Sleepover.1

Anticipation ran high all day. First, these little guys had a sushi party, one of the distractions that helped us fill up the waiting time.



Also, there is the work of drawing a special "Welcome" sign and taping it to the front door.



There are dozens of last-minute details.



Including inventing a new salad (sourgrass salad) featuring a fresh ingredient from our backyard, plus baby carrots, sweet grape tomatoes, daikon slices, broccoli, cauliflower, Persian cucumber, onion, and spices.

***

Julia asked me today: "Daddy, if I were alive in Dr. Martin Luther King's time, would I be considered a white person?"

"Yes," I told her, since there is no doubt about that. Her worry was that if that was the case, she would not be able to be friends with her favorite girls, many of whom are African-American.

A couple years back, Julia was invited to a birthday party at an airport hotel, where all the guests swam in the pool and then gathered in a suite upstairs. As I dropped her off, I noticed that everybody except Julia was black. Little kids, big kids, adults -- all of them were black except Julia.

She was oblivious to this, and had a great time. She has grown up in a place and time where skin color is less relevant than before, thankfully.



We also bought a new pair of shoes for Aidan today, on Haight Street, for slightly more than $80. He is growing so rapidly! Now over 5' 1" and 90lbs. He no longer looks short on the basketball floor.



Dylan, my youngest boy, has a gentle nature. He loves birds. A gang of mean girls recently reduced him to tears by joking about torturing pigeons and eating pigeon pie.

He tells me he knows what to do with a bully of the physical variety. "I'm really good at fighting," he assures me.

It's the psychological torture by girls that he lacks a defense for.

***

And the beat goes on.

-30-

News in Review

It was a good news week, from a journalist's perspective. We found out that over half of all women in the U.S. are living without a spouse, which is a huge change from the 1950, when the figure was 35%. As I have reported earlier, fewer than 50% of all households are now married couples, so the demographic trend is becoming clear.

In case you have not been able to pay attention, marriage as the primary institution of American family life is dying. But there remain great disparities based on race. Here are the numbers:

*~30 percent of black women are living with a spouse,
* 49 percent of Hispanic women,
* 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women,
* More than 60 percent of Asian women.

These figures are based on the US Census Bureau's statistics.

What they tell me, as a man, is that I wish to find a true life partner, I'm twice as likely to find her if she is Asian than if she is black. White women are still doing pretty well, also.

***

This week, we also discovered that the number of visitors to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210% in the past year, while the parent sites, according to Nielsen/NetRatings (NTRT), only grew 9% from December 2005 to December 2006.

Here are the most popular online newspaper blogs and their estimated December audiences:

* USATODAY.com blogs, 1.239 million
* The New York Times' blogs, 1.173 million
* SFGate blogs, 515,000
* Washingtonpost.com blogs, 433,000
* Boston.com blogs, 388,000.

Okay, so what does all of this mean?

To me, we are in the middle of a media revolution, and over the past decade the pattern has become undeniable, as well as irreversible. Paper newspapers are dying. Digital news sources are ascendant.

Old journalists can bemoan this fact as much as they like, but "the battle is over, let the game go on."

***

There is so much more. Nancy Pelosi, my personal representative in Congress, succeeded in pushing through her 100-hour agenda with time to spare. All six policy initiatives she identified passed handily (enacting 9/11 commission recommendations, increasing the minimum wage, expanding federal funding for stem cell research, lowering Medicare drug costs, cutting interest rates on college loans, and ending tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.

All of that is good stuff, though living here in the city with the world's highest minimum wage ($9.14/hour, or about $19,000 full-time annually) I'd have to say Congress still has a ways to go to take care of people in our biggest cities.

Of course, in parts of the rural South, where the average annual working income can be in the mid-$20,000's, this sounds like okay money.

Trust me, in San Francisco, it is not. It's not even enough to pay your rent.

***

This week, we also found out details about President Bush's plan to send 20,000+ more young men and women to try and salvage his failed war strategy in Iraq. The only thing I agree with the Bush administration about is that when this country fails in Iraq, the consequences will be ugly.

