Wonder Woman, MJW

  Imagine my amazement to find that one of my comic book legends from 1941 now lives on the second floor of Russellville Park's East building.  She no longer wears those over-the-top skin tight spandex outfits but rather chooses to wear a less flamboyant attire befitting an 83-year-old Grandmother.  She goes by the name MJ Wallace now.

Mary Jean Wallace lost Pat, her husband of 65 years, in 2020 and after selling their home in S. E. Portland, she elected to start her new life in the Russellville Park retirement community.  Let me tell you a few things about her old life that validates the moniker of "Wonder Woman".

MJ is a native Oregonian who has lived in the Portland area all her life. She attended Grant High School where she didn't achieve celebrity for her ability to run faster than other girls because schools in those years had almost no programs for girl athletes. 

She and Pat designed a family of three boys and two girls and when you ask her what you do to keep that boatload afloat she will tell you, "Just about everything." That's what MJ and Pat Wallace did: just about everything.  The 18th century economist Adam Smith who is credited with drafting the theory of capitalism would have loved MJ and Pat. They were entrepreneurs whose clock had no hands and their determination to achieve economic stability was relentless.

The two of them operated a small motel on Barbur Blvd.  That's a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week adventure of cleaning rooms, doing laundry, maintaining the physical plant and greeting the public.

They ran a first call funeral service (Pick up the newly deceased and deliver to the designated funeral parlor).  One client had a relative who showed no consideration for their client by dying in San Francisco instead of Portland.  The client had a fear of flying so chose MJ and Pat's service to transport the body back to Portland. Another time they wanted to upgrade their hearse and found one they liked in L.A. whose owner agreed to a swap for theirs.  They drove it to L.A. but seeing it would be late night by the time they arrived, elected to park in a rest stop until morning.  They crawled in the back and slept.  The sun woke them up in the morning and they rose to finish the trip but heard terrified screaming from outside where people had been looking in the back window.  How to finish a journey, laughing all the way.  Once they got a call to pick up a body in San Francisco that had to be back in Portland for the funeral service just days away.  Middle of the night in the Wallace home: Pat calls out to all five kids, "O.K., everybody up and in the car, we're heading for San Francisco."

They ran a sporting goods store (Gateway Pro-Am Sports) for 35 years.  They won contracts for high school athletic uniforms by delivering for the late ordering coaches in a matter of days instead of the big companies' promised deliveries weeks later.  This was accomplished by MJ running her sewing machine putting on the special patches and emblems until 2:30 am, night after night.

All this while keeping a family of seven fed and parented (is that a word?). Here is a direct quote from MJ Wallace:" I HATE COOKING !"

When she was in her late 70s and Pat in his early 80s they got jobs as bag checkers for events where  hordes of people entered through gates.

That's not enough?  On her 40th birthday MJ joined a party that scaled Mt. St. Helens and camped on the spot where the Old Girl blew her top. Some time later.

On her 70th birthday she dived out of an airplane (joined by a guide) to see what that felt like.

On MJ's 80th birthday she went zip-lining with family.

Her 90th birthday is just around the corner so MJ is narrowing the options for her "event."  Hint: " Hey, Elon Musk, hold a spot for Wonder Woman on one of your coming shots into outer space.  Round trip please."

Over the years MJ ran 13 marathons.  When Father Time whispered in her ear that her running days were over, she defiantly walked 11 more.

MJ participates in exercise classes five days a week and she doesn't use a walker.  She's a delight to chat with about any subject you might choose because she's probably been there or knows somebody who has.

Perilous Roads

 As the Biblical Apostle Paul learned while traveling on the road to Damascus,  there are sometimes pot holes and perils along the way.  He was beaten with rods and stabbed by Gentiles so you just couldn't call it a fun outing for him. I felt Paul's pain on a recent journey of my own from my apartment in Russellville to the Gateway Shopping Center.  It is just short of a mile and I try to walk there every day even though I usually don't buy anything.  It's all about exercise in my attempt to maintain my Adonis-like body. 

While on that walk I had a frightening encounter with a deranged woman who, I believe, mistook me for one of her ex-husbands.  The poor dear had been down some hard hiways and taken serious hits leaving her with a dental inventory of three.  And there was a definite limp in her mobility.  She came rushing toward me, screaming obscenities while recalling various unforgivable transgressions in our previous relationship.  Both claw-like hands were wind-milling toward my face and I managed to stop them by shoving the shopping bag I was carrying into her face. That held her off momentarily.

