Category: Reminiscences

From the misty corners of my memory

Pliny the Younger… and More

After twenty-plus years in northern California’s wine country, I recently returned to Oregon. I got out just in time. (In time for ice and snow in Portland.) Five years of drought has given way to rain, lots of rain, bringing landslides, flooding and washed-out roads. When I arrived in Sonoma County, its transformation from a richly diverse agricultural area – apples, cherries, pears, prunes, hops – to wine grapes was nearly complete. I watched as most any bare patch of ground was planted with vineyards.

The recession in 2008 brought new planting to a halt. Sonoma and Mendocino and Napa and Lake counties were awash with unsold premium wine. The recession’s upside was several years of cheap wine made with blends of exceptional-quality grapes. Which brings us to the current time and a different type of diversification.

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A Little Behind in My Reading

Next year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the massacre at My Lai. U.S. troops led by Lieutenant William L. Calley in 1968 burned the village in central Vietnam and murdered nearly 500 unarmed residents, mostly women, children and elderly. The Pentagon tried mightily to suppress the story, but a year-and-half later Seymour Hersh reported the story. My Lai was headline news for weeks. Lt. Calley became the face of everything wrong about the endless war in Vietnam that was killing 1,500 American soldiers every month. He was the only one convicted of any wrongdoing. The Vietnam misadventure sank the U.S. into a general moroseness for more than a decade. It took Ronald Reagan’s heroic invasion of and stirring victory over archenemy Grenada to make us feel good about ourselves again.

Seymour Hersh returned to Vietnam in 2015. Take some time to read his follow-up story more than four decades after the original.

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American Legion – Then and Now

The summer of 1970, a year filled with anti-Vietnam War protests across the country, was headed to a climax with the American Legion’s national convention opening in Portland on August 30. The Oregonian newspaper reported that Richard Nixon was to address the gathering. Portland had witnessed its share of demonstrations; this could be the mother of them all. The FBI informed Governor Tom McCall that the so-called Peoples Army Jamboree was organizing to bring 50,000 protestors to disrupt the convention. (Later, evidence showed the FBI had made up the number. Some things don’t change.) Continue reading “American Legion – Then and Now”

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Aunt Lorraine & Uncle Roger and The Day the Music Died

A small plane took off from the Mason City Iowa airport in bad weather, shortly after midnight on February 3, 1959. It was a short flight. Killed in the subsequent crash were the pilot, Roger Peterson, entertainers J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly. They had just finished their performances at the Surf Ballroom in nearby Clear Lake. You are probably familiar with the story of the “The Winter Dance Party” tour and “the day the music died.” (Also on the tour were Dion & the Belmonts.)

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Love Is All Around (not The Troggs)

We’ve been hearing snippets the last few days of the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme song, “Love Is All Around,” written and sung by Sonny Curtis. “Who can turn the world on with her smile,” and “You’re gonna make it after all,” – changed from “You might just make it after all,” after the first season – are likely still floating in your brain.

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