Thirteen years ago, a mountain lion looked at me. I still see clearly its long sleek body, two hundred yards away on a bare hilltop. Suzame and I were hiking at Point Reyes National Seashore in California and had reached the highest point, Mt. Wittenberg. At first I thought the mountain lion was a big […]
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I have a high school friend named Jim. I haven’t seen him in nearly four decades. In fact, none of our other friends have seen him in years. This protracted absence gives Jim a leg up on the rest of us: he’s frozen in our minds as he was back then, young and good-natured and […]
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In late August I was three thousand miles from my Portland home, back in the Orlando area where I grew up, left, and returned to work for seventeen years. My wife and I were enjoying a notable meal at a new restaurant in Winter Park, The Ravenous Pig. I heard a familiar voice at a […]
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Excitement of the moment sometimes clouds my judgment. That’s the inescapable conclusion from a phone conversation with a Portland police dispatcher yesterday. I called the cops while standing next to our friends’ house up the street. They were out of town, and another neighbor had told me that a solicitor tucking a business card in […]
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What will the boy remember of yesterday? Years hence, is Atticus, my son of three, doomed to never recall his first day at the new edge of his known world, the Pacific Coast? As I watched him run toward and away from tiny advancing and retreating waves, I realized how fleeting the moment probably was. […]
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Long after midnight, I heard sea lions barking. The sound echoed off Yaquina Bay, exotic at first as if I was on an isolated Pacific atoll, alone except for the abundant wildlife. After awhile I craved stillness and had to step inside from my perch on a condo balcony to escape the incessant cacophony. The […]
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One definition of serendipity is “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.” I don’t know whether I have such an aptitude, but I am a keen and curious observer. Does this characteristic stem from many years in journalism, or did it lead me to that career? All that matters, I suppose, is this: I […]
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I’m living vicariously through two high school friends since spending time with them last week in Florida. Charlie and Danny are civilian pilots who fly extraordinary jets, sometimes to exotic and far-flung places. We had less ambitious expeditions in school, including one I’ve written about before. And on Friday, Charlie and I reminisced during a […]
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A few years ago I wrote a lousy short story. The main character, based loosely on me, carried a burden of regret for wrongs committed in his youth. Although decades had passed, he decided to make amends and began a quest for redemption. Yes, the premise was cliched. But I was writing based on personal […]
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Dawn has passed without sleep, and I’m headed back to Portland, crammed into a jetliner thigh-to-thigh with strangers. But I’m elsewhere, drifting through another world, a planet of the previous three days and nights in Central Florida. With me in this world are dearest friends, friends I’d lost for an unspeakable number of years. The […]
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A name, “Huff,” is sewn on his backpack. The backpack is made of camouflage cloth. So is his Army uniform. I’m standing behind the young man. We’re stuck in an airline aisle, inching toward our seats. “Headed to I-raq,” he says when another passenger asks. The soldier’s tone is flat, inflection free, practiced.
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The rumors sweeping the Internet are true: I’ve been working out. On my own and with a trainer. Working out a lot. The motivations are the usual mix of superficial short-term and serious long-term desires. Top of mind is looking good for my forty-year high school reunion next week. So is losing weight I gained […]
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