1. In this time of mourning the death of Don Knott, my sadness wells up right along with a multitude of fun and admiring memories of great times we had and of Don's lovable personality.
One thing Don enjoyed doing was going online and ordering custom made things to give as gifts or order things that led to him making the gifts himself.
For example, when Mom died in 2017 and we held her Celebration of Life on October 6th, Don attended the service, the reception that followed over at Carol and Paul's house, and the post-reception party at the Inland Lounge.
At the Lounge, Don presented me with a gift he made. He'd ordered a cloth Heidelberg beer logo and glued it to a baseball cap and in honor of our Heidelberg loving fathers, he presented me with this cap. It's among my most prized possessions. I wore that cap -- it looked splendid with the suit and tie I was wearing at the Lounge! -- for the rest of afternoon and evening. Since that day, I've probably worn this cap a little too often. It's starting to show its age, but even if I don't often put it on, I love this cap. Here it is:
Don also, of course, attended the Celebration of Life held in honor of our classmate and lifetime friend Kirk "Goose" Hoskins on June 1, 2019. I hosted a pre-Celebration get together for the many members of the Class of 72 who came to Kellogg to honor Goose. At that party, Don gave us each a sticker he'd had custom made online that we could wear for the rest of the day. It was a most thoughtful and fun gift. I keep mine affixed to the fridge at all times. Here's what it looks like:
I don't remember exactly when Don moved to Lewiston, but on at least two occasions, if I remember correctly, a bunch of us made a road trip to see Don in Lewiston. We met at the Effie Tavern, home of burgers the size of a sheep's head. After one of those trips, Don had coffee cups custom made that said "Effie Time" on one side and, on the other, featured a picture someone from the tavern took of all of us who made that trip. Here are the two sides of that cup -- I hope you get the gist of how thoughtful all these gifts were, another one of the things about Don we loved so much.
2. Bill, Diane, and I met this morning on Zoom and had, as we always do, a lively conversation that mixed good humor and mirth with some very serious discussions. The three of us all have ongoing medical matters going on and it was encouraging to learn that each of us, in our own way, is doing pretty well. I rattled on and on about the book list I'm reading my way through and I shared the astonishment I felt when I read a piece of writing I submitted to The Whistle, a publication that used to come out of the Whitworth English department and was sent out to alums. Deb Akers found the piece I wrote in 1983 and mailed it to me and I had totally forgotten how well-formed my thinking about comedy, literature, community, and my efforts to find some stability after the divorce that had been recently finalized. Later in 1983 and on into 1984, I would take several strides back into despondency, but at the moment I wrote this short essay, I was evidently feeling good about things and I enjoyed how I wrote about it 41 years ago and enjoyed telling Bill and Diane about it -- especially because our Westminster group spent a few weeks discussing the world of comedy in literature a few years back.
3. I've begun reading the seventh of the twelve books on the list Leah Sottile published mid-July. A Portland writer, Lena Zumas, wrote Red Clocks and in it she imagines a future in which abortion has been legislatively made illegal and the Personhood Amendment has been added to the Constitution, granting rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo.
Zumas sets her novel in a small fictional fishing town on the Oregon Coast and tells the story of five women, all very different from one another. I'm not very far into the book, but one thing I know so far is that the stories of these women intertwine and at least some of the intersection involves the local high school. So, I'll move on. I'm thinking that this book is headed in a dystopic direction -- I mean, having read six books on Leah Sottile's list, I know her reading (and writing) inclinations tilt strongly toward the dark.
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