I always love hearing how people were drawn to or chose a career in education.   I can honestly say that I was born into it, literally.   I was a born on a Friday night during a high school football game between the Adrian Antelopes and the New Plymouth Pilgrims.  My dad  Jerry Huntley, head coach of the Antelopes, missed the start of the game for my birth.  He left the hospital shortly after I was born and got to the game with his team trailing just before half.   His adrenaline and excitement was so infectious that the team rallied in the second half to win the game.  The headline in the local paper the following day read: "Huntley Has Two Victories."  

I was raised in Southern Oregon the only child of two teachers.  Needles to say most of my early memories revolve around school.   I tagged along with my dad to practices and games, where I was often the halftime entertainment.   Most of my babysitters were students of my parents, who would also drag me around with them to various school events.  It was not uncommon for me to be right in the middle of the High School Student Section or hoisted up on someone's shoulders during a game.   While my dad was coaching, supervising or working at various events, I had unfettered access and took full advantage.  I fondly remember one such experience, where I ended up helping decorate for PROM, even though I was still in elementary school.   FYI, It is not a good idea to leave a 10 year old in charge of blowing up balloons and unsupervised with the helium tank.   As I moved from elementary school through junior high and then eventually to high school, my role in these various school events changed from a spectator/nuisance to an active participant.   If there was an event at school more than likely I was there.   I graduated from Sutherlin High School in 1993 and headed off to Western Oregon University to play football and become a veterinarian.   

It was at Western I realized I was meant to be a teacher.    I wasn't really enjoying my pre-vet classes and found myself taking every class I could from Dr. Moran and Dr. White, human geography professors who for whatever reason had the ability of making me hang on every word, intertwining history, geography, politics  with a some personal story telling that keep me wanting to know more.  Sometime during my sophomore year after analyzing my transcripts, I called home to let my parents know I was switching  my major to education.  The rest they say is history, pun intended.   I eventually received an undergraduate and graduate degree in Secondary Education from Western Oregon University.  In addition to my mother and father, It was the many great educators that I had throughout my k-12 experience at Sutherlin and a few inspirational professors at Western that were my inspiration to pursue a career in education.   

After college, I followed in my father's footsteps, the late great Jerry Huntley, becoming a social studies teacher.  I started my career as a teacher and coach at North Marion High School, in Aurora, Oregon.  NM was a great place to start my career.   The school size allowed me to be involved with a lot of different activities and to quickly connect to the students and community. My time at NM still remains some of the most fond years of my career.  I have stayed in touch with many of the students and families I met during those years.  I'm not exactly sure what it was about NM, but it was definitely special.  I then had the opportunity to move to Tigard High School and continue my pursuit of improving as a teacher and coach.  The move allowed me to grow and to focus on my skills in the classroom.  In addition it was at Tigard where my love of educational technology was fostered and cultivated.   I was able to gain a lot of insight from Jerry Westfall and the award winning TigerNet Program that he built.  Because of my own interest and abilities, I was tapped and began providing staff PD around the creation and use of Power Points and Websites.  My administrators and colleagues at Tigard saw something in me and encouraged me to become an administrator, by selecting me for the Portland Metropolitan Leadership Initiative.  It was a program designed to study the leadership styles of administrators selected by other administrators.  It was a very unique opportunity that I am still very thankful for.  I had a great mentor/advisor and was able to learn along side a very talented group of administrators. 

A few years later I got my first administrative job as the Principal of Perrydale Middle/High School, a small 1A school south of McMinnville, Oregon.  It was a great place to start my administrative career.  Because of the size, I had to wear many hats and I was exposed to various aspects of school administration.  In big districts, administrators often have very specialized roles and are responsible for a small piece of the puzzle.   In a small district you have to do it all, maybe not at the same scale, but on some level none the less. Eventually, I ended up back where I grew up in Douglas County, at Roseburg High School.  I truly enjoyed the four years I spent working as an assistant principal in charge of curriculum and testing at RHS.  I worked with some wonderful people who I learned a great deal from and was lucky enough to have Karen Goirigolzarri as a principal and mentor.   I'm not sure I will ever be part of team that was as cohesive as the group of administrators were at RHS.  I left Roseburg for the opportunity to become the Principal at my Alma Mater, Sutherlin High School.   

Being the principal of the small town high school where you attended and where your dad taught and retired from, is both a really neat and an extremely odd experience wrapped up into one big unbelievable story.   On one hand you get to have relationships with students and their parents, even grandparents with whom you went to school with and/or who have known you, all your life.   You are vested in their success and that of the school on a level not otherwise realized in another setting.   It can be extremely special at times.  On the other hand and to quote a song lyric "You are always seventeen in your home town" (Cross Canadian Ragweed) which rings so true on so many levels.  Some people are unable to move beyond the perspective of their youth, either because of the nostalgia they attach to that period of life and/or due to a lack of worldly experiences.  Relationships can also be a little fickle in a small town, especially when someone is willing to upset the apple cart if you will.   Some day maybe I'll write a tell all book about the experience, but for now we'll just leave it at, unique.  Despite some of the partisan issues, that I dealt with, I am proud of the work I did at SHS during my 7 years as principal.  I am pleased with the co-curricular programs, I helped restore and/or create and still smile watching those programs as they continue to grow and provide opportunities for students.  

Currently I am working as a Curriculum Administrator overseeing Instructional Technology for the Eugene 4J School District.   It is absolutely a dream job, combining my two educational passions: Curriculum Design and Technology.  I essentially get to geek out every single day designing professional development and working with teachers on how to incorporate technology into the classroom.   I am constantly learning, sharing and just enjoying doing what I'm doing every single day.   I get to work with some outstanding people with a progressive approach to educating kids.   

DRAFT --- I periodically update and work on this piece so if it seems disjointed I was in the middle of a thought or revision and left it as is, but this piece like myself is a work in progress.

The Origin Story

The title of the is little autobiography is an ode to the paradox that is my life.   I often sit around with my wife and the two of us chuckle about how perplexing I can be to people.   People try and fail based on their level of perception of who I am, to to fit me into their stereotypes.   They try to categorize me based on what they see and understand; my career, where I live, how I dress or the one or two hobbies they may associate with me.  I know that this is just human nature and I do the same thing to other people, but for some reason I project differently to others than I am.  I would say this was especially true in my tenure as a high school principal, but as Shrek told donkey, Ogers are like onions, we have layers.  I am just as comfortable at a rodeo in rural Oregon surround by cowboy hats and sawdust, as I am in Grant Park listening to a DJ spin rap records to a crowd of folks predominately from the South and West sides of Chicago.   I am idiomatic, sometimes a social chameleon having the ability to blend right in because of the skin I'm in, other times I'm as conspicuous as a clydesdale at a pony ride.  Never the less, I am always comfortable and willing to experience the moment in time, for what it is.  The few people who truly know me understand this peculiarity, because they have peeled back the layers, they are amongst the few whom I call friends.   Those who judge or who have cast me aside because of these anomalies, aren't defining me as much as they are defining themselves.  

As I mentioned in my Educational Journey, I grew up in a small Southern Oregon town as the only child of two teachers.   My parents while active member of the community, were not originally from the area having moved there from Eastern Oregon in the late 1970's for employment.   I was born in Eastern Oregon and my parents even farmed there for awhile in the summers when not teaching.   They were both originally  born and raised in the Portland Metro Area.  Not Portlandia, but from a Portland when farm fields and open spaces still separated the various smaller hamlets that now encompass what everyone else in Oregon now just refers to as Portland.  You can start to see, the duplicitous roots of my worldly view forming before I was even born.  When I was three we moved to Sutherlin, Oregon.  It is a town that was once dominated by the timber industry and the Murphy Plywood Mill at the center of town is still the dominate feature of the town.  While not the original mill which burned down in 2005 and was truly a visual reminder of days gone by, the new modern plant is still one of the larger employers in the area.   There were once multiple mills, both small and large scattered across the county and if you didn't work in the timber industry you certainly knew plenty of folks who did.  The nostalgia of this long lost era can still be seen on the walls of  local eateries  and businesses and if you know what you're looking for you can even see remnants of the old log yards and mills that are slowly being reclaimed or decaying with only the concrete foundations to remind folks of what once stood.  Today there are just a few large mills in operation in the county, most are automated and employ a much smaller percentage of people than they once did during  the hay day of  the timber industry.  A era that was fueled by lax regulations, over harvesting and a much different regard for our natural resources than exists today.   You are starting to see a return to the roots of the industry though with the affordability of portable mills and niche group of folks selling privately milled lumber. 

While I find the history of the timber industry fascinating, the high water mark in what many point too as the decline of the industry happened when the Spotted Owl was placed on the endangered species list in 1990.    The geopolitical backstory and culmination of events behind all this really is an interesting story.   The industry was already facing issues, but this singular event became national news and highlighted what is referred in an OPB piece by Aaron Scott as the Timber Wars.   It was a period in the eighties and nineties that saw lines draws between urban and rural, environment and industry, and very much fueled the partisan politics we continue to see play out today in the region.   If you want to listen to a piece of Americana about the area listen to Lumberjack by Johnny Cash.   It highlights the difference between what life was like in Roseburg, Or and that of Eugene , Or just an hours drive north in the 1950's and 60's.  It is a commute, I make daily and it is amazing even sixty years later what a difference an hour can make in culture of a region.    

