Troxstar

Island Park, 2-04-12, 4:57 p.m.

Blues

Gotta Light?

Uninhibited Joy at Saturday Market

Happy Faces at Saturday Market

Ending My Hiatus

Not long ago, I heard from one of my third grade classmates, Rick T.  He'd been surfing around the World Wide Web, and must have been doing some Kellogg searching and he found this blog and he emailed me and we've had some solid exchanges since.

Rick started dipping into my blog entries and told me he's enjoyed reading what he's looked at and he wondered if I had shut down my blog or gone on a hiatus since I had no posts since Christmas.

Well, the day after Christmas, I jumped in my car and drove to Kellogg and didn't bring my computer.  I was off the grid until I returned to Eugene about January 8th.

It actually felt good to be away from blogging and email and Facebook for those two weeks or so and when I was back in my Eugene home with wireless internet service again, I continued my break as much as I could and took a break from blogging.

Back in January, I decided I could retire from teaching at Lane Community College and I began to think quite a bit about why I liked this prospect of retirement.

It wasn't about the money.  My pension will be very modest.

But I think it will, in some ways, be about privacy, about having a less public life.  As a teacher, I am paid to make my thoughts public, not keep them to myself.  I read poems and novels and plays and essays and memoirs and view movies so that my courses will have substance, and I must make my insights public.

For years, I have loved this.  But after thirty-five years of teaching and studying, I'm ready to pull back, to read and think and not make my insights public, to think, not so I can teach classes, but just to think and enjoy the workings of my mind.  I'm ready to have my mind work on its own and not have its workings be in service to institutional learning.

In this same spirit of private vrs. public thinking, I've also been thinking about the writing I've done for this blog.  I decided in January to pull back and keep many of my thoughts to myself.

But, then Rick T. wrote to me and I thought about our third grade year together at Sunnyside Elementary and how our school is now owned by Dave Smith Motors and the playground is filled with Dodges and Chryslers and Jeeps, but even more I thought about how at recess Rick and Scott and I barreled out of class and down the hall to leave the building for the playground and we let out this holler:  Uh YOUWEEE!  I have no idea who came up with it, but Scott and Rick and I gave that holler a full-lunged holler day after day, recess after recess.

One day, however, Mrs. Hitzel, our teacher, wrote on the board that we had to do something about ending this, what she called, "horrible holler".

We cooperated.  Uh YOUWEEE! ended, at least in the hallway and on the playground.

I hadn't thought about the horrible holler for quite a while and Rick's email triggered that memory, as well as the day Rick came over to our house and made my dad nearly jump out of his skin when we ran though the house firing cap guns while he was watching Maverick or some other late afternoon rerun while enjoying a beer after work.

And so I decided to break the hiatus, to think more about Rick and the third grade and make it public.

Three Beautiful Things 12/25/11: Quiet, Dinner, Kids on Skype

1.  Christmas Day is very low key around this household.  I enjoyed the quiet morning, doing a little writing, keeping an eye on basketball games, drinking some coffee, making some bacon and eggs for everyone, and  gabbing.

2.  I fulfilled my charge to cook Christmas Day dinner:  beef roast rubbed with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, garlic, and thyme, roasted in the Dutch oven in a puddle of Firestone Velvet Merlin Oatmeal Stout with Brussel sprouts, onions, baby Yukon potatoes, and mushrooms.  The Deke made the gravy.  It all came out just right:  everyone was satisfied.

3.  We didn't have any children around for Christmas, but thanks to Skype we got to peer through a virtual window and see how Jack, Olivia, and David were doing on Christmas Day.  That livened up things a bit here during old people's Christmas Day!

Three Beautiful Things 12/24/11: Saturday Breakfast, Market of Choice, St. Mary's Worship

1.  Everything worked great.  The kitchen staff worked well together getting eggs cracked and scrambled and cooked, vegetables ready, fruit bowls prepared, bacon, sausage, ham, and potatoes heated up, bread toasted and buttered, oatmeal, grits, mashed potatoes, and gravy fixed, orange juice ready, and everything else.  The dining room crew got all the tables set up and the food stations in place.  Hungry men and women were lined up down the stairs and out the door and we fed nearly two hundred fifty people of all ages and mental and physical conditions a full breakfast again this Saturday. 

