Portland and Beyond Vol 3

http://picasaweb.google.com/nesthimer/MountSaintHelens#

Mount Saint Helens--beautiful, desolate and fascinating.

Portland and Beyond 2

http://picasaweb.google.com/nesthimer/PortlandAndBeyond2#

We had a great day in the city, especially touring the Chinese Garden. Then the evening involved good food, good wine, good friends and playing Apples to Apples.

Portland and Beyond

http://picasaweb.google.com/nesthimer/PortlandAndBeyond

First album, Cape Falcon, Oswald State Park, OR

Scene: Caribou Coffee

Today, 9:30 a.m., in the quiet section to the right of the counter: four newspaper readers, three laptop users, two paperback readers and one pair of earbuds.

Kind of nice that the paper/book readers outnumbered the techies for a few minutes.

Cafe Scene

Young man with shaved head looks up when someone says "bald man" to her companion...mom trying to rustle two small children and her large to-go cup, computer users and cell phones now common as lattes, a loud group inside makes me glad for a mild morning when I can sit outside...I'm not the only one; most of us on the patio are singletons happy with our own company...is the shaved head guy flirting with the girl now?...I'd love another mocha...

Street Scene, PIttsboro

Middle schoolers with and without jackets, books and backpacks...jackets, books and backpacks with and without middle schoolers...a line at the ice cream counter at S & T's...dogwoods in the yard of the Hall London House...the mural on the side of the old hotel...a fella on a motorcycle, one of them with bad indigestion...a little dog worried because his human just disappeared into a shop...the menagerie on the lawn at French Connection...the warmth of old brick...the mystery and intrigue of those tools in Roy's shop...the comfort of knowing where to get equestrian wear, a banjo, photos developed, a facial, good coffee..the bridal gowns in the thrift shop window...a visit to Pittsboro Toys and a chat about the BBS (me: "some of those people are crazy")...dark clouds in the west. Time to go home.

I wrote the Brief Biography of my grandfather, Samuel Johnston, to preserve family stories, sorry that I hadn't begun to record them earlier. I hoped to capture the voices of old Sam's daughters. They--including my mother--loved to talk about him and their immediate family's growing up.

I hope you'll enjoy reading about people who are gone, reared in a time that's gone and in a place that's so changed it could be said to be gone.