I am retired. I like to write. I like to read. I live in Hood River, OR. I am married (47 years!) and have two grown sons, Noah and Isaac.
I love the musky smell of my tomato plants. Each evening after work, I forage for the ripened fruit, taking in their dense, earthy fragrance. Green peppers share the raised beds. Mother Nature’s fickle architecture of this bell-shaped vegetable pleases the eye as well as the tongue. My wildflowers are going to seed. They attract … More The Reality of Hope
Last night, strong winds buffeted the Hood River Valley. This signaled the end to a brutal hot spell. Fortunately, my wife and I had escaped to the higher elevations of central Oregon during the worst of the heat. We’d gone there to spend time with her family and to decompress following the wedding of our … More Passages
Nature has a way of making disorder look like a plan. My gardening secret is wildflowers: whatever you do with them works. In my yard, they piece together colorful mosaics that ignore the borders of the frame into which I sowed them last March. Lupine encroaches on the lawn; red poppies take root happily on … More Wildflowers
During the interval between this post and the last, my garden unleashed a bounty of colorful blooms. Iris and rhododendron, in particular, show off extravagant blossoms in lavender, pink, and white. Beneath these preening plants, more humble flowers open their smiling faces to the sun and spring rains. Nasturtium, cosmos, petunia, dianthus, marigold, geums, and … More Riding the Melphalan Wave
Spring, fashionably late as usual, reveals that it has been here all along, working its magic under the veil of bad weather. A trio of deer, two does heavy with fawn and a young buck, amble across our property. Twice, I’ve spotted them browsing on the leaves of low hanging branches. On other mornings, their … More Springtime in the Cascades
Today I began planting my Victory Garden. Am I celebrating survival or sacrificing for the battles ahead? I don’t know, but the elasticity of language makes me laugh. Cancer blogs, replete with war metaphors, have enlisted me in the fray of words. My favorite among the Fighting Myelomas is armamentarium. Twice, I’ve heard doctors use it … More In The Kingdom
I returned to work on April 6th following a ten-month absence. I’d taken time off to receive treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer affecting the plasma cells in my blood. I spent the fall and winter months recuperating from an immune suppressed condition, the result of an autologous stem cell transplant. I am the Postmaster … More El Gato del Correos
April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. T. S. Eliot The coming of April teases the gardener in me. I long to sink glove deep into the warming loam. Yet a fresh skiff of snow spoils the mood. Cheerless breezes … More April Is The Cruelest Month
For the last several months, I’ve followed the open sea journey of Rich Wilson. He is the only American and the oldest entrant (58) in the Vendee Globe 2008. Some call the VG the Mt. Everest of sailboat racing. The competition goes around the world from France to France with Antarctica to starboard. It’s the … More Joie De Vivre
In the mountains, in the heart of winter, an antiseptic stillness penetrates the landscape. Many of my solitary walks in December and January were steeped in silence, the crunch of my shoes on road grit the only sound. By mid-February though, a clatter of orchard ladders mixed with the beat of mariachi music breaks the … More No Expectations
Good Blood, Bad Blood 