2.  The atmosphere at Market of Choice crackled with good cheer at the butcher counter, the produce area, up and down the food aisles, and at the checkout stands.  It made shopping for Christmas dinner even more fun.

3.  Amy approached me a while back with questions about St. Mary's Episcopal Church and decided that Christmas Eve would be a fitting evening to visit and worship.  We met at the 9:00 service.  It was dignified and full of beauty.  Afterward, Amy and stood on the 13th Avenue porch of St. Mary's and enjoyed a long talk together about the church and worship and a complex of other related things.  It was a wonderful way to enjoy the eve of Christmas Day.  I then returned to the inside of the church for the Solemn High Eucharist at 11 and enjoyed reading the Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 9:2-7. 

Three Beautiful Things 12/23/11: Writing, Sorting, Eating

1.  I felt good to sit down to the task of writing out my impressions and thoughts about the interment of Mike and June.

2.  It also felt good to sit down and go through my photographs from Armitage Park, to do some minor editing and put some of them up for people to see.

3.  It really felt good to go to the Pendleton's house and enjoy a scrumptious steak dinner with salad, mashed potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, and cookies for dessert. 

Putting Mike and June to Rest

On Wednesday, December 21st, I arrived back in Eugene around 6:45 to be with the Deke on her birthday.  I walked into the Trox's house and there, around the Trox's oval dining table, sat the Deke, knitting, Samantha, also knitting, Marla (Mrs. Troxstar), and Allison, the third knitter, the oldest Troxlet, as well as Emily, the youngest.  Evan, the middle Troxlet, came to the table later. 

Randy had briefly disappeared into the garage to his kegerator to pour me a pint from the keg of Bayern Pilsener he had purchased, with Emily Sauter's help, that morning. 

Randy handed me my beer, took his place at the table, and the conversations, wise cracks, story telling, and knitting instruction continued and we waited and waited and waited for the pizza to arrive.

As we talked, laughed, and entertained each other with our scintillating wit, I wondered to myself if one day Samantha or Allison or Evan or Emily might be sitting at another table at another house and if they might remember back to when they sat at the Trox table or the table at our house and, looking back, say to each other:  "You know, Randy and Marla and Bill and the Deke were kind of weird, but they sure taught us a lot about friendship and loyalty and generosity and enjoying friends."

This thought went through my mind because just a few hours earlier I'd been sitting at the Turner family dining table with Terry and Nancy and Sharann and Sarah and Jackie.  We had just returned from the Willamette National Cemetery.

At the cemetery, the six of us stood in a crescent near the hole that had been dug for the interment of Mike and June's ashes.  After being escorted to the burial spot, J. T., the guy in charge, handed Terry his parents' remains and Terry kneeled and reverently placed Mike and June in one another's company again, to rest in peace. 
 
We waited silently while the hole was filled and then J. T. assured us that he and the two guys were leaving and that we would now have some time to ourselves to do whatever we wanted to pay our respects to Mike and June.

And we did.

We paid our respects to Mike and June as parents who made due with whatever money they had, who could be depended on to support and provide for their children, and who were honest and straightforward.

We paid our respects to Mike and June for all they did in their friendships with people up and down the Silver Valley to teach us how to be good friends, to be loyal, to be generous, and, above all, to enjoy people:  to gab, laugh, drink, tell stories, and, if you go to Winchell's to buy a dozen doughnuts or walk into a small town bar while out fishing, when you leave that place the strangers you shot the shit with think you'd been best friends forever.