I was just a kid in high school during the Spotted Owl controversy and didn't really understand what was happening or the impact it had the families of my friends,  the businesses in town or small communities across the Pacific Northwest.   All I knew is what was being said on the news and in sometimes heated conversations at school.   I remember the t-shirts depicting the spotted owl tasting like chicken and the newly coined term of tree hugger for anyone who voiced any opposition to the plight of the logger.    What I do know is that the character of towns across Oregon were changed forever and that this singular event can be pointed at as the catalyst that caused it.  Additional research however will quickly produce a long list of causes to the decline of the logging industry that started long before the Spotted Owl.  It's a little like boom and bust cycle of West Texas.  I find it interesting, being an educator to look at the sizes of schools and the various sport division champions in the eighties vs those of today.  Schools that were once large and dominate, now find themselves is smaller divisions and struggling to field teams.  There are anomalies of course, but the trends and timelines are undeniable. 

Sutherlin and Douglas County as a whole are quite conservative.  A fact that I am now keenly  aware of, but as a kid growing up didn't really pay much attention to or even understand.  At last count in a town of 7,000, you can find 15 churches and on every holiday the streets are lined with American Flags courtesy of the local Lions Club.   The old "Timber Days" celebration, marked by a parade of log trucks through the center of town, a fair and a timber sport competition, that I remember as a kid is a thing of the past.  However in its place are several smaller events, one of which is the Timber Town Light Parade where log trucks are decorated in Christmas lights as a way to pay homage to what once was.  The trucks are more often than not now empty and the logs much smaller in comparison to the Old Growth that was cut from the hills surrounding the town.   A once proud tradition, honoring the hard working men and an industry that feed the town, reduced to a sad remembrance of what once was.  Sutherlin still clings to its Blue Collar, Middle American identity, but its an image that frankly no longer exists, at least not to the extent to what those who like to practice identity politics try to project.   Blue Collar jobs, where a person can support a family on a single income are few and far between and the once strong middle class continues to slip further and further towards the poverty line due to the wealth inequality that exists in America. Douglas County is still an area where people are quick to claim to have "traditional values."    A term that until recently would not have triggered an emotion response from me, but simply have caused me to harken images of a previous generation.  Now however, I know and understand the phrase "traditional values" to have racial underpinnings, ones that refer to traditions of a dominate culture.  I don't have any issues with those who claim to practice traditional values and I am sure some who utter the phrase do not know or understand the bias behind the term.  As far as I am concerned more power to you for having a moral code that governs how you live your life and treat others.   I think we should all take time to occasionally reevaluate were we stand and our moral outlook on the world.   Where the problem lies for me and where I take issue now however, is when people expect others to live by their morals and customs.  And when sometimes they use the majority wins view of democracy to suppress and ostracize others because of racial or religious reasons, then I have a problem.  

Growing up, I was unaware of the racist history of Oregon or the white supremacy that was baked into our culture, laws and government policies.   It was certainly not something that was taught in school and I was in my 40's before I learned that Oregon was actually the only state admitted to the Union as an exclusionary state, not a Free or Slave State, an exclusionary state.  Meaning, no person of color was allowed to enter into, or reside within the limits of the Oregon Territory (sos.oregon.gov).  Moreover, Douglas County where I grew up was named in honor U. S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois,  who was a congressional advocate for Oregon statehood, but if you will also remember from your US History studies was most famous for his debates against Abraham Lincoln in support of the expansion of slavery through popular sovereignty.   I was a white male child of two middle class white parents living in a predominately white community, I was afforded the luxury of not having to think about the color of my skin as I grew up.  While I am now hypercritical of issues surrounding racist policies and inequality in my community and others, at the time I was ignorant and unaware of my situation or that of people around the world.  In retrospect, despite all of the negative origins I can honestly say for me, Sutherlin was a good place to grow up.  Nostalgia is a funny thing though and when you start to analyze things with a new lens and a bit of hindsight  you see things a little differently.   It was good place to grow up for reasons that were not in my control or that I had any hand in, simply luck and circumstance.  It was a good place to grow up because of my parents and I am just happy that they gave me a childhood that I look back on fondly and that I didn't have to try and overcome.   

My parents provided me with opportunities, that as I look back on were not afforded to most of my friends or the kids I went to school with.  We were not rich and probably at the time pretty average economically, but I grew up never wanting for anything.   My mom was super frugal and my dad always figured out a way to stretch a dollar.   I'm not sure I quite inherited either of these traits, but my parents did instill the value of hard work and living within your means.   I still have a tendency to have a champaign taste on a beer budget at times, but my wife keeps me grounded much like my parents did as a kid.  I always envied my friends who had the latest video game consul or got a pair of Jordans for basketball season, but material things weren't important to my parents as much as utilitarian items.  They were more into doing something, then having something, if that makes sense.  We had things, but they weren't always new or the latest and greatest.   I always got a new pair of sneakers for basketball, they just weren't  Jordans.   When we did make a big purchase, I remember it being a big deal and we took care it.    

My parents believed in the importance of exposing me to a wide range of experiences, cultures and people, and as a result, I gained an appreciation and understanding of both the simple pleasures and worldly affairs.   Which as the title of this little prologue alludes too,  my experiences and upbringing gave me a little different perspective than most of my classmates.  I grew up as a farm kid, participated in 4-H, built fences, rode horses did all the things that Nashville songs attribute to being country.   As I got older it was a little more Waylon and Willie than George and Garth, at least in college but you get the point.  Yet despite growing up a rural farm kid,  I got to travel the world and experience other cultures.   My parents had summers off, so it seemed like every year we would go on some type of trip.  I can remember one summer when I was about 10, my parents loaded my cousin Sharla and I,  into a camper and we traveled around the the United States stopping at various National Parks and tourist destinations.  I remember fondly getting to be the navigator, in charge of reading the atlas and telling my dad which exit to take or figuring out how many miles it was to the next stop.   Remember this was a time before google maps or a navigation app.   I also quizzed my dad on the state nicknames and capitals listed among other facts in atlas,  many of which I can still recite to this day.  It is a talent that often wows and amazes people, when the opportunity arises.   As my wife would tell you, I am a wealth of useless information.  

In addition to our family trips, my dad would take groups of high school students mostly from my hometown about every other year on a trip to Europe.   He did this through one of those student traveling companies where the chaperone(s) traveled for free and or a reduce rate.   Initially he stuck to the pre-planned tour, but he eventually began planning his own tours, sometimes utilizing the company and other-times using his frugal travel expertise to piece together a trip of destination he wanted to visit.  The bulk of the trip was spent on a double-decker bus where you slept upstairs and cooked and ate downstairs.   He would plan a trip that exposed students to wide range of experiences.  Anything from seeing the Louvre Museum,  visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Glass Blowing in Venice, Hiking the Swiss Alps to visiting a Communist Soviet Union.  It was a life changing experience for some of the students in our town, myself included.   It became a culminating event for some students who would save money and work summer jobs, just too afford the opportunity.   I was probably one of maybe a few kids in my elementary school that had been to Europe and I was most definitely the only kid in the county that visited the Soviet Union in 1985.  When my friends I watched "Rocky IV," I was the only one with a real world context of the East vs West differences playing out on the big screen.    

While I knew these opportunities were special, I didn't really understand the magnitude or significance of these life experiences I was being given by my parents, I was just along for the ride.   Unknowingly however, it was  these experiences that began to develop an appreciation for what was outside the little dot on the map in which I lived and provided me a global perspective to issues that others did not have .   I also think that this early exposure to the world caused me to be somewhat content with where I lived.  There are those who are destine to wander, but I think if you travel quite a bit, then it diminishes  the mystery or need to explore.  You recognize what make a place home and for me that will always be Oregon.   All in all, I had the all-American childhood, my parents just provided me with a different context of the world and my place in it.  

The Farmer

Growing up on a small farm, before the world was over taken by cable tv and the internet, is something that I would have a hard time explaining to my two daughters.   Entertainment was not readily available in the palm of my hand.   I didn't have any siblings and my closest childhood friend lived over a mile away.  If I wanted adventure or excitement it was up to me to create it.   I can't tell you how many hours, I spent exploring the wooded fields near my house, building forts and playing in the creek that ran through the bottom of our property.   Regardless of what I was doing, I was often accompanied by one of the dogs or the other farm animals who found it curious that I was playing in their environment.   I had no problem carrying on a conversation with the animals as I constructed my latest engineering feat.  They never answered at least not verbally but, I think they enjoyed the company as much as I did.  I would greet them as I passed by, much like someone would if they passed by a neighbor working in their yard.   The animals were my friends and with no one around, I became very accustom to their sounds and mannerisms.    It's not like I was Dr, Dolittle or anything, but it is probably why I never became a hunter.   I'm a carnivore and we have raised animals for slaughter, so  I  do understand where my food comes from.   As I mentioned above I was a 4-H member and raised many market projects.  It is a valuable lesson and one I am passing on to my daughters.  And while when they sell their animals now there are no tears, those first couple of years absolutely broke my heart watching my daughters sob uncontrollably as they sold and then delivered their lambs to the slaughter pen. Doing this however helps you develop a respect for life and learn empathy in a way that is an entirely unique experience.  I like to think of it a little like our forefathers or ancestors whose existence depended on their relationship with animals.  This is why trophy hunting makes me sick, I understand putting food on the table, but killing for killing sake is wrong in my eyes.   As I watch my daughters grow up, I see the same trait in my oldest daughter.   She's the one disregarding the do not feed the animals sign and who for whatever reason is the one animals seek out when we visit other peoples homes.   We call her the crazy cat lady in training.   