The last thing I wanted to do was get into physical combat with Crazy Cathy, so I made a tactical retreat into the speeding traffic on 102nd Avenue, waving my arms in a "PLEASE STOP" signal.  It worked,  Both north bound and south bound lanes slowed to a stop as I sprinted to the other side of the street.  She didn't follow.  I'm pretty sure she wasn't an ex-wife.

You can appreciate my choice to be run over by an eighteen-wheeler rather than mixing it up with Crazy Cathy.  I'm certain the Apostle Paul never had to contend with anything like that on his way to Damascus.  At least if he did,  it didn't make it to the King James Version of the Bible.

Friends

A friend told me this is national Friend's Day. I thanked her because she is a "Say-Hi" friend where we know each other's names but I wouldn't drive her to the airport nor would she drive me. But her casual mention of Friend's Day started me thinking about friends.

In almost ten decades I have acquired a lot of friends (and lost a few). A major engine of friend acquisition is shared circumstance: school, church, jobs, armed forces,  But next to family, your reservoir of friendships is what flavors the quality of your life.  It's a complex interaction of ever changing temperatures that adds the spice to social intercourse. 

 Words matter; spoken and unspoken. They are the binding mortar of friendship that can cut as well as mend.  My oldest friend is Darryl Pollock. He can run faster than me but I'm better looking. Who is smarter has yet to be resolved.  We met in high school and agreed on things that made us laugh as well as the importance of playing football.  We've outlived most of our classmates but it draws us closer to the other survivors.

Darryl lives in a nice neighborhood in Bend, Oregon and a daily ritual is to sit in his garage with the door up and give a wave to anybody who happens to be walking or driving pass his home.  He thinks of them as drive-by friends and Darryl has lots of them.

Friends deserve more than one day a year.  Like Mother's Day and Father's Day it should be every day.  So, on this Friend's Day,  choose some words carefully, and send them to a friend.

This Old Man

 Roger Angell died last May 20th at one hundred and one years of age.    He was possibly the best writer ever published by the New Yorker magazine where he worked as an editor for a good share of that publication's long history.  Almost as a sideline, his love of baseball led him to become the greatest writer ever of that classic American sport.  He actually knew Babe Ruth as well as the hottest stars in today's pennant races.  Roger is in the Coopertown Baseball Hall of Fame.

I have admired Angell's writing for years and my friend Josie Larson, knowing of my high regard for Roger Angell, sent me copies of a piece he had written for the New Yorker in 2014 entitled:  This Old Man. It is now included in a book published by Doubleday ($26.95): This Old Man, All in Pieces.

Here is some of the best advice you will ever get:  Buy the book!  If you are still seventeen,  never mind.  But everyone else will pass up one of life's true treasures if they don't let Roger into their mind.  Particularly if they are with me in God's waiting room, nervously anticipating the call, "Next."  It is Roger Angell at his lifetime best: insightful, funny, profound, touching.  Roger hits all the bases as he knocks a slider out of the park.

Trust me.

Meet Gene McKinney

Gene and Mary Ellen McKinney have been residents of the West building at Russellville Park for about a year.  Gene appears much younger than his 84 biological years and his life in the last half of the 20th Century is a personification of America’s in that same time period.

When Gene was born in 1937 it was only 34 years earlier that the world was stunned to learn that a couple of brothers at  Kitty Hawk, North Carolina had made a powered air flight for the first time ever.   And today, if Gene possessed a million or two dollars of disposal income, he might be able to book passage on a 15- minute rocket ride to outer space.  Gene’s working life was in the telecommunication business and his first job as an adult was installing rotary dial telephones for American Telephone & Telegraph (AT & T) that put Tilly the telephone operator and her massive board of tangled cables out the back door.  Replacing old technology with new technology was what kept Gene involved in America’s quest to lead the world in communication technology.

You’ve never heard of some of the installations Gene’s teams made because you don’t know what a “hot box” is.  Ask the engineer of that 100-car freight train streaking through the Columbia River gorge and he will tell you it has to do with the wheels on all those box cars and flat-bed container haulers,  The load weight rests on an axle attached to the wheel and the axle turns in a box filled by fibers soaked in an oil based solution that controls the heat generated by the turning axle.  If the oil fails the heat creates a “hot box” that can make the wheel lock-up and possibly derail the train.  So Gene’s team wired in sensors along the track to detect any hot boxes that needed attention.

The yearly advances in technology had sent thousands of workers to join Tilly on the sidelines and in 1989 At&T offered thousands of their employees a plan to leave the company.  At age 52 Gene elected to take a lump sum buyout that included lifetime health care and drug coverage.  As years passed and health care cost went crazy, Mary Ellen and Gene knew they had made a good decision.

