisters, Aya Fuji and Lily Kiyokawa could have stepped out of the pages of Daniel Brown’s manuscript.  

Taka’s parents were in that wave of Japanese immigrants who came to America at the turn of the century in the 1900s, searching for a life better than the one of hopelessness in Japan.  The immigrants took low-paying jobs building railroads, working crops,  mining. But working for poverty level wages, Taka’s parents saved enough to take ownership of a 50-acre farm near Hillsboro, Oregon and send a daughter, Kate, to Oregon State College.  The American dream.

Then December 7, 1941 and the attack at Pearl Harbor that would change the lives of the Iwasaki family forever.

 Taka’s father had been aware of the growing hostility between Japan and America but the events in Hawaii brought a terrible shock to him and his family. Laws prevented Taka's parents from ever becoming American citizens, but she and her seven siblings were all born in America and so were citizens.  Be proud of your American citizenship, her father told them, and do everything you can to support your country.

Taka dreaded going to school the Monday after the attack, wondering how her classmates would treat her.  It turned out they treated her with kindness as the American citizen she was.  In most of America that was not the case.

Because of the curfew imposed on her family, Taka could not attend graduation with her classmates at Hillsboro High School but received her diploma through the mail.  The Iwasaki family soon was ordered to leave their farm and join other Japanese Americans in a temporary holding facility at a relocation center near the Portland stockyards (an old Civilian Conservation Corps’ camp).  A friend and neighbor leased their farm and took good care of it until the end of the war.

The family later was moved to a camp in Idaho, where they lived until the war ended. Oregon State Freshman Kate was given help transferring to Hamline University in Minnesota, where she earned her degree.

Taka did not let the horrendous dislocations of the war years define her life. Right from the start she set her mind to consider the relocation camps to be like the summer camps she had gone to as a young girl. She knew the war would end someday and she was encouraged to pursue an education until that happened.  She attended the College of Idaho for three years and then transferred to Pacific University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Reading was difficult for her because she had never had adequate training in reading skills from the start.  In high school and college she read only what she had to and it wasn’t until later working with students in the reading lab at Madison High School in Portland that she discovered the important role reading played in a person becoming truly educated.  Japanese Buddhist’s have a word for Taka’s enlightenment: Satori.  It was a career-changing experience as she trained to become a teacher.

Cancer took her daughter Laurie Jean in 1967 and her husband Jimmy passed away in 1976.  That was when she started her life in the schoolhouse as a counselor's secretary at Madison High school. She started working with emotionally handicapped students and a couple of years later  opened a class for those students while working for the Gresham Public Schools.  When a job teaching first grade for the Powell Valley School opened she began a 17-year mission of insuring that those young scholars would have a solid foundation in the skills of reading.

Then Taka retired. She lived in a retirement community in NE Portland for six years before moving to Russellville with her sisters Aya and Lily in 2014.  It's a long winding trail of laughter and tears from her apartment on Russellville's second floor to those pathetic raw-board shelters provided her family by the government of the United States.  Her country.

Taka's two brothers and her late husband, Jimmy Mizole, served in the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team.  During the course of the war, 18,000 Nisei soldiers fought in that proud company of warriors.

 The treasure Taka has brought to her life is daughter Marilyn Jane Sholian and Marilyn's husband, Jeff, who gave her granddaughter Katie and grandson Peter.  The gifts that keep on giving.

Russellville Lives GC

                                                                                      Gerry Caldwell

The Oregonian newspaper in 1991 published a picture of Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts watching a CNN TV report showing Desert Storm General Norman Schwarzkopf visiting an army postal station with an American soldier.  The caption read:  Oregon's Governor asks, "Who's that General with Gerry Caldwell?"  That may be apocryphal but maybe not.  Gerry Caldwell knows a lot of people and a lot of people know Gerry Caldwell. 

Born in 1940 and raised in Portland, Oregon, Gerry experienced the city's 1940's Jim Crow rules for African American citizens when Black musical superstars would perform in Stumptown but were refused lodging there.  They instead were housed in private homes in Northeast Portland and on one enchanted evening Gerry's parents hosted Lionel Hampton. 

You could call Gerry gregarious, but you just couldn't call him tall.  So at Washington High School he satisfied his love of football by becoming the team's manager.  It set a lifelong pattern of making friendships while making himself an indispensable player wherever the action was.  After high school one day he was downtown when the sky opened to a cloudburst so intense that Gerry ducked into the first doorway he could find to escape the deluge.  It turned out to be an army recruiting station and the start of 28 years of service in the regular army and reserve units.  He found himself in Vietnam advising Vietnamese troops before the actual beginning of American combat engagement.

While stationed in Japan, Gerry went with some buddies to a Lionel Hampton concert and got seats down front.  At the end of the performance a runner came to say Lionel wanted to see him backstage.  After all those years he remembered Gerry from that home stay.