We paid our respects to Mike and June's balancing act.  Mike was the king of bullshit.  June was the queen of strength.  Mike had harebrained ideas:  he wanted to buy a bowling alley in Colville or take over the Osburn Club or find some other way to be an entrepreneur.  June held down the fort and managed to keep Mike from leaving his work as the best damn Bogey bread truck driver ever, to keep things anchored and steady, to help guide her Nampa born daughter-in-law, Nancy, through the boisterous ways of the Silver Valley.    June was the queen of strength.  

Once back to Terry and Nancy's house, we sat down to a meal of chicken soup and skillet cornbread, each got a drink, and continued to talk about Mike and June and the Silver Valley, hooking back to conversations begun in the car and moving on to new threads.

I felt like a salmon, swimming back to the pools of where I'm from.

While the main channel of our dining table conversation was the river of Mike and June, we also darted up many tributaries.  These tributaries were the names of the families:  the Rinaldis, Yerglers, Tusons, Biottis, Costas, Haddocks, not to mention the names of individuals like Troy Turley, Roger Lyons, Karen Ladd, Tommy Brainard, and many others; each name for me was a new set of memories, each could have been a new set of stories, and each memory and each story, whether told or untold, whether about the Sunshine Mine fire, the Bunker Hill Zinc Plant, the Happy Landing, Dick and Floyd's, the B & M Cafe, Lincoln School, or the lights at Teeter's Field, all took me back to places where I learned and the people who taught me how to be a friend, how to enjoy people, how to (hopefully) be a person others can trust.

After couple of the Troxstar's pilseners, a few slices of pizza, and huge slice of marionberry pie, I had to get home.

It had been a full day and I needed to take my mind full of memories, my heart full of love, and my belly full of good food and drink to bed, happy with all I learned from Mike and June and from all those people in Kellogg about how to enjoy friends, happy that I'd enjoyed a day rich with friends, and hopeful that this enjoyment will carry forward, not only in the brief span of my life, but well beyond. 

Mike and June:  the enjoyment you taught us carried on well beyond your time together in this world. 

I'm grateful. 

Three Beautiful Things 12/22/11: Pictures at Armitage Park, North Bank Forum, Hockley Salon

1.  The crisp, blue late morning and early afternoon made for a perfect picture taking outing to Lane County's Armitage Park.  I'll post some of my pictures later.

2.  Skye and Melanie and I had batted around the idea of getting together some time for a beer or two, and today it happened.  We met at the North Bank.   Time flew by.  For starters, I really enjoyed having a couple of those memory drenched Rubinators (ah, mmm, Edgefield), two pints of Ruby Ale mixed with Terminator Stout.  Our conversations about family, photography, smoking cigs, politics, boxing, school, religion, and a host of other things was scintillating and I was sorry that I had a pending engagement that broke up our time together. 

3.  The Hockleys invited the Adult Education Committee to their home for a dinner to honor Carolyn Gate's years of service on the committee and her work as our committee chair.  The dinner was superb:  chicken, green beans, roasted root vegetables, salad, bread, wine, apple crisp, and tea.  Even better was our far-ranging conversations about everything from hip replacements to movies to the world of education to driving in New Zealand.

I don't know if you've noticed, but this makes four great around the table conversations in the last two days.  It's invigorating.

Three Beautiful Things 12/21/11: The Interment, The Turner Table, The Troxstar Table

1.  The ashes of Mike and June Turner were interred this afternoon shortly after 2:30 p.m. at the Williamette National Cemetery.  Nancy, Sharann, Sarah, Jackie, and I watched as Terry placed his mom and dad's ashes in their respective containers in the ground, watched as the guys working there covered them up, and then we spent about fifteen minutes talking about what Mike and June meant to us and told some stories.  It was a perfect way to bring Mike and June back together again, with silence, reverence, tears, and laughter.  I think we all agreed that before the phrase, "keeping it real" existed, Mike and June always kept it real.  We all loved that with Mike and June, what you saw was what you got.