The two met in 1956 and married a year later.  They raised a family of three boys and a daughter.  Their oldest son, Mike, grew to be a 6’3”, 237 lb. football tight end who played at the University of Oregon for coach Rich Brooks.

Gene’s working life gave him an up close and personal view of the disappearance of Tilly’s massive obsolete equipment to his daughter’s  3” x 5” cell phone that could do everything but fry an egg.  From 1937 to 1989 it was a trip of wonders for both Gene McKinney and his home, America.

The Wind Was At His Back

My friend Kenny Moore died five days ago.  He was 78 years old.  Few people who come and go through this intimidating lifetime journey possess the amazing package of brilliant talents, both mental and physical,  that fueled the fierce fire that burned inside the lanky graduate of North Eugene High School, in Eugene, Oregon.  He had a way with words and I first saw that touch of his in a piece he wrote for the Eugene Register Guard.  The young phenom, Steve Prefontaine, was scheduled to run in an AAU meet on the East Coast and the RG asked Kenny, who was in the area of the meet at the time, to cover the race.  Pre came in second to a world-class runner (don't remember his name) and  Kenny wrote, "WCR crossed the finish line in (time) and turned to see the future rushing toward him."  What a terrific line.

We became friends.

Kenny was a key member of Oregon's 1964 and 1965 NCAA's Track & Field Championship teams.  Coach Bill Bowerman admired Moore's toughness and nothing showed that more than his participation in the steeplechase, possibly track's most grueling, demanding races at 3,000 metres with hurdles to clear.

In 1967 Moore won the National Cross Country Championship.  In his second Olympic appearance he just missed winning a medal in the marathon and it is insightful to realize that a person who possessed  the magic of word manipulation was also the rare human being who has experienced running 26-plus miles while the pounding madness in his mind is demanding that he stop the pain but he wills himself to increase it even more.

And then to experience the exquisite joy of realizing that of all the billions of human beings on the planet Earth, only three could catch him if he ran away.  And you have the gift to tell those other billions of people how it felt. 

How fortunate I am to have called that remarkable man my friend.  For a truly rewarding experience read BOWERMAN AND THE MEN OF OREGON, Kenny's masterful biography of his college coach.

In addition to his enormous talent, Kenny Moore was a compassionate citizen of the world who listened to his better angels and made his community of friendships richer for having known him.

Let the Follow Spot Shine On Me

Here's what my friend Marilyn Bruner did: she talked me into joining Curtain Call, an organization of wannabe actors who put on stage plays for the entertainment of their fellow residents. Some of these folks, like me, can't remember what they had for lunch so memorizing lines for a play is out of the question.  Also, choreography for moving people in wheelchairs or walkers around on a stage is too scary to imagine.  Obviously, modifications to traditional stagecraft is a must.  

 I'm glad I listened to Marilyn and joined her band of thespians,  even though my original vision of doing the musical, Singing In the Rain with me in the Gene Kelly role didn't work out.  I have been warmly welcomed to the cast.  We do the theatrical productions by sitting in chairs in front of the audience and reading our lines from binders.  Remember radio?  I know, I know that sounds crazy to you but it works.  I was in the audience for their last performance and the crowd loved it...foot stomping applause.

We're currently rehearsing a play that does a takeoff on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was written by Marilyn and who knew the girl could make dialog sing? It's years later after Prince Charming left Snow White at the altar and although she has put on a few pounds and some smile lines, she still owns those hug-me-now eyes.  Oh, yes and that name change: Silver Gray. She now tends bar and owns the Last Chance Saloon in the small town time forgot: Arid, Arizona.  It's all about the return of Prince Charming (who is not so charming) and those height challenged Hi Ho, Hi Hoers.  Each actor is assigned a character and the practice begins.  It is harder than you might think to get the different characters to say their lines so that it creates a seamless flow of dialog.  Ever try herding cats?

It's a genuine fun exercise with lots of laughter intermingled with kindly commands from the director to pay attention to the cues.  Cry your eyes out Broadway.

 

What's It All About, Alfie?

Remember the title song of that flick?  Are we meant to take more than we give, Alfie? Or are we meant to be kind?”  Here at Russellville Park we have four floors in the east building full of apartments occupied by mature citizens who, after a busy day of doing whatever, turn out the light and in that quiet stillness of their lonely room they whisper, what’s it all about, pillow?  The pillow doesn’t have a clue and I know I sure as hell don’t. But we all keep asking.

Last week I visited my sister Virginia who lives a few hundred miles away from me. At 96 she is four years older. My second mother.  Really smart. Retired as a Vice President of Wells Fargo Bank. We talked a lot and laughed a lot and touched on some serious issues but let me assure you, a river rock has a better understanding of what’s it all about than either Ginny or me.