If you have been around animals for any length in time, you know that each one has its own unique personality.   Just like people, they have their own routines, ticks and mannerisms.  They have their own pecking order and things that bother them.  For a time in my 20's I wanted to become a horse trainer and I was pretty good at it.  I worked with a few trainers and I focused on learning whatever I could about working with horses.  But it wasn't until, I read the  Horse Whisperer and then the book Buck that I really understood the "why" behind some of the tricks I learned when working with horses.   In the books it is a process of what is called "joining up"  where in the person builds a level of trust with the animal.  The animal learns by you "asking" them to do something and then applying constant steady pressure until they do it, then you release the pressure and try again, until the ask becomes so subtle that someone unfamiliar with the nuance wouldn't even notice.   I attribute my ability to read the nonverbal cues of horses in part due to my childhood.  When you hang out with animals as much as I did, you learn to hear their nonverbal cues.   Mark Twain once said "the more I learn about people, the more I like my dog."  I couldn't agree more but horses, well and my dog .  To this day, if I need a bit of personal quiet time to center myself I find it in the barn. I still find solace in company of animals.   A day that ends where I smell like a horse is good day!   While I still have a knack for working with horses I don't have nearly the amount of time available to devote to them as I once did.   The horses I still have are more like lawn ornaments than show ponies.

It was my dad who fostered and again provided the opportunity for me to love and own horses.   He bought his first Tennessee Walking Horse horse in 1975 when my parents lived in Eastern Oregon.  Apparently he had owned a few other horses when they lived in Clackamas, Oregon after first getting married, but it was "Pretty" that was the foundation for our herd and of which we still have some decedents.   My parents use to tell me a funny story about his naive horsemanship after buying "Pretty".    After buying her, my dad would rider her around the farm and had even taken her on a cattle drive with a local rancher.   One morning my mom looked out the window, to see a baby horse in the pasture with "Pretty".   Astonished as to where this foal had come form, they called neighbors asking if they were missing a baby horse, only to later realize that it was Pretty's, who had been pregnant and foaled the night before, unbeknownst to my parents.   I am sure their friends and neighbors who were life long farmers had a good chuckle at the city folks from Portland.  

Growing up, we had horses, we weren't a rodeo family and we didn't own a huge ranch, we just had horses.  Now granted they were Tennessee Walking Horses, which in Southern Oregon at the time made us unique.   Some of my earliest memories involve the horses, they have really just always been a part of my life.   I have a picture, where my dad is posing Pretty's first foal Sun and holding me as a baby on his back.  My parents use to love to tell a story about the time one of the horses ate the fluffy ball off the top of my stocking cap and how upset I got as a 3 year old.   But my first real memory of riding a horse was when I was about seven or eight.   I had maybe ridden and/or been led around on Pretty a hand full of times but nothing serious.   My dad had decided to begin training Legs, another foal of Pretty and a mare that turned out to be my nemesis.   I don't remember my dad doing much with her as a young horse, but at the age of three he decided it was time.  Again in hindsight, my dad didn't have much horseman experience, but he we all start somewhere right.   He had been doing some ground work with her and then decided she needed to experience a human on her back.   So why not a tiny human?  I can remember being afraid and reluctant to be the one to undertake this job, but my dad paid me five dollars  and promised I would just have to sit there.   Five dollars was a lot of money for a six or seven  year old in early eighties, so I reluctantly agreed.   If you think about it, that was about twice the minimum wage at the time.   I remember trembling while siting, in an old rickety western saddle as my dad held the lead rope, petting her neck and encouraging me to do the same.   All I wanted to do was to get off, but my dad again tricked me into allowing him to walk her in a circle for an additional two dollars.    A few steps into the circle, Legs put her head down and began what in my mind was similar to a saddle bronc at the rodeo.  She got away from my dad and continued to crow hop down the driveway towards the barn, at which point the cinch on the saddle broke and it and myself went tumbling to the ground.   Much like the bull riders at the rodeo who scramble to safety after their dismount from the bull, I too hit the ground and immediately ran towards the house screaming and crying Mom, mom, mom until I was able to find her to tell her what my dad had made me do.   Needless to say it was a few more years before I was willing to give horseback riding another try.   

I think the catalyst that caused me to be willing to try riding again stemmed from Birget, a foreign exchange student we had stay with us for a year.   She was also really into the horse and I remember riding double with her a few times.   I was an only child, so having a cool quasi big sister for a year was pretty cool.  My admiration for Birget, combined with the urging by my father caused me to give it another try.   Dad had the foresight to sign me up for riding lessons at a barn down the road, this time.   Bill Croft was the trainer and was the husband of Saralee who taught cooking at the HS with my Dad.   My dad had taught both of their sons and we knew them as friends, so it was a comfortable and safe place to start riding again.   I got to use an old lesson horse, Rebel, who had been the 4-H project of another family friend and was what folks in the business call a push button horse.  He knew what I wanted to do before I did and would do it even if I was asking incorrectly.   It was great, I joined 4-H and fell in love with horses.   After a year of lessons and 4-H, it didn't make much sense to continue paying to lease a horse, especially when we had several of our own to ride.   Unfortunately the horse that made the most sense for me to ride was Legs (Terrific Legs).   She was young and in need of riding, I needed a 4-H project to use and learn on, for Dad this made perfect sense.   But a young horse, an inexperienced rider and the fact that Dad wasn't a trainer, didn't turn out to be best receipt for success.    

 I could probably fill a whole chapter on the trials and tribulations of my experiences with Legs.   She ran me over and or dragged me on multiple occasions.  I hated her because everything I had learned to do and expected after riding Rebel, she didn't know or understand when I asked.    I would get embarrassed when things would go badly at events or shows.   There were multiple times where with tears in my eyes, I told my dad that I didn't want to do this any more and I know there was a lot of frustration on his part with me and the horse.   It got so bad that instead of riding, I would go throw apples at her from the garden.    Like I said, it didn't go well.   Looking back however the dumb horse has a special place in my heart, I ended up learning a lot from her and she and I reconciled many years later to the point I actually enjoyed riding her on the trail.   It was all of the aforementioned and more that caused my Dad to decided that I needed a horse of my own.

It's funny what things you remember from your childhood, but shopping for a new horse was definitely one of them.  We looked at a lot of horses and drove all over the Pacific Northwest visiting barns and trainers.   We even drove to Montana, were we stayed for several nights with a trainer who use to frequent the Walking Horse Circuit.  I can remember the Bay I rode in Washington and Sorrel mare we looked at in outside of Salem, but we found Penny, my once in a lifetime horse, in Wilsonville at Bruce and Shirley Rumpf's Barn.   Penny was beautiful liver chestnut with a silver mane and tail, and for whatever reason she and I were a match.  I can remember that my dad was hesitant to buy her, because she was only a 3 or 4 year old and after Legs he was wanting a horse that was more seasoned.  The pleads of a son who had fallen in love with the horse, convinced him to buy her however.   It's weird how you can have an instant connection with a horse, but it was undeniable.  Bruce had thrown in a week or so of lessons if we bought Penny, probably to seal the deal.  My Grandmother Gagi lived close by in Oregon City and could drive me to the lessons.   So off to Gagi's my parents shipped me.  One of the lessons, didn't go well and Bruce decided that he was going to jump on and make Penny do whatever it was that I was unable to get her to do that day.   The lesson end with, Penny throwing Bruce against a wall, a broken pair of glasses, a bloody nose and a frantic call to my parents from Gagi about this crazy horse.   Penny was not that way with me however, stubborn yes and we did get into a few battles of will, but I was always safe with her, she made sure of that.   

When a new horse  is added to a herd, the new horse must figure out where it fits within the pecking order.  Imagine an awkward middle school prepubescent boy on his first day in a new school, walking the halls navigating the cliques, trying to find a friendly face, while avoiding the school bully who is constantly on the look out for a new victim.  There are a lot of displays of aggression, posturing and testing to figure exactly who is the boss and who is a safe hang.  Now while Legs wasn't the Boss, she was definitely next in line and I think only out of respect did she allow her mother to rule the brood.  Legs terrorized Penny at home, like that bully waiting for you at the drinking fountain.    If for whatever reason Penny got to close, Legs would pin her ears back and chase Penny off.  She even chased us a few times while I was riding Penny, causing me to hang on for dear life and screen obscenities at Legs.   What was weird though is that when dad I would take the two of them out on a trail ride away from their familiar safe haven, they would be come best of friends,  freaking out if separated for even the shortest of time.  