He was in the Reserves when he got a job with the First National Bank as a bookkeeper and became friends with the bank's president.  That friendship led to his becoming the first Black manager of a branch in Portland.

Gerry considers a top highlight of his life to be the parade he put together from scratch for the 1977 Trail Blazers after they won the NBA national championship.  The First National Bank was a team sponsor and when it came down to the last two games and it was apparent Bill Walton's gang might actually pull it off, the need for a parade became clear,  The bank president told the Blazer management and Portland's mayor that if anybody could organize an overnight parade it was his man Caldwell.

He got an 18-wheeler flatbed truck from the Rose Festival's Starlight parade and cut red tape with the help of his friend the police chief to park it overnight near the train depot.  He got a high school jazz band with the help of a  school band director friend.  He got a friend connected with  Raz Transportation to bus the bandsmen back from the parade's end.  He pulled it all together and Portlanders lined the streets and went nuts cheering their team.  Hey! Who's that guy sitting on the flatbed with his legs dangling off the end?  

Forty years ago Gerry was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and now lives with his wheeled chair. But oh what memories he has of all those friends who shared his ride on that magical merry go round, grabbing the brass ring on every circuit.

  

A Sentimental Journey Part II

Together again after 31 years, Bill Landers and Karen Mauldin remembering generations of student strivers to whom they brought comfort and joy in the classrooms of America.

A few dings on the fenders and a couple of suspect timing belts but plenty of Premium High-Test in their tanks.    Look out world.

A Sentimental Journey

 

Slipping away to go back down the starry midnight trail to the enchanted forest of old memories is something all of us no-longer-young citizens do from time to time.  We're allowed.  Making that trip in real time rarely happens but a few weeks ago it did for me.  I sold my Jostens sales territory to Brian Coushay 31 years ago and recently he invited me to lunch where he told me of a special gathering of old and new Jostens representatives (reps) that would take place in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It was to honor the retirement of Karen Mauldin.

Karen Mauldin.

 In the fifteen years I ran a Jostens territory, Karen and I developed a friendship that had a dimension beyond the purely business dealings. Lots of laughs and then one day when I got old I decided to retire.  And who flew in from Minnesota on her own dime for my retirement party?  Yeah, the girl herself.

I, like every salesman who has ever worked for Jostens in the last 44 years,  knows Karen as the Queen of the hive who ensures that when the annual accounting is made, every comb is overflowing with honey.  To understand the respect the sales reps have for her you need to know Jostens mission statement: it is organized to recognize student achievement in the high schools of America. Products associated with graduation. Apparel with school identification.  Class rings.  Academic award certificates. Athletic awards. Everything designed to connect the individual student to the school.

In this kind of operation lots can go wrong. Size, color, wording and on and on.  The plants depend on the reps to send in accurate specifications for each individual. And the plants are not allowed to make errors even if human beings design and produce the individual products in plants scattered around different parts of the nation. And each plant has people like Karen Mauldin who control the levers that route the individual products to the right school to the right student.

 Karen Mauldin spent 44 years as the liaison between the plant and the sales reps and she made that crazy circus work: the clown car discharges its load just before the elephant picks the car up and the man on the flying trapeze  grabs the swing in the nick of time.  That interaction between Karen and the hundreds of reps was an annual wild buffalo stampede that tested the minds and the physical endurance of all parties concerned.

But every year, somehow, it worked and every Jostens rep knew that girl in Minnesota juggling the active chainsaws was a big part of why it worked. And the positive effect it had on their settlement check. So, on August 8th in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho a group of reps brought Karen out to a foot-stomping, shouting celebration of her retirement.  War stories were told and she was forced to admit the truth to the rumor she kept a dartboard in her home to which she would affix pictures of certain reps and power launch her darts. Then the presentation of an Apple watch from her NorthWest cult members.

I don't travel a lot these days but I wouldn't have missed that Hidey-ho in Idaho for a million bitcoins.

Russellville Lives RH

                                                             

                                                              Robert Hensel

Let's see, will it be easier to tell you what Bob Hensel hasn't done in his life or what he has done? First you need to know that he and Apple's Steve Jobs share one characteristic regarding their work ethos: perfect is the only acceptable standard.  And Bob is nicer to people than Steve was.

He carries the Methuselah gene, a gift from his parents at the time of his birth in 1946,  making him a young 75 today.  His paternal aunt checked out at 103. It's approaching Bob's third year at Russellville Park and his ownership of two parking spaces in the east garage will tip you off to how his interior timing belt is programmed.

See, Bob Hensel is all about machinery, whether it's a piece of equipment the size of a railroad boxcar that is designed to make multiple thin threads or a device to stamp out microphones the size of a grain of sand.  How about his collection of six vintage Volkswagens to which he gave loving care and took to car shows where he won a roomful of trophies?  Is that a toothbrush he's using on those wheel spokes?