A lot of people think they know.  They don’t.  But they do a lot of damage because many truth seekers out there give them power until the whole bloody gang ends up  drinking bye-bye Kool-Aid south of the border.  Or invading the nation’s Capitol.

The search for what it’s all about becomes more urgent as you notice your dance card has only a few more open spots.  What’s behind the curtain?  Do your trespasses really count against you?  How many stars do you give your life?  I know how many stars I deserve but I ain’t telling.  Here’s the truth: I was very close to a lot of wonderful triumphs but I was never essential to the mission. Picture a crab louse at the moment of conception.

Well, maybe one.  I was Assistant Director of Athletics at the University of Oregon (close to the top but no cigar) when we came up short by about $30,000 of funding the new west grandstand at Hayward Field. We decided to put on a fund-raising track meet and I was given the assignment to put the event together.  The only open date possible to run the meet was just over three weeks away so we started the plan in a state of high anxiety.

The key to the success of the mission was to have our wunderkind, Steve Prefontaine, race the Bowling Green State University sensation Dave Wottle who still holds the NCAA mile record of 3.57.1. He would win the 800 meter gold medal at the Munich Olympics.  But first we had to get the meet sanctioned by the NCAA.  Done.  Now get Pre and Dave into the harness.  First potential disaster: Pre was scheduled to be in Europe on our meet date.  Time to break some rules: I told Pre if he would delay his European trip a week I would buy him a round tripper for his ride (Hey, everybody’s doing it).  The NCAA track championships were being held at Louisiana State University the next week and Dave Wottle would be there. So would I.  Made Dave the same deal I made Pre and he said yes. Youssaa!

Pre’s agreeing to delay his trip was a magnificent commitment by our middle distance phenom.  First he agreed to a mile race he knew he couldn’t win.  The pride of most runners would never let them agree to a deal like that. Second, Pre loved the Oregon fans and he did it for them.

Right up until the first event the days were around the clock putting together the other events. Athletes from all over America calling, wanting into the meet where they could qualify for the coming Olympics.  Do you believe in miracles?  It all came together. Roaring success.  Double the needed funds raised.  Pre makes a great run but it’s a close loss to the kid in that signature golf hat.  And the success of the meet gave birth to what became an annual event called the Prefontaine Classic.  It is now the premier track and field meet in America pulling in athletes from all over the world (with a little help from an ex-Oregon runner named Phil Knight).

If you think you know what it’s all about, please give me a call.

Russellville Lives. JG

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it                                                                                                               --Omar Khayyam 

It's all about time isn't it?  Once we were skipping down windy beaches looking for agates and now we're skipping dental appointments because we forgot.  Recently I've written about those other times in the lives of the remarkable people who share the present times with me in this stack of rented spaces.  My friend Lou Barrett, the ex-cop, refers to all of us as "inmates."  In a sense Lou is right because we've been sentenced to life terms for the unforgivable offense of growing old. But we are still the same individuals responsible for creating those other times, some of which were exceptionally well lived.  

Like the one architect Joy Gannett designed.  Do a deep probe into the inner souls of thousands of retired strivers and you will find a high number of them did not truly enjoy going to work every day.  That wasn't Joy. He loved what he did and knew what he wanted to spend his life doing from as far back as junior high school.  It was in a mechanical drawing class where he was given an assignment to draw the plans for a house basement where a slab of concrete would be poured on the ground for the floor.  On his finished drawing he penned "ROR" and handed it in to the teacher who later asked him what those initials meant.  The teacher loved his reply: "Rough On Rats."

Joy was born in the early morning hours of October 13, 1926 in the family home in Oakland, California.  He was named Joy to honor his mother's family name: Joy.  A few years later his parents divorced and Joy was often sent to visit his mother's brother in Stockton where he and his cousin Tim Joy, who was one year older, became lifelong brothers. 

Joy enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944 and was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on his way to what would have been the invasion of Japan when the dropping of the atomic bombs ended the war.  With the support of the G.I. Bill,  Joy enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his degree in Architecture.  Joy and Delores (Dotty) Phillips were married in his senior year and their family grew to include Martha, Marshall, and Alice.

Joy worked for a number of different firms as he developed his own skills in a complex profession that demands both artistic and structural expertise to achieve creation of buildings that are both reliably sound and aesthetically in harmony with their location.  One of Joy's many projects was working as a member of the team that designed the Veteran's hospital on Pill Hill next to Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon.