One summer, my parents left me home with a baby sitter while they left on vacation.  My dad was on one of his trips to Europe with students and my mom had flown to Germany, where my Aunt Audrey and Uncle Steve lived.  Uncle Steve was a Colonel in the Air Forces and was stationed there for awhile.  They timed it so that they could all meet up and travel together for a week or so.   This was the first time they had left me for an extended amount of time with a baby sitter.  I think maybe they had left me for a weekend once with Julie Siron, who had played basketball for my dad and ended up going on to become a doctor.  My baby sitters where usually students of my parents and I always thought they were the coolest.  I mean to a little kid, high schoolers were the empitomy of cool.   Dulce was no different, I remember she invited friends over and allowed me to hang out as they listening to the Outfield and played cards.  The one difference this time other than the length of time was that I had to take care of the horses, which Dulce had little to no experience with.   It didn't matter though, because I was old enough to do chores by myself and had often feed when I dad was gone or busy at school for the evening.  

Anyways, shortly after my parents left Penny had gotten injured.  I still say she got chased, by Legs causing the injury, but it possible that it happened when she along with the other horse  got spooked during a crazy electrical storm we had where they ran through a couple of fences and ended up on the road several properties over.  Regardless  she somehow got a piece of a branch lodged into her forehead.  I happened to have 4H Camp at my 4H leader's house that week.   She called our vet  who came out to her place, it was a big deal and and all the girls gathered around to watch.   I can remember the vet being able to stick his whole finger into the wound once the stick was removed.   It was kinda funny because he could move her ear with his finger and kinda made a joke out of it. She was obviously sedated while he was doing this, but I remember because after I laughed, I got a little woozy and had to sit down.   So to treat the wound after flushing it, he packed it full of gauze, which I had to pull out and cut off about 12 inches every day until it was gone and the wound closed.   

Once camp was over, Linda my 4H leader would come over to my house to help me every evening since my parents were still gone, deal with the wound.   As I had the couple of nights before, I went out into the pasture caught Penny with a halter and lead rope and brought her into a stall in the barn so we could quickly preform this little procedure.   For whatever reason we didn't close the stall door, I mean we just need her in the barn so she ws closer to where the medicine and tools were.   It wasn't like we were preforming surgery, in fact we had gotten pretty efficient at pulling and sniping off a little gauze.  Not closing the door turned out to be a mistake.  As we were treating Penny, Legs came flying into the stall ears pinned back trying to attack Penny like she so often had.  I am sure Linda and I were yelling and I know Penny was nervously prancing with no where to go as I was trying to holder steady by the halter.   In what seemed almost instantaneously  Legs spun around and with both hind legs tried to kick Penny.  The problem was that I was between the two and since it happened so fast had not been able to get out of the way.   So both hooves hit me at full extension, one in the side of my rib cage and the other in the back.  I hit Penny and then fell to the stall floor, in what I am sure was a very sequenced 1-2 movement.  I'm sure I looked like one of those contestants on the show Wipe Out or a stunt man in an Old Silent Western Comedy.  

What was amazing was the fact that as I laid sprawled out on the stall floor, penny managed to escape the stall placing her feet so carefully that she avoided stepping on me even once.   Had she done, so it probably would have crushed a bone or two.  Linda quickly turned me over and I am sure I was looking at her with a look of disbelief as to what just happened, combined with a look of panic at the inability to breath, much less answer the question are you ok?  I may have been close to passing out, because all I remember is Linda proceeding to just keep yelling breath, breath....while shaking me as if she was willing me to live.   If you have ever had the wind knocked out of you to the point of not being able to inhale, then you know how scary this feeling is.   Eventually I came to sore and a little bit in shock, but ok.   I'm sure that we must have shared our string of bad luck with my parents when they called to checkin on up, but I don't really remember that part.  That poor high school girl who was my babysitter, certainly earned her money for those could of weeks taking care of a crazy kid and his horses.  

Penny and I were quite the pair growing up.   First I was one of the only boys in 4-H in the county, I don't know the exact ration but 1:25 is a pretty safe bet.   Second Penny was the only Tennessee Walking Horse in the county.  When we made it State Fair, which I did 3 out of the 4 years only missing the one year because I forgot to give my shot on time,  she was one of only gaited horse there as well and the gender ration was even larger.  Most of the time is was great being a novelty, girls would line up to get to ride Penny around the arena and I would even get out of cleaning my own stall on more than one occasion.   Although it did come with its issues from time to time.    I would go to the local open shows with my 4-H club and sometimes the judge, would have zero experience with gaited horses.   I was sometimes randomly placed and sometimes not placed at all, which was frustrating.   I can remember one judge, who came up to me in during the class line up and in a Texas Drawl said "Son, I have no idea what you were doing out there, but it looked so cool I tied you second."   There were a lot of attempts by my dad and my 4-H leader when I was younger to try and explain to judges what to look for and how to judge me.  Sometimes the effort was more fruitful than others.   My 4-H Leader Linda Good was great however, she held me just as accountable as everyone else, to her it didn't matter that I had a different horse.   She had to put up with me from 4th grade until I graduated and to this day was probably one of the most influential people of my childhood right along side my teachers and coaches.   Eventually I gave up on local open shows and started going to TWH Shows instead.  I kept doing 4-H though because it really did become like a family and the gender ratio became an important factor once in high school.   One time I got interviewed on TV about the fair and was asked about being one of the only boys.  I blushed and gave some an answer a long the lines of its fine and just like riding answers.  One of my dad's friends told me that I should have looked right into the camera and said: "A barn full of mares only needs one stud"  Crude, but he wasn't wrong.   

Tennessee Walking Horse Shows in the Pacific Northwest certainly don't compare to those in the deep South.   However when I was a kid there was a pretty decent flat shod division that competed well back East.   When we first started going there were a lot of people and trainers at the shows.  I can remember shows with hundreds of horses, with some times thirty plus in a class.   Those day are long gone, in fact the shows got so small that they are now combined with other breeds and simply called gaited shows.   The old guard of trainers has either died, retired or moved on and most of  the young trainers moved back east.   But, when I was a kid the show circuit was alive and well.  It was dominated by trainers, and of course it was, that's what they did for a living, but there were enough quality horse around that it was at least competitive.   I showed at the youth and amateur levels.   The problem with both of these is that its based on the riders qualifications not the horses.   I would often get beat by someone riding a trainers horse and most often it seemed I was getting beat by the Gueck Girls.  The Gueck Girls as I called them were a group of girls who rode and worked at Diane Gueck's Barn, Cheveux Stables.   I didn't know it at the time, but Diane would often allow kids to work at her barn in exchange for lessons, nor did l know the lengths that she would go to help people.  All I knew is that Penny and I kept getting beat and I didn't like it, and neither did  my dad.   

I can still remember the first time I met Frank White.   We had been having issues with Penny cross firing when I tried to canter her.  Cross firing is when a horse is on one lead in the front and a different lead in the back.   We had taken her to get trained by Bill Croft the Quarter horse trainer down the road, but he could solve it.   We knew of Frank and I think my dad had talked to him at a few shows.   My memory is a little fuzzy but my recollection is that some mutual friends, who we were in a TWH Club with us at time Mel and Roberta Martin had been training with Frank.   Somehow it was suggested that we bring Penny to Frank to see if he could figure out her issue.  Frank was a small black guy who had a personality larger than life.   He had a laugh that would fill up barn and was quick with a joke and a story.   He and my dad became fast friends and eventually we considered Frank part of the family.    The day that I officially met Frank, I had unloaded Penny and was walking her down the isle of the barn looking in the stalls at the other horses who were also eager to get a peak at us.   Frank hollered a greeting at us from the other end of the barn as we approached and Penny's ears perked right up.   This was a familiar voice to her.   Come to find out Frank was actually the one who had broke Penny several years before and she definitely remembered him.    Within an hour Frank had Penny cantering on the right lead and was feeding it to me about their being nothing wrong with the horse, she was dripping in sweat but he had her moving right.   He had wanted to prove something to us and he had.    

I can't exactly remember how it all transpired, but I think we ended up leaving Penny with Frank for a couple of months after the exhibition that he had put on for us.    What was great about this was that his barn was only an hour away, so every weekend we got to drive to Eugene and spend the day at Franks.   I would usually get a lesson on Penny,  then spend time washing and clipping her.    Sometimes I would get to ride another horse that Frank was training and or watch as he worked or shoed a horse, asking questions and learning about walking horses.  Then we would climb into Frank's Cadillac and head to lunch, not just any lunch, Izzy's Pizza and Buffet!   For a young growing teen age boy,  an all you can eat Pizza Buffet was like the Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  My dad, Frank and maybe someone else visiting that day would sit around, laughing and telling stories.   Sometimes they would harass me a little bit, but mostly I would just listen and eat, and eat and eat some more.   It was always a good time.    But what these trips were gearing me up for was to beat the Gueck Girls.  A fact, I was constantly reminded of by both Frank and my dad, with constant prodding of my teenage male bravado.   Penny and I eventually ended up holding our own against the Gueck Girls, some shows we took home lots of blues and others we didn't, it just depended on the judge.  