Not unlike in Vietnam a generation ago.

If Bush had been paying attention back then, instead of drinking and partying, he would know how foolish his war over supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction really is. Instead, the next President, Democrat or Republican, is going to inherit a terrible mess, with no clear solutions in sight.

***

There were odd stories this week. A Cambodian woman who got lost in the jungle 18 years ago when she was 8 was captured as she tried to steal food from loggers. She was naked, with hair to below her knees, and her skin is blackened, and she has forgotten all but three words of her native language.

Since being captured, and returned to her family, which had assumed she had been eaten by wild animals, she crawls rather than walks and cries constantly, wishing only to return to the wilderness and not be around other human beings.

My question is this: Could that be you or could it be me?

***

Goin' to New York City, yes! Lookin' forward to it, as always.

And in case the murderers of Betty Van Patter should imagine I am done with what I will be doing about that case, guess again.

More soon.

***

Today, I was thrilled to be invited by a new group of Major League Baseball bloggers to join their network. Thus, a new icon appears at the top of my site. Soon, as this coming season gets underway, I will be writing a lot about the game I love most -- baseball.

Hopefully, somewhere along the way, I will also be able to report that I have not only reached first, second and third base...but also scored!

Konichiwa!

Two New Films Released!

One is funny and one is not.

According to the introductory text, this first film is:

A Weirdudes James Bond spoof. The evil mastermind returns brandishing an aging device with which she plans to rule the world. Her evil plot is dismantled by Bond with the help of the MI6 director. ... In this film, you can see both the youngest and the oldest Weirdudes of our particular three generations.

I highly commend this film. Below is an exclusive shot from the set, in Portland, Oregon, where I was lucky enough to be onsite as this excellent short was filmed.



You can watc h it here:
Spoof #2 .




***

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out a way to join my colleagues from the Center for Investigative Reporting over the coming ten days in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Film Festival as they exhibit the documentary, Banished, which is the story of unreported ethnic cleansing here in the U.S. a century ago.

Please view the information about this important film here:

Banished



-30-

Reading the News

When you've worked inside the news machine, as I have all of my adult life, you develop something called "news sense." Today, as always, some stories moved that caught my attention. Late today (US time) the BBC reported the following semi-shocking news:


{An Iranian offer to help the United States stabilize Iraq and end its military support for Hezbollah and Hamas was rejected by Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003, a former top State Department official told the British Broadcasting Corp.

The U.S. State Department was open to the offer, which came in an unsigned letter sent shortly after the American invasion of Iraq, Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, told BBC's Newsnight in a program broadcast Wednesday night. But, Wilkerson said, Cheney vetoed the deal.

"We thought it was a very propitious moment" to strike a deal, Wilkerson said. "But as soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the vice president's office, the old mantra of 'We don't talk to evil' ... reasserted itself."}

So, how to read this news? As with all such items, first we have to read it critically. Wilkerson, the BBC's source, is a prominent critic of the Bush administration and its Iraq strategy. On the other hand, neither he nor the BBC is likely to push a story out there without adequate proof, because to do so in the modern media environment is to squander the only resource any journalist or public figure has -- credibility.

There is a factor of unknown importance between the lines here. Cheney's former chief aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, goes on trial next week in the Valerie Plame/CIR leak scandal. Cheney has been called as a witness.

Inside the Beltway, this is called "piling on." Cheney's critics smell blood, especially after Rumsfeld's demise and the Democratic sweep last November. Bush has been in a defensive posture ever since, except in the one area where he holds the cards (war), where he promises to send 20,000+ more young people into harm's way very soon.

Watch the Libby trial closely for clues. In politics, nobody is sacred and nobody lives forever. Karl Rove, once thought vulnerable due to this scandal, appears to have escaped. But, like the sacrificial ceremonies in human cultures since time immemorial, somebody's head has to roll.