Replacing his cousin Tim Joy as a resident at Russellville Park, Joy, with his quiet wit and wonderful singing voice --in high school and the army he participated in bands as a drummer-- joins that elite confederacy of talents that define the unique spirituality of this home for the still active players in life's mysterious game.

She Saw It All

                                                                                                         Marilyn Bruner

 Marilyn Bruner is among a small group of current voyagers who came aboard the good ship Russellville Park circa 2005 when everything was new and masks were something you wore for New Years and Halloween. Like current residents, Betty Quimby,  Ray Niehaus, and Val Pryor, Marilyn remembers the east building with its beautiful stucco-covered walls. Oops.  The stucco did not cure correctly (what, rain in Oregon?) and required the entire five-story building to be wrapped in plastic while workers repaired the walls. Residents called it the "Ice Cube" and the rehab took a year to complete.  Kind of like the Covid except the building wore the mask. 

In her other life Marilyn was a professional secretary (in the 1940s high schools prepared males to take  leadership roles in corporate America while females were taught shorthand for their future as secretaries to their male classmates)  She worked as a secretary for school Principal Donald Bruner and they would later marry.  Marilyn shared Donald's interest in the history of native American tribes and in particular the Multnomah band of Chinook Indians who lived along the Columbia river.  They shared authorship of a book about Multnomah Chief Cassino: The Legend of Wappato.  Donald Bruner passed away in 2005 which led Marilyn to move to Russellville Park.  Now she is a living archival treasure for her fellow Russellville residents who care about the history of this place they call home. 

In the beginning the Overton dining room was just one big open space with a dance floor in the corner. Residents would sit around the fireplace and eat soft ice cream from a machine left out for them to self-serve..Of course that ended when a few miscreants filled buckets to take to their room  There were no servers for meals so residents would line up and go through the kitchen for a buffet pick up. They were allowed one free meal a day.

 Marilyn was a witness to the cast of characters who performed in the human comedy of those 16 years. She remembers one attractive lady (we'll call her Foxy) who claimed to have been a Playmate in Hugh Hefner's infamous Chicago mansion.  According to Marilyn, Foxy did contribute to the drama of life in Russellville with her occasional high kicks that entertained everyone.

 Then there was the resident (let's call him Rufus) who discovered the stairs that gave access to the roof  and insisted on using it as his solarium.  Management solved the issue, to the dismay of Rufus, by putting a padlock on the access door.

One fellow everyone called Bingo  (because he was always searching for that elusive winning letter?) who would sometimes come down to dinner wearing his pajamas.  When told that was unacceptable, Bingo  would impatiently respond that this was his home and if he wanted to dine in his PJs that was his right (but blue flannel tops and bottoms with circus clowns and bunny rabbits?).

There is no doubt in Marilyn's mind  that the most compelling feature of Russellville Park is that mysterious broth flavored by the diverse spirits of all those individuals who bring their past lives to the  mix. Right from the start there were people like Bob Hatrak who was warden of a high security prison in New Jersey where he made significant innovative contributions to national and international incarceration policies.  Or Vincenza Scarpaci who has made important contributions to the historical recognition of Japanese immigrants during World War II.  America has always been fascinated with the issues of crime and punishment (how many TV cop shows and movies have you watched?) and we have our own Lou Barrett, ex-California Highway Patrol officer.  He can creep you out talking about a late night traffic stop and his approach to the dark unknown ahead. Find a way to talk with Rodney Phillips about his life as a librarian with the New York City PublicLibrary. Coming off the elevator is Cal, Berkeley Architect Joy Gannett whose quiet wit will sneak up on you.  Jane Gregory's magnificent deck garden has every blooming thing but Eden's snake.  Artists Marianne Stokes or Diane Thramer, with a few deft brush strokes, can make you look like you look.   The list goes on and on.   You can't imagine hanging out in a more vibrant neighborhood.  

Right from the start Marilyn involved herself in Russellville's social activities by joining the singing group Blended Voices and the acting group Curtain Call.  Both activities welcome participants today.  With Curtain Call she discovered a latent knack for writing skits which the group performed.   

Marilyn is another sure-fire candidate for election to that future Russellville Park Hall of Fame.

The Shadow In the Corner

 Here in the Russellville Green Room where I await my call to appear in that biggest of all shows, the subject of death is never discussed among my assembled neighbors.  But it has crossed everyone's mind.  Just as it did for Woody Allen:  "It's not that I'm afraid to die.  I just don't want to be there when it happens."  Sorry, Woody, get in line.