2.  Terry, Nancy, Sharann, Sarah, Jackie, and I sat down around Terry and Nancy's dining table.  Nancy and Terry didn't know that they would keep my soup a day string alive, but they did!  We ate delicious chicken soup and skillet cornbread.  I enjoyed a beer and a splash of fine brandy distilled in Portland and we continued our conversations about Mike and June and their history and talked and talked about life in the Silver Valley.  I was divided.  I wanted to be back in Eugene for the Deke's birthday, but I didn't want this time at the table to end.  I left, though, warmed by all the great stories about Mike and June and all the digging back into Kellogg/Smelterville/Wallace life.

3.  Back in Eugene, I drove straight to the Troxstar's house and once again I sat down with family and friends around a dining table and whole new set of stories and conversation.  The Troxstar served me a couple of refreshing pints from his new keg of Bayern Pilsener, from the only German microbrewery in the Rockies for over 20 years, located in Missoula.  Pizza arrived.  We had a marionberry birthday pie from Sweet Life.  I left full of beer and food and exhausted from such a full day.

Three Beautiful Things 12/20/11: Won Ton Soup, Photo Sites, Gravy

1.  I kept my string of soup days alive.  Today I devoured a hearty bowl of Won Ton soup at Yi Shen.

2.  I took pictures for a short while at two locations I've had my eye on for a while.  The first was the back of the parts store to the north of Yi Shen.  The second was a section of railroad track with weeds growing out of the track bed that crosses McKinley across from the Market of Choice warehouse.  Here are two of the pictures:

3.  The accomplishment I was most proud of tonight, having roasted potatoes, onions, and mushrooms to go with the sirloin steaks I fried, was the gravy I made.  I might be getting the hang of making gravy.

Post #2000: Remembering Mike and June

I started this blog back on October 1, 2006.

I began with a post telling how Kellogg is my Paris and, earlier today, I published my 1999th post by telling about three beautiful things that occurred yesterday.

For a while now, my blog has been almost exclusively a Three Beautiful Things blog, one of many in the world of blogging.

I never intended my blog to go in such an exclusive direction, but I wanted to keep this blog going on a nearly daily basis (my success has been spotty) and for reasons I can't really explain, I ran out of steam writing the kinds of short essays I wrote for quite a while here at kellogg bloggin'. The 3BTs have kept me going.

For this 2000th post, though, I'm going to return to the kind of writing I used to do and enjoy the most.

Tomorrow morning, I'm driving up to Gladstone, OR to meet with Terry Turner and his family.  They've invited me to accompany them to Willamette National Cemetery for the burial of Terry's Mom and Dad, Mike and June Turner.  Mike died in August of 1998 and June died a little over a month ago.

First, a confession:  I have never stopped feeling bad for twice damaging property of Mike's and June's.  The first was was in the Turner living room in Smelterville when Terry and Scott and I wanted to see if we could touch our elbows to the ceiling.

I got too excited about this, and unlike Scott and Terry who lightly touched the ceiling with their elbows, I put a dent in the soft ceiling tile with mine.  Terry's explanation to Mike and June that he hit the ceiling with a ski didn't work.
I got too excited another time.  It was in the Turner camper.  Terry was driving some of us to the St. Rita's playground to play touch football and for some unknown reason, I started pounding on the glass between the camper and the driver's cab.

Scott probably remembers the stupid reason I had for wanting Terry's attention.  I thought I was being hilarious and in my high pitch of excitement I broke the glass.

I'll always feel bad for having done both things, and no matter how often I'm told the damages were minor and that I need to forget this stuff, I don't.

I still feel bad.

I probably still feel bad because Mike and June Turner were so good, not only to me, but to my parents and to Terry's friends.

Dad and Mike bowled together.  I think I remember June keeping score.  They drank at Dick and Floyd's together.  June was often there, too.  When I think of Mike and June and my dad, I think of all the stuff I love about being from Kellogg:  bullshit, Mike and Dad giving each other and everyone around them shit, laughing, arguing, making expert commentary on every sport.

It's what I learned it meant to be good friends.

To this day, it's what happens between me and my best friends:  we drink, bullshit, give each other shit, laugh, hash things out, and act like experts on sports whether we know anything or not.