I am just guessing here, piecing together clues, but if Cheney ends up resigning due to this scandal, you read it here first! I think that perhaps the bell now tolls for Dick.

***

To switch topics entirely, the San Francisco Chronicle reported today that last year was one of the worst years on record in terms of the number of people known to have jumped to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge.

The verified number is 34, with at least four others likely. The all-time known record is 40. Last year, at least 70 others tried to kill themselves in this way, but bridge officials intervened in time to talk them down from jumping.

These numbers represent a dramatic increase from previous years, so the question is: Why? A bridge district spokesperson blamed media coverage. So, we must once again return to Plato's Cave. For thousands of years, society has blamed the messenger.

The journalist in me doth protest; I hope not too much.

After all, Shakespeare's plays were mediocre compared to his sonnets.

***

I always love seeing my ex-students. Today, a former Stanford graduate student stopped by. Her name is Jamie. She is considering moving back to the Bay Area from North Carolina, where she has been working for a small newspaper.

I encouraged her, as I almost always do when writers ask me whether to relocate here. Despite many problems, this remains Mecca for creative people. She will find a place for herself in our ever-changing creative community, I'm quite sure.

From her perch in Chapel Hill, she noticed something I'd overlooked, and that is that John Edwards, the stealth candidate for President in 2008, has been actively using Facebook and MySpace to energize his base. He also announced his candidacy in New Orleans, plus he has always consistently been the loudest voice for the poor and the underrepresented.

Think about all of that, and then remember he is from the South. The only Presidents the Democrats have elected since JFK were similarly Southerners -- Carter and Clinton. By contrast, Obama (who I fear is a modern Warren Harding) and Hillary (who is all northerner, as if Arkansas never happened) cannot really play across the lines that determine political outcomes in this country.

Don't get me wrong. I like Obama; he's easy to respond to on charismatic grounds alone. And Hillary is easily the most articulate politician in the race, much like her husband.

But I am betting on Edwards, because I think the true scandal of America this decade is that we have spent $1 Trillion on the misguided war in Iraq, while neglecting the needs of our own fellow citizens in New Orleans and Mississippi after the greatest natural calamity in our nation's history -- Hurricane Katrina.

He alone seems willing to speak out about that truth and to stand up as a representative of the poor and working classes. If that is not what a Democrat is, then maybe we would be better off with Republicans, eh?

After all, both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have attractive qualities, not to mention when they (inevitably) will get paired with the attractive Condi Rice, who unfortunately is a monster.

Trust me, I would love to vote for a black lesbian.

Just not this one.

-30-

Loving One Another

It is a little over a year ago now that my friend and I had a conversation in her car in the parking lot of a church on Pass Road in Biloxi that helped me grasp that I am not the only person for whom feelings course here and fro, like rivers, then trickles, then floods, then dry creeks. Embarrassing though it may be, I had never before realized that everyone experiences these uneven waves of feelings. On the other hand, this is a man who until his late '30s, derided anyone who claimed that feelings even mattered!

What an idiot she realized I was at that moment!

(That's what you get for trusting people. An education.)

It is incomprehensible to me now that for so long I lived in a state of emotional denial, but I did. Plus, looking around me, I see many other men living in a similar manner, and even some women.

Thankfully, we are wired in such a way that most of us endure a mid-life crisis, where we encounter all that is within us that is unfinished business, emotionally speaking, which causes us to strike out into new territory, make mistakes, and become what another friend of mine once called "broken."

"I think people, men at least, are most interesting when they become broken," she said.

The gender distinction is important here, mainly because no matter how many advances we've achieved, males still are the breadwinners and females still are the caregivers.

I'm a fairly independent guy now, with my own settled patterns, but some mornings I wish there was a woman who would check me out before I leave for the day, and tell me if I have a bad shaving nick, or have forgotten to tie down my collar, or grabbed mismatched socks. I hope this does not sound sexist to anyone's ears.

I am equally willing to give my partner feedback on her hair, makeup, skirt -- whatever she is worried about.