The earliest human beings caught on to Nature's cruelest trick and came up with a counter-dodge by positing an afterlife where everybody could keep the good times rolling. That proved to be a comforting concept.  If that actually is part of the Master Plan, one of the people (spirits?) I will track down is Herb Lewis, a teacher I had my senior year in high school.  Herb's class was called Social Studies but what he taught was a profound respect for the life of the mind and the responsibility of every citizen to contribute to a humane society.  I never thanked him for being a great teacher.  Maybe it's not too late.

One day Herb took a hack paddle and walked down to the desk of a student who had just given a smart-ass reply to the teacher's question.  Then Herb brought the paddle down on the top of the wise guy's head.  Not hard.  Just a tap.  I think I know what Herb was thinking: "This little nose-picker is going to graduate next June and immediately start breeding.  Time  for a modest brain adjustment."  Herb's teaching toolbox held many wonderful aids.

So we might consider death one more blessing from a benevolent master clockmaker but I think Woody Allen had the right insight.  I'll wait and see.

Sam's Club

                                                                                          Samantha Gast

Samantha Gast is the best thing to happen to Russellville Park since Chef Ken invented the prime rib French dip sandwich.  Ask any of her mature clients who show up for her exercise classes three or five times a week to follow her conducting that orchestra of creaking joints and screaming muscle stretches.  Like a compassionate mother delivering tough love, Sam (rhymes with BAM) brings on her rapid fire drills that in 30 minutes manage to address all your body parts as well as your mental agility.  Her mantra is, "Use it or lose it."

       And the lady does everything she asks you to do (only better).  With her Golden Oldie music playing in the background, she is laughing and saying, "Rotate your right leg...other direction...now the left leg...other direction," as she works her way through the glossary of Grey's Anatomy reaching all your lazy muscles no matter where they may be hiding.

       Sam was hired seven months ago to help residents improve the quality of their lives.  She was born with an insistent dancing gene that has been an active motivator in her life since taking those ballet lessons while attending Monett High School in Missouri.  After graduating from the University of Missouri with a degree in Wildlife Management, she went to a school of dance in Oklahoma City that included jazz dancing.  An accident that injured her leg ended that dream and she found employment that was in harmony with her Wildlife education by becoming a game warden, protecting wild turkeys and other denizens of the Missouri forests. Poachers should be aware that the lady in the Smokey Bear hat is packing heat.

       Sam got involved with physical training when the Missouri Conservation Department (including game wardens) started training for physical fitness by in-house trainers.  She found her niche.  Sam was working as a Club Manager and trainer in a Portland exercise gym when the Covid-9 pandemic torpedoed that business which led her to send a resume to Russellville Park.

       What are the four memory words today, Sam?          Stance.   Ants.    Pants.    Dance.

  

Things Go Missing

A reporter once asked Willy Sutton why he robbed banks and Willy replied, "That's where they keep the money." Makes perfect sense.  So why not go to the retirement community where I live, for the exact same reason? Hundreds of apartments filled with people who are the dream of Big Pharma's executives, to loot medications that sell for big bucks on the street along with whatever cash and other possessions might be available. Willy may be long gone but his replacements are alive and active.

One of my friends plays high-stakes poker once a week and consequently keeps large amounts of cash on hand.  Two weeks ago somebody made a $600 withdrawal from his apartment.

Another friend was once a warden at a high-security prison and had a set of expensive keys in his apartment, a prized possession from his life's work,  Gone.

Another friend's wife lives with severe pain that requires expensive medications.  They recently received a three-month supply of a pain killer that went missing after only three pills had been used. 

Those are just three cases I know about because they are my friends, but what about all those other hundreds of medicine cabinets and under-mattress bank vaults in all those other apartments that have had valuables looted that we never hear about?  Report it to the police?  Good luck with that.  Report it to the management?  They deeply regret that it happens.

The problem is that too many people have keys that open exterior and interior doors.  Dozens of staff members come and go daily as well as all the service people who arrive to maintain the equipment that keeps this place operating.

It's hard to control but modern technology has given us security cameras that are surprisingly inexpensive, easy to install, and internet-enabled.  You need just one device, inside the apartment and pointed at your front door to capture whoever comes in.  The full-color digital recording is saved in the cloud.

My solution is to avoid owning anything worth stealing.  None of my drugs are high potent street-worthy booty. Nobody steals books and magazines. George Carlin had a great bit about "your stuff" (from memory) "Your house is just a place to keep your stuff...if you have to go someplace, somebody might come and take your stuff.  So you take your stuff with you..."

The sad reality here at Russellville Park is that some people do come and take our stuff.  And, apparently, will continue to do so while we all wring our hands.