Now, here it is, December 20th, Christmastime, and I'm thinking about Mike and June Turner.

They were what Christmas was all about for me, growing up in Kellogg.  Every Christmas morning, Mike and June went visiting and they always came to our house.  Dad loved having people come over on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and he had always bought an ample supply of beer and booze and was ready to mix a Tom and Jerry on the spot.

"Merry Christmas, you fat son of bitch!"

Ahh.  I knew it was really Christmas.

Mike had arrived.

Roar of laughter.

"Merry Christmas, and get your sad skinny ass in here."

Hearty handshakes.

A kiss for June.

Then Dad always performed his rabbit out of a hat trick and had drinks in their hands in a split second.

If Terry was along, Dad always said the same thing, "Well, Jesus Christ.  MARY!  We got any milk?  Ah, shit, kid, just go hang on the refrigerator door.  Jesus Christ, Mike, don't you feed that kid?"

"Hell, no, I don't feed him!  I send him over here."

"That's for goddamned sure.  MARY!  Get out the turkey!  Make the kid a sandwich. He hasn't eaten for fifteen minutes!"

More laughter.

And the bullshit continued.

Underneath the bullshit was loyalty and trust.

Mike and June trusted my mom and dad and my mom and dad trusted them with the care of their boys.

Mike and June and Terry invited me on NCAA men's basketball trips to Seattle and Los Angeles and when they went away on trips when Terry couldn't go, Terry stayed at our house.

Underneath the bullshit was generosity and care, too.

Mike and June were generous with their home.  There were nights, as my friends and I got a little older, when Mike and June provided a safe port when there'd been too much drinking or let a bunch of us take over the kitchen and dining area and do our drinking under their roof and we had a place to sleep it off.

If I'd known better, I guess I would have seen it all when I was eight years old.  Mike was the coach of one of the Farm League baseball teams.  I'll say it was the Elks team, but I don't really know.


Mike's job was delivering bread.  He delivered Bogey's (or was it Bogie's) bread.  Before a game with the Elks team, we players on other teams would trickle to the game, some on bikes, others in their family's car.


The field we played on was on the old airport and it was largely undeveloped.  The road leading to the ballfield wasn't even paved.


So while the Elks team's opponents arrived, I remember parents wondering where out opponents were.


Then, off to the east, a cloud of dust moved toward the field.  Inside the dust was Mike's Bogey Bread truck.  He pulled it up near the field, opened the back, and out filed his team, having come to play ball in the company of hamburger buns and loafs of sliced bread.

It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. 


With Mike, there was a lot of bullshit, but underneath it was generosity, loyalty, trust, and trustworthiness.

With June, there wasn't so much bullshit. She was alive with generosity, loyalty, trust, and trustworthiness.

Tomorrow, they'll be put to rest.

Three Beautiful Things 12/19/11: Soup, Physical Shopping, Diane Chambers at Sixteen Tons

1.  I've been warming myself with daily soup and today enjoyed a bowl of beef short rib soup at the Korea House. 

2.  I decided to do my gift buying for my sisters and their husbands in Eugene and had got in some good walking, going downtown and to the University area.  I liked perusing, taking things off the shelf.  I liked handling the gifts I bought.  I liked going from store to store.  The walking was good.  So was the soup.  Virtual shopping can be good, but I liked getting physical today.

3.  The Troxstar and I met for a couple honest pints at Sixteen Tons.  The witty and lovely and charming Diane Chambers, played by Emily, kept us entertained with her intellectual prowess (her recitation of Marvell's "The Garden" was very impressive), jazz music,  and her innocent lack of street smarts.  The highlight of tonight's visit, however, was the superb black and tan Diane made for me with Guiness Extra Stout and  Hop Valley Golden Road. 

Picture Gallery

Here are some pictures I've taken over the last week.   If you'd like to see more, go here and click around.