In addition to competing with Penny and shows, the other great passion my dad had and passed on to me was trail riding.   We started by going not too far from our house at the Mildred Kanipe Ranch, a local ranch that was deeded to County after the owner's death.   Dad I were some of the first people to map out trails and did so in combination with my 4H club.  We spent many a weekend riding the loops and trails around the ranch and I still do with my wife and daughters.   We use to go on big organized trips with our Walking Horse Club.   I was one of the only kids, but it was great fun and good group of people.  We camped and rode all over the Cascade Mountains in Central Oregon and went to the coast several times.   Dad and I would also go just the two of us.   We would bicker liked fathers and sons do, but I always smile at the memories we made on those trips.   My favorite being the time we rode through a heard of a 100 plus Elk cows and calves at the head of the Umpqua River near Lemola Lake.   

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I ended up, getting my first teaching job not to far from Diane Gueck's barn.   I was going through a bit of a rough patch and had broken up with a longtime college girlfriend.   My dad, had some horses that needed starting and he knew I need something to keep me busy.   He started sending horses up to me and I stalled them at Diane's.   Eventually, either I asked for some help or Diane had a project that needed a little more brawn than her girls could provide and next thing I knew we had an arrangement.   I did little projects here and there and she gave me training advice or the occasional lesson.  I ended up becoming pretty close with Diane and even took care of the place a few times when she would leave for a  show.    I even drove her horse, one of which had a 100,000 insurance policy, all the way back to Tennessee for the National Celebrations.  The girls who I was always trying to beat, ended up becoming my friends and just as Diane had taken all girls under her wing, so too had Diane done with me.   

After training several horses for my dad, and getting into the whole training thing pretty seriously, my dad decided to have Diane and her daughter Sharon buy me a yearling project while they were back in Tennessee at the National Celebration.   They bought me a little mare named Rains Dusty Lady.   DL as I call her, ended up being quite the project.   She was super talented, but was a bit of a head case.   I learned a great deal training her on how to make adjustments as a rider and different ways to get her to do things, that I had not had to do until that point.   I ended up winning a Championship at a show in the open division on DL, a horse I had trained from a yearling.   I rode DL for a few more years before I started breeding her and she became a brood mare.   She has had some pretty talented offspring and was at one point the regional Dam of the year.     My wife rides Vinnie  (Agent of Vengeance) who is about as sweet and easy going horse as we have, he wasn't a big fan of the girls when they were little but as they have grown seems to have come around.   Mo (Dirty Money) was a little goofy as a young horse, but has really turned out to be a sweetie.    Then there is Princess Di (Dazzling Dirty Diamonds)  who is the spiting image of her mom.  She is uber talented, but is every bit as crazy as DL.   I don't have the time I once did to work with horses, but I hope that at some point I'll be able to see what she can really do. 

In addition to the horse we have raised a variety of animals on the farm.  

The Boy

While I was born in Eastern Oregon, we moved to Sutherlin when I was three years old.   My earliest memory is from the old farm house we rented, while our house was being built.  Granted I was three and only have vague images in my mind, but for some reason I remember the house because it had an odd design.   I faintly remember my parents bedroom and having to go through it to the attached bathroom because it had a tub in it, you'll understand why this memory stuck with me in a second.  The house while having some historical significance was also used in the filming of "Fire in the Sky" in 1993, my senior year of high school starring D.B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick  and James Garner.   My mom loves to tell a story and credits the house with my love of taking baths as a kid.  She ran the bath and had me get in the tub, then stepped out of the bathroom for a second.  Upon hearing sounds of giggling and laughing she returned to find me playing with a frog.    She wondered how this little frog had gotten into the bathroom and into the tub with me, but captured it and took it outside.    It was strange but it was an old house so she took it in stride.  However when it happened again the next time  I took a bath, it went from strange to a mystery.    Eventually she and my dad figured out that the frogs were coming from drain and the old pipes of the house.   It sounds a little gross now, but what three year old boy wouldn't love taking a bath with a frog.   Needless to say I looked forward to bath time from then on.  

I have a few memories of the construction of our house in Sutherlin, most are traumatic which is probably why I remember them.   For instance, I remember the night my parents were trying to wallpaper my bathroom at night after work.  The walls were up and covered in sheetrock, but not all the rooms were finished, there was no carpet yet and I remember the only light was coming from a shop light at the end of an extension cord.  It was late, dark and cold.  I was bored and decided to grab the carpenter knife or maybe I had been told to hold it, but never the less I decided to go around the corner and find something to cut with it.   Unfortunately I end up taking off part of my pinky finger in the process.   My parents were super happy as came flying into the bathroom with newly attached wallpaper waving my hand and flinging blood splatter on the wall.   They had to drive me to the emergency room in Roseburg to get stitches.   I still have a funny little bump, but it is less noticeable as it is on the same finger that got mangled when I tried to break up a dog fight some years later.  

 I also remember the building of the deck, which would have been in the following spring/summer.   It was a nice day and attention had shifted to those finishing touches.  I'm not sure what led up to event, but my dad was trying to attach the 12ft 4x8 beam to the various 4x4s support posts that balanced on pier blocks in order to get the to the needed four  or five feet height needed to build the deck, when the whole structure lost its balance and went full Jenga down the hill.  Somehow I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time catching the beam in the chest and summersaulting  backwards down the hill.   Miraculously I didn't get hurt, but I think was a little bruised and sore for a couple of days.   I also vividly remember helping my dad as he laid the brick hearth where the wood stove sits.  My job was to hand dad the bricks and he mortared and set the bricks.  I also remember climbing a lot.  I was a little boy who liked to climb and rather than go up and down the ladder my dad and Jim took full advantage of having me get things they'd drop or needed.  Jim Strickland was  a carpenter who built my parents house and built a family A-frame at the coast with my dad.   As a school teacher my dad had the summers off, so to cut cost he worked for Jim on both projects and then was able to do some of the work himself.  I don't remember a lot about Jim other than he wasn't very big and he hated John Anderson's Swinging a song that Country Music radio played in a steady rotation in 1983 and my dad would imitate every time it came on.   I do remember that Jim had a daughter that was my age.  Tori and I were friends as kids, and I think I even had a crush on her at one point in time, but we didn't really remain close and she eventually moved away.  I'm not sure what happened to the family.  

Working along side my mom and dad was a constant theme for me as kid, as we slowly transformed and molded the five acre property into what it is today.   It was a blank piece of land, with big towering fir trees,  when they bought it.   There were some black berries and scotch-broom, here and there, but for the most part the land had been cleared, with the exception of a handful of what I originally thought were wild apple trees.   What they turned out to be were remnants of an apple orchard planted by the homesteaders that originally settled the area.  The field has what for me were just random mounds, but what I later learned were where trees had been planted and then they would flood irrigate the orchard  with the water meandering down the series of irrigation ditches around the trees.   It's amazing how much the property has changed.   My parents terraced the backyard to add a lawn.   They developed a couple of ponds that are filled all winter and during the summer when the guy across the street irrigates.  They put in a garden, which me and my wife expanded and have since enclosed with deer fencing and planters for my mom.   My dad built the original barn and then he and I built the arena.  That was a long summer and that was pre nail guns.  I can't tell you how many nails I hammered that summer.   Funny story about laying out the holes and squaring the barn.  My dad for the life of him could not figure out how to sqare the barn.   I was helping by holding the tape measure, but I didn't know what we were doing.   He was complaining about it to my mom, when she told me I knew how to square it.  I sure I looked at her with bewilderment, but then she explained to use the Pythagorean Theorem a² + b² = c².   Having recently learned about this, I quickly penciled it out and then helped dad square the posts.   From that point on, if we had to square something or need to figure out the pitch of a roof, that was always my job.   

As an only child, I not only had an extremely close relationship with my folks, but because of that I more often than not found myself in the company of adults rather than other children growing up.   I often had discussions with my parents or was privy to discussions between my parents and their teacher friends that I am sure they either thought were over my head or assumed I wasn't paying attention too.   As a lesson for adults, kids understand way more than we give them credit for.   I know I have made this mistake with my own daughters.  These off the record conversations gave me a deep understanding of the world around me and a gave me a glimpse behind the curtain of education at an early age.   I definitely credit this exposure to giving me the ability to see the big picture.  

On all those weekend trips to Franks and or on the way to a Horse Show, my father and I would often have conversations, that now as I reflect back on were pretty deep.  We talked about history, politics, religion, culture, privilege, etc., no topic was off limits and no question to trifle.   Most of these conversations would happen on the the long drives to and from a horse or sporting event, but some would happen while sitting on a bench in the mall people watching, while waiting on my mom to finish shopping.    The conversations were always prompted by my dad asking "What are you thinking about?"  and for some reason I would respond by asking questions about whatever random thought was in my head at the time.   And again only those who have gained my trust and are truely my friends, know just how often and random things pop into my head.   I try the same technique, my dad implored with me with my own daughters, but I usually only get a grunt followed by "nothing".  Hopefully one day, there will be a follow up response, but so far I haven't had much luck.  I blame iPhones.      