Bob will confess to not being Albert Einstein in elementary and high school, but he did enjoy his wood shop and metal shop classes.  Particularly metal shop. When he graduated in 1964 the first thing he did was travel to Europe and spend 10 weeks riding a bicycle on a 1,000 mile adventure with a diverse group of cyclists . While in Europe he was notified that he must register for the draft and he knew Vietnam was not his cup of tea. So he signed on to a six-year enlistment in the Air Force Reserve where he was classified as an aircraft engine mechanic.  It left him time to get a job as an apprentice machinist where he acquired more skills to add to his personal tool chest.  The war in Vietnam ended as did his hitch in the reserves, so he moved around to a lot of different jobs before enlisting in the United States Air Force and reserves where he served for 22 1/2 years. 

Those years in the Air Force gave him opportunities for learning high tech computer application and aircraft maintenance.  Using the G.I. Bill at the end of his enlistment he entered college and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology in Manufacturing.  Those post-Air Force years were a parade of jobs working with different companies as his expertise evolved, building and installing complicated machinery.  Bob's affinity for making high-tech machinery behave took him all over the world, from England and Germany to the exciting industrial culture of Hong Kong.  His "been there" pins fill a map of planet Earth's industrialized nations.

Now Bob Hensel's relaxed second life at Russellville is devoted to the search for the perfect cars  to occupy those two  slots in the east basement garage and to his enjoyment of building incredibly complicated models of houses and machines, from cars to helicopters.  Walk by his #245 apartment and look at the model car he built displayed on the shelf outside his door.  All wood.  Tiny little parts that move.  All put together with precision by that master machinist inside the apartment, plotting his next acquisitions of perfect machines.  

  

Russellville Lives RG

                                                        

                                                                     Roy Garbarino        

                    Here is a fact: Roy Garbarino's life as a business man was hugely successful.  Here's another fact:  If Harvard Business School were to do a case study of Roy's success it would drive them nuts. And therein lies a tale.

Roy is 91 and looks much younger.  Works out every day and since the 1950s has walked to the moon and back so always stayed trim with good posture.  He's been an inmate at Russellville since 2019.  As a young man he was an indifferent student in school but his grades were still OK.  Graduating from high school in Gresham, Oregon in 1949, Roy had no master plan for his life's journey.  The winds of war were blowing in from the Korean peninsula and creating a draft in America, so Roy and three of his buddies dodged it by enlisting in the U.S. Air Force.

After the war he found himself a 25 year old civilian without a clue as what he should do with his life. No job. Broke. So he says to himself, "Maybe I should get married."  A pattern is forming here. Not the best decision under the circumstances but an excellent result: 58 years together with a family of one son and two daughters.  But, with a new wife, it was apparent that employment was a prime objective and so Roy started cold calling on different craft unions, looking for an apprentice job. He scored with the electrician's union and was on his way to becoming a certified electrician.

Roy worked for four years at Wacto Electric before deciding to leave with two other Wacto employees to open their own shop.  They could not have picked a worse time to get their new venture -- The Electric Group -- off the runway and flying.  The American  economy in 1983 was in the dumpster but the saving factor for the trio was the relationships they had made with three large companies while at Waco. They took those companies with them when they left. Another questionable decision that led to a rich reward.

Roy and Ed Danill bought out their third partner and continued on with a rock-solid handshake that resulted in their company operating with a harmonious management that never went in the red. At no time did they have a written business plan but the confidence their client base had in their reliability fueled a continuing successful expansion.  Roy is self-deprecating about his decision making but the proof is in factual results. Like buying a $10,000 share in a less than five star golf course near Boring, Oregon and seeing it evolve into a giant winner.  His long fascination with the go to the moon or go to the bread line  stock market has also been rewarding for him. He ditched his old broker after she advised him to 86 his McDonald's and Costco portfolios and started flying with his own wings.  There was always turbulent air but far more smooth landings than crashes. In Roy's lifetime obsession with poker it's the joy of playing that provides the main reward while the chips coming his way have their own special zing.  And let's mention golf which Roy describes as the evil stain on his soul.  His more than decent eight handicap testified to his lifelong dedication to the sport, as do his 12 holes-in-one ("Hit a million balls," Roy says, "and some of them are bound to go in a hole.")

If Roy decides to open Garbarino College he will probably tell his students (after he banks their tuition payments), "Don't bring notebooks and pencils to class because we'll just talk about the importance of doing what seems comfortable at the time.  Take the rest of class off.  See you next week." 

Roy's resume is not too bad for a guy who never got a Harvard MBA and who made a nice living twisting wire and changing light bulbs.