Couples do that for one another, and I think it is sweet.

Tonight, I am focusing on the sweetness that is within all of us. I am starting with the feelings of a 10-year-old uncle and an 8-year-old aunt ("ant" by her spelling). Thanks to their oldest sister, always the most imaginative creator of projects I have ever known, they expended a great deal of effort last weekend creating books for their nephew, little James.

Dylan made him the hero of a romantic fighting story. Julia chose a more pragmatic course -- a guide to help him learn his alphabet.




A is for Apple
B is for Ball
C is for Cat
D is for Dog

and so on. You have to click on these (and all of my) photos to view them at a reasonable size.

***

Such is the love for a new child that any other healthy child naturally feels. But, at the same time, we live in a world of unconscionable violence of all sorts. Suicide bombers in Iraq. Rebels eating the few remaining gorillas in The Congo, including parents and children every bit as connected as we could ever be. Also, slaughtering the last of the the Hippos. The rapes and dismembering of innocents at Darfur. The handgun violence on corners throughout East Oakland. The destruction of rainforests on every continent. The overfishing of every ocean.

What is this monster species, homo sapiens?

Is this you and is this me?

The complex interplay between our intellectual and emotional intelligences seems to have engulfed the entire planet in an uproar. How can we possibly justify exterminating other animals?

The web of life is at risk.

For the past 39 years I have been an environmentalist. All of my books and most of my articles concerned the interconnected sets of crises that threaten not only our future viability but that of all the living creatures, animal, plant and microbe, on this planet.

I feel now I must return to that work, that mission. As many know, I am a RPCV (Returned Peace Corp Volunteer). The oath we took to do our work overseas, in the end, involved bringing whatever we learned back here, to our homeland, where we committed to try and make a difference.

That is who I am. And if you are reading this, probably who you are too.

-30-

p.s. Coming soon to this blogging theatre near you. "Oral Sex." (I need more traffic.)

My favorite documentary

Tonight, on my favorite holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, I am watching a videotape of this man's great speeches. No one in my lifetime has been more influential in his use of English.

Here is his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in late August 1963; the one remembered as the "I Have a Dream" speech:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. *We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only."* We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³

Two Mountains in the window

photo by Dylan

So, did you realize Portland is up near the border with Washington?

I didn't think so.

Most Americans are still relatively ignorant about west coast geography. As you lift off from the Portland airport, you are blessed with the ability to see two ancient volcanos, one -- Mt. St. Helens -- that used to be more impressive-looking, until it blew its top. Remember?



Much like a man appears to his woman after he explodes for the first time at her, eh?

The other peak is Mt. Hood. It hasn't exploded lately, but when will it do so again?



Floating peacefully above all of this today were my own precious companions.



There was an airline attendant, a woman who reminded me slightly of a younger Jane Fonda, the one I knew and worked with. She really liked my kids. I asked if she had any children of her own, but she said no, though she was a "very active aunt."

Julia waved goodbye to her shyly as we exited the plane. All I could think about is how sad it must be for a woman who likes kids to never have any of her own. There must be no sense of future at all when you know you are the last of your line.

Sort of like working as an airline attendant, trying to smile at all manner of guests, even as you know that at any second, you may suddenly plunge to an awful death.

-30-

Dust of our ancestors

In this greenest of seasons here in the city built on sand dunes, I am noticing something strange in our backyard. Despite a bloom of sour grass and clover, the place where we excavated Buried Treasures from the 1880's remains bare.

Could it be that the ghosts of the past, having been excavated, are protesting going back where they belong?

Of course, the reign of the living, too, is a temporary matter. In the end we are all reduced to such dust; thus, we are all well-advised to walk gently on this earth, as we tread over the dusty bones of all of our common ancestors.

-30-

Boyz in Mt. Hood

There is a rumor that the latest Weirdudes' production, another James Bond spoof, will be up on YouTube in the near future. As you may know, Portland is a major film venue for the fast-moving Dudes, who are, by all accounts, hard to keep up with.