It was these talks with my dad that I credit for influencing my world viewpoint.   I mean how many other pre-teen and teenage boys have the opportunity to travel with and have a personal teacher with them posing thought provoking questions and probing your answers 24/7.   Now that's not to say I was always eagerly participating, but I was an only child with an extremely well read, intelligent father who was always around and who I got along with most of the time.   I was not aware of the influence at the time, but I certainly am now.   For instance,  every day when we got home from school, my dad turned on Crossfire and more than likely start yelling at the pundits, mostly Pat Buchanan .  I didn't understand it at the time, but what do I do every Sunday morning, yep yell at the pundits.   

Another thing that my dad use to do that drove me nuts at the time, that I now also find myself doing is taking the scenic route.   My dad never passed up the opportunity to visit a local historical marker or site and if I was with him I got dragged along .  I can't tell you how many time my dad would simply take a left and we would say "where are we going?"  and he'd respond its a short cut or I just thought it would be nice to take the scenic tour.   Then he would put on his best tour guide impression point out what a beautiful tree or rock that was is a sarcastic voice.  He was notorious for planning a crazy little excursion while we were visiting relatives or on a vacation and without fail we would be late or it would take twice as long.   So it became on ongoing joke when we were late that we took the "scenic tour."   One of my favorite "scenic tours" was in in 1997,  I was 21 and attending Eastern Oregon University, where I had transferred to  from Western Oregon to play football.  Because of the distance from Sutherlin, my parents would drive over and stay the weekend for home games.   One weekend my dad planned a trip to go see the old Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge and a few ghost town.   It was a typical sight seeing adventure, stopping to read the historical markers etc, but I had practice in the evening so we were in a bit of a time crunch.   My dad convinced me that he'd have me back on time and had looked at the map and knew how to get back to the town of LaGrande, he knew a "short cut".   Unfortunately what he didn't take into account was that his shortcut was a pass that went up and over a mountain, which turned out to be covered in snow.   We not only got stuck and had to turn around to back track the way we had come, I missed practiced.   I was stressed out of my mind thinking that I was going to have to run after practice for who know how many days, a punishment I had endured on more than one occasion for various infractions.  Luckily on this rare instance, I did not have to run extra, once I explained the crazy reason for missing. I'm just lucky my position coach a father himself, had a soft spot for a story about a boy and his dad bonding.   

Growing up I was always a big kid, not fat, but definitely husky.  I certainly wasn't really picky when it came to food, but I was just big, still am and definitely comes in handy at a concert or in a crowd.   It's odd, because my mom and dad are not tall, husky, but not tall.   I can remember when I was in my teens and passing 6ft, people would always seek out a distant cousin of my dad at the Huntley Family events to point out to me where I got my height from.  Duane and I still laugh about this when we see each other, more often than not at funeral these days.   It was a novelty to them, because I towered over my immediate family.   I recently saw an elementary soccer picture that a friend had posted on social media and I swear I was head taller than pretty much everyone else on the team.  My daughters have had the same issue.   In fact people never believed us when we told them how old our daughters were.   I topped out at 6'3'' and my oldest daughter just hit the 6'0 mark and isn't quite done growing.  My youngest is going to be even taller having been taller and every year's mark on the wall at home when the girls are the same age.   Good jeans I guess.  

For whatever reason, child care costs, my size or maybe the age of boys of my Mom's peer  group at the time, my parents started me in school early.   I have an October birthday and I was one of the youngest kids in my class.   I started 1st grade at the age of four and started my Freshmen year in college at seventeen.   So despite being taller than all of my peers I was always a little immature, I also don't think it helped that I was an only child either.    I was one of the last of my friends to get my license and I didn't fill out in college until I was redshirt sophomore.    I was an athletic kid and held my own in youth sports, with the only exception being wrestling.   I went out for wrestling in 7th grade and wresting is based on weight not age.  So because of my size I was wresting kids one to two years older than me.  Some of whom had already gone through puberty.   I was this giant soft kid and I got my ass handed to me.  I didn't win a single match.   It was a miserable experience and I unfortunately didn't try wrestling again until I was a senior in high school.   By that time I had figured out I was a football player on a basketball court and wasn't going to see much time, but wanted to stay in shape.   Plus the coach at the time had hounded my friends and I to come out since we were freshmen and we was a good dude, Mr Olsen.   I had a lot of athletic success in high school but mostly because of my size.  I played Football, Basketball, Threw in Track and eventually wrestled.  I was a big fish in a small pond, though.   When I got to college size met maturity, because everyone at college was big and fast.  There's a noticeable difference between a 17 year old kid and 20 something man and more than just the ability to grow a beard.  I got it handed to me my first couple of years in college, granted I put in the time in weight room and eventually held my own.  But, I often wonder what it would have been like had my parents held me back like they do in Texas.   Would it have changed my trajectory athletically?  

Music 

I can remember being drawn to music at a very young age.  My parents mostly listened to seventies & eighties country and I remember them playing tapes in the car on road trips.  They had some records, but I can't ever remember them playing them or even really talking to me much about music.  One of my earliest memories involving music, was siting between my parents in our green VW Pop-Top Camper Bus signing as loud as I could to "You gotta have a fiddle in the Band" by Alabama.  So, I would have been around eight or nine years old.  Some of what my parents listened to I could handle but a lot of it, was like nails on a chalk board.  At some point as a kid I must have spoke up and voiced my preference, because I clearly remember what of their music selection I liked and what I didn't.  Some of my favorites of theirs as a kid were Alabama obviously,  but also John Anderson, John Denver, Reba McEntire and Kenny Rogers.  On the other hand there was nothing worse than being forced to listen to the Statler Brothers, Conway Twitty, the Oakridge boys or Elvis.  Not the young controversial Rockabilly cool Elvis, but the bloated, polyester one piece, sad Elvis.   There was a brief period there in the nineties that or musical taste were pretty similar.   Pop Country was all the rage and we even went to some concerts together, Reba, Garth Brooks and Vince Gill being the ones I remember.   My dad liked Reba McEntire so much that he named one of our German Shepards Reba.

Growing up in rural America, it wasn't like I was being exposed to different types of music genres past or present, it was either what was on the one or two radio stations we had in the Roseburg, Or area or what my parents were playing.   It wasn't like there was some crazy underground scene where kids were sharing bootlegs.  It was either Top 40 or Country Classics, I'm not even sure if there was a classic rock station that came in on the radio.   The only exposure I got to other types of music during my pre-teens came via Night Tracks which aired on TBS at like eleven or midnight on Saturday night.  It was basically just a healthy dose of heavy metal, that was if I didn't fall asleep before it came on or while it was on.  Remember this was pre-VCR or at least pre-VCR that I had access to.   Metal was pretty much all my friends listen to, so it was fine.   I had an older cousin, that I would occasionally see during holidays or vacations and he was really, really into heavy metal and he usually traded or sold me the tapes he didn't want any more.   For whatever reason I remember getting a Krokus and a Scorpions tape from him.  I still listen to the Scorpions once in a while, Krokus not so much,  I do remember that album cover though! Love at First Sting.   He would play bands for me, I might not know and he always had stacks of Metal magazines that I would flip through with joy.    I also remember getting tapes from my Uncle at Christmas.  Uncle Randy was was the  young cool Uncle and his daughters, my cousins were my close to my age, so he knew what kids were listening too.  The two albums that he gave me that stick out for whatever reason are Def Leopard Hysteria and Run DMC's self titled album.   Other than what made the Radio, I'm pretty sure this was my first introduction to rap.  

Like a lot of people I associate music and songs with certain events.   It drives my wife nuts, because I can usually tell you what year a song or album was released, because of an association I have to a song.   Example:  I can tell you that Quiet Riot's Come on Feel the Noise came out in 1983, not because I have an eidetic memory from when I was eight, but because I can remember that a kid had a boom box on the playground in second grade and was blasting it.  Yes I said boom box, it was the eighties and we thought we were pretty cool! I know that Lionel Richie's Dancing on the Celiling came out in 1986, because I remember Mrs. Ralls, my 4th grade teacher and best friend's aunt, who would occasionally stop and pick me up as I waited for the bus would always be playing it.   I can tell you that the Beastie Boys, License to Ill also came out in 1986, because I remember someone bringing it on a band field trip to the capital where we stayed over night in the Salem Armory.   Every time I hear Brass Monkey, I can imagine that room with sleeping bags all over the floor and bags and bags of junk food our parents had sent us with.   I could give you more examples but I'll stop there.  Weird right?  I will say that this trick only works for music from the 80's and 90's, I guess because those were my formative years.  I will say that his has become more difficult with emergence of streaming.   My taste are a lot more broad now and the algorithm introduces me to music from bands that no longer exist or that haven't been around for years.  The niche genres and amount of music people now have instant access to is amazing, mind blowing in fact as I take this little trip down memory lane.   I watch a lot of Music Documentaries and I am always envious of folks who were around at the beginning of a movement.  I mean can you imagine living in San Fransisco near Haight Ashbury in the 60's and 70's or Los Angles in the 80's and hearing all those up and coming  glam metal bands play the Strip.  Or maybe to have lived in New York and seen the whose who of Punk Bands play at CBGB's.  Or to have been a kid in Seattle during the rise of Grunge music.   I love hearing the stories and imagine what it would have been like.   The closest thing, I have to a story like this is being able to tell people I saw Tyler Childers at Music Millenia, a record store in Portland,  with like 10 people.  Now he's selling out arenas.  