Russellville Lives. DT

                                                                         Diane Thramer

Recent Russellville resident, Diane Thramer, has solid credentials as an Oregonian.  Her mother's family descended from early pioneers who came over the Oregon Trail in covered wagons and settled in the Wolf Creek area of southern Oregon.  Her father, George Rader,  grew up in Oklahoma leaving school early to work in the oil fields as a whistle punk. After coming to Oregon, George worked as a logger and was a true independent Oregonian who refused to participate in any of Franklin D. Roosevelt's depression era measures because he prided himself on not taking charity.

Diane is a talented artist who was blessed with that mysterious gift of genetic pass-down from both her father and her mother.  George was an accomplished painter who also drew cartoon strips with his creative gags that were published by farm magazines.  Diane's grand daughter received the family genetic gift and is herself a talented artist. Diane developed her talent with the encouragement of her parents as well as studying with school teachers.  She works primarily with water colors and many of her painting involve family members and friends.  The Rose Bud Bakery in Eugene, Oregon was a community favorite and as a young high school student, Diane attained modest celebrity as a cake decorator.  Her best creations ended up as support platforms for candles.  John Dix Thramer, who Diane would later marry, was a baker a the Rose Bud.  After leaving the bakery,  John spent the rest of his career with Eugene's Water and Electric Board (EWEB) until his retirement.

Those early family years were the among the happiest in the lives of Diane and John.  They personified the reputation of Eugene as a place that welcomed diversity and healthy living and that more often than not involved hiking and camping plus all things connected to the two rivers that converged north of the city: the Willamette and the McKenzie. On one memorable occasion the entire family, sons Allen and Darin along with their sister Patrice and led by John and Diane,  hiked the iconic Pacific Crest Trail (built by FDR's socialistic Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s) from the McKenzie Pass of the Cascade Mountains to the mountain's Willamette Pass. That is a lot of up mountains, down mountains that kept them on that high mountain trail for two weeks, creating a lifetime of memories. 

Diane Thramer is one of those people who look a dozen or more years younger than their biological tattletale.  Her easygoing style of being open to social situations that make her laugh, lightens the mood of any room she enters.  Include Diane as a candidate for the Russellville Park Hall of Fame when it opens on former Portland Mayor Bud Clark's 100th birthday on December 19th, 2031. 

Special Edition

  Today’s posting was supposed to be another profile in the Russellville Lives series but before the story train reached the station, it got derailed and T-boned an 18-wheeler flat bed truck stacked high with crates of chickens that broke open sending those cluckers flapping around all over the place while being chased by feral cats. This backup column could be a fortuitous replacement because it might save your life.

Rock-a-bye-baby

Been having a hard time lately getting a good night’s sleep.  Dr. Keith Saylor, a family member, sent me a book titled Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD. If you care about your health you will drop whatever it is you’re doing and immediately hit Amazon for a copy.  I’ll summarize the 339 pages for you: Next to breathing, sleeping is the second- most important thing you do.  Every organ and fiber of your body suffers if you don’t get adequate sleep (eight to nine hours a night). The book’s Appendix gives twelve tips for healthy sleep that will repay you the $18 you gave Amazon.

We spend the day feeding volumes of information and scenes into our brain and then we go to sleep (if we’re lucky) and the brain organizes all that new material and routes it to its assigned location in the brain.  Those who short-change Mother Nature’s sleep bank will pay a grim overdraft penalty.

My primary physician instructed me to go online and download an app titled Headspace.  Those people take you through meditation exercises which you can use just prior to welcoming sleep to your bedroom.  Another tip:  Kill the TV two hours before bedtime.  One more: Sleep with only one pillow.

So, one door closes, another door opens.  Until the next posting, Put your dreams away for another day…

                                                             

Russellville Lives MS

Marianne Stokes is an artist. Do you prefer your portrait in oil, water color, charcoal, Rodda’s paint? Or how about a sculptured head for your mantel? Ms.Stokes does it all. Wait, there’s more: Say you wanted to pull your neighbor’s chain a little bit.  Have Marianne paint your garage door to look like a pig pen with a few porkers standing around. 

Marianne and Herb, her husband of 38 years, have recently taken residence on the fifth floor allowing Marianne to immediately merge into the social life of the Russellville community.  She conducts weekly free model drawing sessions working with live models for wannabe artists (can you draw a straight line?  You’re an artist.) at Russellville as well as free model sessions at two other locations in Vancouver.

As Frank Sinatra came to the end of his career, Paul Anka composed a song for him that  was his mega hit: My Way. Paul could have written the song for Marianne because from the time she was a little girl she was doing things her way.  When she was seven or eight, her drawings went unnoticed by her mother and father. By the time Marianne was in high school she had evolved her drawing skills to an advanced level of excellence so that she delighted classmates by doing their portraits.  She was also a top academic student.