My mother went through a period in her life, the middle-aged years, when she was hypersensitive to any critical comment she perceived from anyone. She used to tell me how they had "hurt (her) feelings." I, of course, hated the offending party, though my sense over time was that she was just being way too sensitive.

Fast forward to when I reached middle age, whatever the hell that may be these days, and I suddenly started feeling the lash of others' judgments of me like a whip cutting into my bare flesh. I started complaining about almost everyone in my universe, on various grounds. In retrospect, it was incredibly easy to offend me in those years; in many ways, I was always looking to be offended.

I lost some friends during that period. Lots of other things were going wrong, of course, because the Internet bubble burst at just the worst possible moment for yours truly, over-extended as he was in a housing market that suddenly froze in place, just long enough for an incompetent real estate agent to erase my life savings by selling our house way under market by exploiting the miserable fact that my wife and I were also breaking up while we were selling that house.

There I go again, see? Being hypersensitive, but I beg to receive at least one fair hearing as I tell this story my way. Bear with me.

***

Before I start, doesn't Mt. Hood look beautiful in the late afternoon light from my daughter's house?

Now, imagine you were me in the year 2000. You are 50ish, and your second marriage is shaky despite many years of couples' therapy. Your family has relocated, at great expense and trauma, from San Francisco just the year before, to a huge house in Takoma Park, MD.

You are the bureau chief of a Washington office for an upstart web-based magazine. Your job, as you perceive it, is to convince the Beltway community (one of the most ingrown in the world), that your publication is not some wacky left-coast collective but a serious journalistic enterprise.

Long story short: Mission unsuccessful.

But I did attract quite a few conservative voices to the website's pages in my one year there, as well as some terrific liberal writers as well.

At home, however, my wife was not happy. As nice as this most leftist of Washington suburbs was, and it was nice, it also most certainly was not San Francisco.

So, I obtained a new job, in Silicon Valley, leaving my old position to the scavengers who always show up when you become road kill in this society. For three months or so, I had to commute coast to coast almost every weekend so that I could be at my new desk in Redwood City but also see my little children (then 6, 4 and 2) in Takoma Park.

While I was away one day our cat, Jazz, died. He was pure black. A friend had rescued him as a kitten, starving, hiding inside a bulldozer in Marin on the site of a wetlands reclamation project. My wife had nursed him back to health with milk from a baby bottle.

He'd stayed with a neighbor when we moved east. He looked out the front window every day until I came back for him. Then, he came out and into his travel box and I took him eastward with me on one of my weekend commutes.

But he had had a fight in the neighbor's backyard one day, before he retreated to her front room, to stare outside and refuse ever again to leave that spot until I showed up. In that fight, he was bitten, and as it turned out, infected with cat leukemia.

He died. We buried him out back.

We all moved back to San Francisco. The "pink house" that I bought, in Noe Valley, looked to be the place we would live out the rest of our lives. I planted bamboo and I planted flowers. We had two fresh water fishponds in our backyard, courtesy of the little-known 28th street creek, one of seven secret rivers that still run beneath San Francisco.

None of it was to be. Now, only my 12-year-old remembers, truly. He has the burden of being the oldest of his cluster, which means he knows much more about these things than the younger ones.

We are here in Portland, with that magnificent mountain in our view, to visit their nephew and my grandson. But tonight, all I can imagine is my own children's pain, as one life fell apart, revealing another. Then, I see how the new world of "Mom's House/Dad's House" took hold.

We all need to feel safe at the end of the day. Looking at Mt. Hood doesn't inspire safe feelings but a sense of dread, mainly because of the fate of recent climbers who succumbed up there.

Yet each of us has to keep climbing, no, until we just cannot do it anymore. At that point, our story is over, but the Story goes on.

-30-

"Things got bad, and things got worse, I guess you will know the tune...Somewhere I lost connections, ran out of songs to play." -- Creedence Clearwater Revival