I remember starting to branch out into different kinds of music in high school and by branching I mean buying.   When most of my friends were still solidly entrenched in Hair Metal and Top 40, I was starting to get into 90's Country, New Wave Music and whatever I could find that gave me an ear worm.   I still wasn't really into rap or R&B, but I would listen to it little once in a while, mostly because someone else I was hanging with was playing it.  I had a friend that was way into New Edition and Jonny Gill, and I think I knew like 1 or 2 songs and knew who Bobby Brown was from his song "My Perogative".   I liked stuff like Bust a Move, by Young MC or Sir Mix-A-Lot, because that's what they played at the school dances.  You know when middle school and high school dances were the place to be and be seen.  That's not really the case these days, unless its a formal dance.  

I was an early adopter of the grunge music at least amongst my friends, but where we lived we weren't exposed to it, until it went mainstream.   I can remember vividly driving in my Dad's pick up blasting "Come as you Are" by Nirvana, having made a copy of a buddy's cd.   I was a little slow to switch to CD's, but that was partly due to the extensive tape collection I had accumulated thanks to Columbia House and their 12 tapes for a penny deal.  Plus making the switch required buying a CD player and abandoning my walkman/boom box.    The early portable CD players sucked, you couldn't even listen to them in the car or on the bus, because they skipped so bad.    However the whole mixed tape/mixed cd era allowed me to begin trading and listening to music that, I didn't have or couldn't afford on my budget.   I seemed like it only took one friend to buy a CD and then everyone was listing to it because they made a bunch of a copies.   I think I may still have a couple of blank tapes left from having bought a block, so I could give a blank tape to friends when they bought a new CD.  

Even though we had Cable TV, and not everyone in Sutherlin did, MTV was not available in our area.  I can remember visiting my grandmother or cousins house and if I got the remote control instantly turning it to MTV.  I envy people who got to watch the early days of MTV.  I got into MTV about the time is was going from Music television to reality television.  The guys I lived with in College, use to love ESPN Sports Center, but if I was home alone or got the remote, we were watching MTV.   Most of my discovery of music at the time happened by accident.   I can remember that you used to be able to ask the guys at the used cd shops in Roseburg to play a cd, so you could listen to it before you bought it, Mostly to make sure it wasn't scratched, but also to see if you liked it.   If it had a cool cover, I would give it a whirl.   I tried to limit my request, but who knows those guys probably hated seeing me coming.   The summer after I graduated high school, I worked in the one of the local lumber mills.   Mill jobs back then still paid pretty well and I made what at that time was considered a living wage, so I had quite a bit of spending money or so I thought.  I had gone to my favorite cd store which was across from KFC where my girlfriend at the time worked, I think to kill some time before she got off or something, but it may have been just a planned stop.  I can't remember the name of it to save my life, but I hated going to mall and Music Land, their prices were crazy high and I just didn't like the vibe.  So the local used shop is where I went if I wanted to buy a new or used CD in those days.   Anyways, as I was flipping though CD's,  I can remember "Today" by the Smashing Pumpkins coming on and was like "Who is this!?"  I bought Siamese Dream and my journey of listening to a little grunge to full on becoming immersed in Alternative Rock began.   Grunge by mid-nighties had already started to be commercialized and had given way to a less abrasive tone, but like anything else as soon as Alternative Rock became commercially successful the genre was filled with crap.  

My fascination with music continued and only got stronger in college.   I went to my first official non parent supervised concerts my freshmen year of college.   Just to give you a sense of the breath of music I was listening to at the time: I went to see Clay Walker open for Sawyer Brown in Corvallis, Or., I'm not sure if I wore boots or not I was trying to impress a country girl at the time so pretty sure I did  and I went to Black Happy with a bunch of friends from the dorms in a club in Portland, Or.  Black Happy was an Alternative Punk band with two drummers and a horn section.   That was a crazy night.   During college, I began to amass quite a CD collection.   I can remember trading old tapes and CDs at the used CD shop on Main Street close to campus.  But, one of my favorite things to do whenever I had money, was to go to Circuit City (yes I'm aware they no longer exist) and listen to the new albums that had been recently released.  You may or may not remember but they used to have listening stations on the end of each CD isle, where you could put on head phones press a button and listen to new music.   It seems so archaic now, but man I spent a lot of time  and money there.   My tastes was and still is so eclectic.  I was buying anything from country, pop-punk, ska revival, to classic rock.  Between my own exploits and just the fact that in college you come into contact with so may people from different places and backgrounds, you get exposed to all kinds of music.  My buddy Stacy, who I would ride back and forth to college on holidays loved Tom Petty and George Thorogood.   I fell in love with Tom Petty, George not so much, but I will admit every time I hear "One Burbon, One Scotch, One Beer"  I smile.    Jenny and Regan who lived above me in the dorms and who I shared some extra curricular interests with introduced me to Pink Floyd and Doors.   I owe my love of Jimmy Buffet and Hank Williams Jr. to the guys down the street from Bend.   The same gal I went to the Sawyer Brown concert with introduced me to Chris Ledoux, who I now consider to quintessential country music.   My roommates Dan, Jimmy and Louis who were all from Portland introduced me to a wide variety of Rap and Hip Hop.   Like I said earlier, I had heard and been exposed to some radio friendly rap or maybe some Two Live Crew a buddy in high school had for the shook value, but I had never really listen to the likes of NWA, Wu Tang, Snoop, Tupac, Biggie Smalls and so on.   I can still remember diving to Weights class in a convertible with Tupac's How Do U Want it blaring.  Like I said, i associate music with people and events.  Not to mention if you went to a party or any major social event during that time, more than likely they were playing rap of some time.   It was also during my college days when I started to discover some old classics like Led Zeppelin, Jonny Cash, Bob Marley, and on, an on.   

After college came what some would say was the down fall of album sales......digital file sharing!  I never did Nampster, but there were a lot of other programs out there.  Kazaa was my favorite and all of a sudden I was downloading music daily, in fact I would create a que and just let it run all day while I was at work.   I was like a kid in a candy store.   Granted my first MP3 player was only like 32MB so it held just about as many songs as a CD, but there was no skipping and I could load and reload music onto it whenever I wanted.   I would also burn CD's like no other.   There was always kind of this fear that the site was going to get shut down and you would lose your library, so just to be safe I was always downloading albums and making mixed CD's.   I came across one of my CD cases in the barn the other day and got a good laugh.  There were some that just had a titles like Cancun mix 3, Work Out Mix and Road Trip.  I'm sure there were some gems on there.     

It wasn't until after college that I really began going and seeing live shows on a regular basis.   I went to a few in college, but there wasn't really that many local opportunities and lets be honest that world really doesn't open up to you, until you turn 21.   Either my first or second year teaching, the Red Hot Chili Peppers who had been on a slight hiatus after firing Dave Navarro and getting John Frusciante to return, decided get work back up to stadium shows by  playing a series of small gigs at some select cities, with Portland being one of them.  It was called the "Stop the Hate" Tour, and rather than selling tickets, gave away tickets to high school students who wrote an essay around a topic about how to stop violence in schools.   It was a close enough topic, that I was able to justify assigning it to my psychology class.   I was teaching at North Marion at the time, 30 minutes or so outside of Portland.   The contest was run in collaboration with local Radio Stations.  KNRK 94.7 was the local alternative rock station, that I generally listen to and they were one of the main sponsors.  I assigned the essay and then picked the top 5 or so essays from each class and typed them into the submission form on the Radio's website.   Well several of my students won, and because I had submitted the essays, they reached out to me with the info.   The station's program manager, thought it was pretty cool that I had students do this as an assignment and asked if I and the students would be willing to come in for an interview on air.  After talking with the students, we did and it was cool, they gave me a whole bunch of SWAG, CD's, poster, stickers and more to give away as prizes at school. It definitely gave me the cool teacher credibility with the student body. After the interview they asked if I wanted to go to the concert too.   They caveat being that because it was a show for teenagers, I would have to hang with them in the Balcony, if I wanted to go.   Well that was a no brainer.  I'm pretty sure Chad my roommate at the time went with me.  The concert was at the Roseland theater, which has a bar/restaurant down stairs and then then main concert floor with stairs up to the balcony.  I have seen several shows there over the years.  Because there was not will call or anything we met the DJs and Program staff from the Station in the bar/restaurant.   We ended up hanging out with them after the show and had a great night.  Long story short I hit it off with the Program Director and we started to hang out.   Over a year or so whenever there was an event/concert or something, she'd reach out and put me on the list.  I was a pretty good time there for awhile and  I started seeing a lot of shows.  I even went to my first festival - Big Stink 6.   I went to the one that was out at the Estacada Timber Bowl and had Lit, the Offspring, Everclear, Crystal Methodm and Nickelback to name a few.   Unfortunately I was young and dumb and brought someone I probably shouldn't have to the Methods of Mayhem show and that was the end of that.   