While she earned a BA degree in fine arts from Hofstra University on Long Island, Marianne found little in the arts classrooms that she hadn’t already discovered on her own.  After graduation she taught art in the public school system on Long Island but the routine life of reporting to school administrators was a giant turnoff for her and she dropped out of public education to offer private art classes.  

Marianne taught herself calligraphy to use in a sideline she was attracted to by the large prices sign painters charged for their commercial work.The art schools offered no classroom instruction for sign painting which they considered beneath their calling so Marianne scouted around to find an apprentice position. There she could learn the ropes of this unique profession (an early assignment from her master sign painter was to paint letters on to a large glass door and then, when it was dry, scrape it all clean with a razor blade). She soon left her trainer and opened her own shop. As the only woman in a niche occupation filled by good old boys, (no traditional education required) Marianne built a lucrative business painting signs and murals that stood out because of the artistic flair she introduced to mundane assignments. She was untroubled about using her exceptional artistic talents to mine gold in lowbrow shafts.  Once it’s in the bank, all money looks the same.  Marianne’s artistic touch with signs brought her many commissions in boat yards lettering transoms of yachts using gold leaf.

Marianne has three sons who live in New York.

On a cold, snowy, Christmas night in 1976 while with a Catholic singles group, she was introduced to the greatest guy she had ever met. His name was Herb Stokes.  Herb turned out to be her favorite Christmas gift that keeps on giving.  She and Herb enjoy the relaxed pace of life in Russellville where she still pursues her interests as an artist, whatever the form it takes. Because, like old Blue Eyes, she does it her way. 

...Man, What Are You Doing Here?

Once, a long time ago, my wife, Georgann, and her lifelong friend, Lois Battleson, left on a jet plane to New York City to visit Georgann's brother, Dick Johnson and his wife, Maureen, who lived on Long Island.  Just a couple of country girls on a mission to find out what was moving in the Big Apple.  Brother Dick would take the girls with him into the city each morning, riding in a private railroad car Dick shared with a number of other commuters who enjoyed the special accommodations.  Dick was a partner with the Price Waterhouse accounting firm.

Georgann and Lois spent the days learning how to be New Yorkers, adapting to the rhythms of the city.  One thing they found difficult was knowing which railcar to enter at the appointed hour for returning home. Dick would spot them moving down the platform, eyes cupped, looking into the windows of all the cars and with brotherly patience herd the laughing strays into his car.

On a Sunday before their return to Oregon, Dick drove them on a tour of the Hamptons at the east end of Long Island.  At noon they spotted a quaint small cafe and decided to stop for lunch.  They were alone in the small dining room except for two other couples who were sharing a table across from them. One of men from the other table was sitting at a piano in the corner of the room playing beautiful melodies with effortless grace.  The three new arrivals looked at each other with instant recognition:

Billy Joel.

He played all through their lunch.  They made no moves to intrude on the Joel party letting Billy be Billy. Imagine that.  Flying coast to coast to have the Piano Man deliver an intimate concert for the price of a tuna sandwich and a glass of decent wine.

 Editorial note: Billy Joel goes into the city once a month to perform sold-out concerts.  He returns to the Hamptons with one million more dollars than he had earlier that day.

Guy Fawkes

   In the year 1570 on April 13, at 2:27 AM, Edward and Edith Fawkes welcomed into this world a full term baby boy who, when laid beside Edith, reached out and pulled over the kerosene lamp, setting fire to the birthing room.  They would name the little rascal Guido but he was called Guy from then on.  Guy is known to history for his association with a group of Catholic insurrectionists who plotted to assassinate King George I by using 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the English Parliament.  Guy Fawkes was captured just as he was lighting the fuse.

So we celebrate Guido Fawkes for his guyness and being the only man who has ever lived to have his name attached to every man on planet Earth since November 5, 1605 when Guy was captured, charged and found guilty of treason which resulted in his being hanged, drawn and quartered. 

So let’s give a shoutout to Guy Fawkes who, if we could put him back together and have a team of shrinks wash his brain clean of doctrinaire nastiness,  might turn out to be a decent guy.

                                                  ***********************                                                                                         

I Enjoy Being A Guy   (Apologies to Richard Rogers)

I’m strictly a real male, real male

And my future I hope will be

Entwined in the arms of a female

Whose fulfilled with a guy like me.

When we go to a big State Fair

 I’m lost but I won’t complain

I never ask how to get there

Just circle again and again.

I’m a guy and by me that is great

I’m a guy, I don’t glow, I just sweat

I’m a guy, and I do hate to wait

I’m a guy, why aren’t you ready yet?