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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 2002)
A ThE ClACkAMAS P rìnt **______ K M ay 8, 2002 Time to extend a white flower to mom some relevance to someone out there. Consider it a public service announcement in honor of a holi day that I have neglected for many years. I have been estranged from both of my parents since my fall from grace. For a time, I had resigned myself to living without family ties, possibly seeking or being sought out at some point in the distant future and dealing with the conflict then. Why, after all, do I need to invite thirty plus years of hurt feelings, familial strife, disappointment and criticism back into my life? I still have friends. I have a beautiful daughter. I even get to vent pub licly and enjoy a degree of satis In honor of Mother’s Day, my faction for having a readership to snappy patter is taking a siesta. vent to. For starters, I’d like to apologize I should be able to live through to my readers for the inconsis this and still say goodbye at the tent publication of my column of appropriate moment with a clean late. That being said, I aim to be conscience. Pretty mercenary, on track through the end of the don’t you think? Not surprisingly, school year. this plan hasn’t held up well over As much as I hate to admit.it, the long haul. there is a degree of responsibility In defense of some, I would that comes with putting my atti interject that there are those tude and opinions, as tongue in among us who have good reasons cheek as they may be, out in for avoiding, or even fearing, their public. own parents. I’ve been locked up Occasionally this responsibility with some of the worst and they can have an upside, namely deserve to be where they are. when some experience I’ve had Sadly, they are usually people who can serve as an example to oth are unable or unwilling to see ers. Granted, it’s usually an beyond their own needs, pain or example of what not to do, but fears and their children are the I’m trying the “glass half-full” ones who’ve paid the price. thing these days, so seeking the Like many of us, however, I do positive - the value of a lesson not have such an excuse. For the learned - is important. most part I simply have had no One of these lessons is finding idea what to say or how to reach that I’m not so different from out, and knowing there’s quite a others as I once thought. This bit of my parents in me, I imagine has been discovered by simply it is equally difficult for them. talking to people; a skill I once Assuming, that is, either of us sorely lacked. would be capable of setting aside I’m pretty confident what I pride to make the effort in the first share with you next will have place. This is where, I, personal ly, have the biggest problem fit ting into the big boy pants. Thankfully, one of the things I have learned in my numerous attempts to piss off everybody on the planet: no one is above acting like a child, not even a parent. This kind of levels the playing field so to speak. And, I also real ize quite a few of us childish sorts are “tired of always having to be the one who makes the first move.” Well, I must admit, there is no one who can lay claim to always having to be the peacemaker. (By thé way, when I catch myself using “always” or “never,” that’s a pretty good sign my argument has devolved into finger-pointing.) Suddenly, it becomes possible my folks may be thinking the same way. The scary part is, until I ask, I won’t know. I hate this part. Stay tuned. For those of you with a nagging suspicion that this might be rele vant in your own lives, make yourself safe, gather some support and then deal - whatever that may require for you and your situation. Until then, no amount of anger, food, sex, drink, drugs, money or relationships will fill the hole inside you. Trust me, I’ve tried to make all of them work and the only things I have to show for it are a skewed sense of humor and a really pissed off ex (I can’t say I blame her). See you next week, and call your mother. Hyperstar and The Young Republicans are here to rock the house! Come by and get some good eats and prizes from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the courtyard. Think about... Summer Sess__ r at Portland State Over 1,200 courses to choose from Full-year sequences in one term Courses start each week Transferable credits World-class faculty www.summer.pdx.edu 503-725-3276 Daisy Bain/The Clackamas Print Tiffany Woods of Oregon City (left), talks with travel writer M.J. Cody, author of “Wingin’ It,” a travel column that appears in The Oregonian’s Sunday Travel section every fourth Sunday of the month. Authors travel to campus Two established travel columnists visited Clackamas Wednesday, May Ifor Authors’ Night, “Travel Writers of the Northwest. M.J. Cody, co-editor of “Wild in the City, a Guide to the Portland- Vancouver Metropolitan Greenspaces,” and author of The Oregonian column, “Wingin’ It,” joined Susan Hauser, a Portland native who has been writing for the Leisure & Arts page of “The Wall Street Journal.” Both writers read humorous exerpts from their columns and books. “I suggest taking a tall friend and letting them walk first,” was a line from Cody’s book, “Wild in the City” about how to deal with the enormous amounts of spiders in the Northwest. Hauser offered her own side comments about Cody’s freedom at The Oregonian in her column, “When you get the freedom to write whatever you want it’s like running around naked!” Susan also stat ed that her column doesn’t hide the redneck reputation the West Coast has in the East Coast. “A lot of my writing reflects that we’re a little different,” said Houser.