Three Beautiful Things 12/18/11: Shoes, Isaiah 9:2-7, Tasty Ales

1.  I am really bad about buying myself new shoes (or new anything to wear).  The everyday shoes I've been wearing for the last couple of years are a wreck:  the soles are coming apart from the shoe, the surface is peeling -- in short, they look awful.  The Deke delivered me from my bad shoe state today and bought me a pair of black shoes.  I never would have bought them for myself.  They are too good.  I'm grateful to have such a solid pair of shoes. 

2.  I enjoyed reading Isaiah 9:2-7 at this evening's Service of Lessons and Carols at St. Mary's.  The most memorable part of this passage (Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace) is sung in Handel's The Messiah and it's fun to read these words aloud and try to give them a life of their own, unique from the way they are sung in The Messiah. 

3.  The Deke met the Troxstar (who read like a Troxstar from Micah at the Service of Lessons and Carols) and me at Sixteen Tons after the service and we had a great time gabbing, entertaining each other, laughing, and, when appropriate, sharing some somber moments.   Sixteen Tons was pretty quiet, the beer was really good, and we drank exactly the right amount before returning home to continue our evening.  I enjoyed half pints of Dogfish Head Namaste, a scrumptious, refreshing Belgian-style White made with dried organic orange slices, fresh cut lemongrass and a bit of coriander, of Flat Tail De La Rose, and, also from Flat Tail, and fermented in the same barrels with the same trappist sake yeast blend as the De La Rose and re-fermented with baked green apples and cinnamon bark, a half pint of Mama Duncan Apple Beer, a most refreshing topper.

Three Beautiful Things 12/17/11: Beef Curry Soup, Photo Strolls, Yi Shen and Sixteen Tons

1.  Not only did I enjoy the Beef Curry soup at Maple Garden, but I was tickled when the woman working the cash register commented on my Nikon camera, told me about her own, and happily answered my questions about the kinds of pictures she likes to take. 

2.  I had a fun day taking pictures.  Here are two of my favorites.  The first is from the neighborhood west of the University; the second at 5th and High while waiting for a train to finish going by.

 

3.  On good soup deserved another.  After taking pictures in the cold fog of Eugene, Russell and I went to Yi Shen and my body and spirit were warmed by the combo noodle soup.  (While I was savoring this soup, the Deke called and we decided to meet at Sixteen Tons where my body and spirit were further warmed by a pint of Hale's Supergoose IPA and some half pints of Flat Tail De La Rose.  I'm really enjoying the De La Rose.  I don't have words for why I enjoy this unusual beer so much.  Here's how the brewer describes it: 

This 100% oak barrel fermented and aged blonde ale is
spiced with a unique blend of rose hips, birch bark, and
coriander. Fermented 3/4's with a trappist ale yeast, and the
remainder with an authentic Sake yeast Aromas of
rosewater, clove, and subtle mintyness precede a pallet of
delicate pilsner malt and spicy yeast character.

Three Beautiful Things 12/16/11: Millrace Again, Fun Beers, Chicken Dinner

1.  I went back to the Millrace to take pictures (and look for my eyeglasses -- a lost cause).  The environment was foggy and gray and the water was black and gray.  I enjoyed, as best I could, setting the colors along the shore against the dark backdrop of the water.

2.  I tried two new beers today.  First, at Sixteen Tons, a half pint of Gilgamesh's Chocolate Mint Stout, a pleasant beer, but not one I'd eagerly return to, but would gladly accept if offered to me.  After grocery shopping, I tried a half pint of Deschutes The Stoic at the Supreme Bean.  A half pint was all I would want.  It's a strong ale and full of more different flavors than I can describe.  For me, it was kind of like bleu cheese:  I love bleu cheese, but I'd never sit and eat a bunch of it at one sitting.  Same with The Stoic:  interesting, unique, flavorful, strong, and something I would only drink in small doses.  

3.  I thought I fixed a pretty good dinner tonight:  I baked five chicken drumsticks and, in the meantime, I fried sweet onion and mushrooms, combined last night's leftover basmati rice and make a salad that the Deke dressed.  Add a baguette and it was a good meal.