My musical taste have continued to change over the years and after discovering alternative country a whole new world of music has opened up to me.  Don't think I don't rock the 90's playlist once in a while or even some old school rap, but now I mostly listen to Alt-Country, Blue Grass, New Grass, Texas Country and other branches of Americana.  Streaming services and their suggestive algorithms have really allowed me to follow my taste and sometimes musical tangents.  I can't tell you how many shows and festivals, I've been to, but to keep my mental sanity, I seek them out, sometimes buying ticket almost a year in advance.  My favorite band for the past 15 years, has been Lucero.   The band, comprised of all its original members is fronted by lead singer Ben Nichols, includes Brian Venable on guitar, Roy Berry on drums, John C. Stubblefield on bass, and Rick Steff on keys.   I have seen them 10+ times, including at a couple of music festivals.   The furthest away being the The Ride, at Telluride Co, which was an epic Road Trip that my wife and I went on and included a stop at Red Rocks to see Old Crow Medicine Show.   My favorite venue to watch Lucero has been at Sweetwaters in Mill City, Ca, but I am constantly looking for new spots for comparison.   People often ask me to describe Lucero's music and my usual response is Alt-Country/Rock, but they have a lot of influences.  They are out of Memphis, Tn, so they have some blues, southern rock and have even at times had a horn section.  They have been described as the synthesis of soul, rock and country that is distinctly Memphisian.   Clear as mud right?  I have been to and continue to go to a lot of concerts and I don't know what it is about a Lucero crowd, whether its Portland, Seattle, SF or anywhere else but I always fit in perfectly.   They are my people.  I am generally comfortable in any setting no matter what, but its just hard to explain how at home I am at a Lucero concert.  

In 2000 the movie High Fidelity came out, I don't know why but I loved it.  "What came first, the music or the misery?"  I'm not sure if it was because of the brooding John Cusack who played Rob Gordan, a former club DJ who owned a record store or if it was Jack Black who played one of his crazy employees.   Anyways one of the recurring themes is their Top 5.  So as a little tribute and my top 5's

80’s Metal

• Iron Maiden

• Metallica

• Motley Crue

• Guns and Roses

• ACDC

90's Alt-Rock

• Smashing Pumpkins 

• Gin Blossoms 

• Pearl Jam

• Foo Fighters 

• Red Hot Chili Peppers

Alt-Country 

• Lucero

• Reckless Kelly

• Turnpike Troubadours 

• Tyler Childers

• Shane Smith and the Saints

Pop-punk

• Blink 182

• Lit

• Bowling for Soup

• Green Day

• Sum 41

90’s Country 

• Alan Jackson

• Garth Brooks

• George Strait

• Chris Ledoux 

• Reba McIntire

New Wave

• The Cure

• Depeche Mode

• Tears for Fears

• Talking Heads

• Simple Minds

One last note (pun intended) on music is my love of Jukeboxes.   I don't know what it is about them that I love, but I am drawn to them like a moth to a flame.  I don't go to bars very often anymore, in fact I am having a hard time remembering the last establishment I was in that had a Jukebox, but if theres one, I'm putting money into it.   I'm not sure if it is a control thing and or if I really just want to listen to my kind of music when I'm having a drink, but I love them!  Someday I will own one and it will go perfectly in my man cave/fortress of solitude.   

The Wife

I met Mellissa Ann Wilson on November 9th, 2000.   It was a Thursday night and I had that Friday off  as a teacher in observance of Veterans Day.   The crew, I used to hang with back in the day used to go out a lot on Thursday nights in Portland.  Traditionally ladies night, it was $1 beer night and the Cheerful Tortoise a college bar near Portland State and was also 80's night  at the Lotus, a club we used to like to frequent.  Both of which were within walking distance to my friend Boomer's Apartment.   On this particular Thursday night it was just me and Boomer who we're going to hit the town.  Everyone else either had to work or was taking advantage of the long weekend to head out of town.   We proceed to engage in our typical perfunctory ritual.  I would usually  arrive at Boomer's apartment close to 8:00 PM in order to watch WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment.)  We usually started slow with beers, but eventually we tap into the Jagermeister, before heading downtown.   We drank Jagermeister, due to the fact that Boomer's roommate Bill had bought a Jagerator for the apartment with his first paycheck at his post college adult job.  A solid investment for any 22 year old. 

As we staggered into the Lotus after paying the cover, we made our through the bar area, past the bathrooms to the dance floor in the back.  Upon entering we paused much like that scene in Swingers were Vince Vaughn and crew enter the party, to survey the scene.   It was at that movement I saw a tall, beautiful women with long curly hair wearing a white tank top and overalls dancing with her friend.   I leaned over to Boomer and said, I'm going to dance with that girl right there, pointing her out to him.   Boomer who was always charismatic and able to strike up a conversation with anyone with ease, said let's go.   He was dating a gal at the time, so he had nothing to lose and two was somewhat fearless  in these situations.  I, myself on the other hand  hesitated and told him that I needed another drink before working up the courage to dance with this mystery girl.   As I ordered my beer and surveyed the scene, I noticed an Indian guy sitting at the bar by himself.   I introduced myself to him and for whatever reason proceeded to strike up a conversation with him that included what became a pretty deep dive into the Caste System .   I'm sure that is exactly what this poor guy wanted to talk about with the big dumb drunk American, but he humored me.   At one point Boomer had come over and maybe I was on beer one or maybe two, but I told him that I would head to the dance floor after I was done talking with my new friend.   Boomer then proceeded to go back out to the dance floor and point out to the beautiful girl that his friend right over there wanted to dance with her, but that he was taking to guy about the Caste System.    A fact at the time that was a little odd and puzzling, but once Missy got to know me, its a detail of the story that makes perfect sense.    It's a hilarious part of the night, when we retell the story to new friends or when asked how we met.   At some point before I made my way to the dance floor and introduced myself, Boomer had used one of his favorite pick up lines "Hey guess what we do?  We're teachers"  a line that I personally observed work and on several occasions got the ahh that's sweet response.   The line always made me cringe because I didn't want people seeing me inebriated to think, "really this guy works with kids"  So I would usually joking follow up with don't listen to that guy I'm just a janitor at the school.  Not to throw shade at the work janitors do, but for whatever reason in my mind it was acceptable for a janitor to tie one on, but not a teacher.   I was in my early 20's, it was certainly flawed logic, but to this point in my life I had never really seen teachers drink.   My dad and his friends were a little older and wiser as I was growing up, a place in time that I thankfully find myself in now.  Thinking about it now, the line was kind of ingenious.  It was was a quick way to say hey were intelligent, have a good paying jobs and are nice guys without actually saying all of that.  Anyways I digress.   

After several drinks, I found the courage and my groove.   I don't really remember the details of this first interaction, but it went smooth enough that I didn't get a cold shoulder.    If you have ever seen me get to a point where I am willing to dance, it is a sight to see.   I don't just naturally like to dance, but at a certain blood alcohol level, mixed with certain genera of music, look out, its on.   When I dance I like to have a good time and I want everyone else to have a good time.   I'll pretend I know how to swing and I may pull out the classic sprinkler or even come up with my own move like start the lawn mower.  Classic dance moves if I do say so myself.    So on this particular night I remember that I would dance with Missy and her friend for a little while, then make a circle around the dance floor, stopping to dance and interact with every seemly single gal in the place.  Eventually I would make it back around and dance with Missy.  I even recall one gal seeking me out as I was dancing with Missy to slap me on the ass and encourage me to come back over her way, but it was Missy I kept coming back to.   I can remember she had on a white take top and baggie overalls, which allowed me to touch her on the side every time I leaned in to whisper/yell in her ear.   To this day, when she wears overalls, she still get a juvenile response: ooohh overalls!

As the evening was was ending, Boomer and I had taken a break.  We were in the bar area siting at the end by door.   As Missy and her friends were leaving I leaned back and said "So are you going to give me your number or what"   Not the smoothest line, and I'm sure I slurred it.   Honestly I'm probably lucky I didn't fall off my barstool.  Nonetheless she stopped and gave it to me.   Years later Missy let me know that her friend was mad at her and asked why she gave me her number.  Her response was "I don't know, I thought he was funny"   Honestly she didn't think I would call and figured I might be too drunk to even remember.   Little did she know the impact she had made on me., and little did her friend know how things would turn out.   So again, like the movie Swingers had taught me, I waited 6 days before calling, because like Vince Vaughn's character said, "If you call to soon you might scare off a beautiful baby."   And it worked she agreed to go out on a date with me.   

I picked Missy up at her dad's house where she was living at the time.  I can remember that it was Friday night, because I had gone to the basketball game at North Marion where I was teaching at the time.  I often ran the clock for games, for a little extra money and because I had a front row seat for the game.   For whatever reason I had talked with one of my favorite student's dad between games and he gave me some dating advice.  I don't remember what it was, but it is one of those memories that has stuck with me through the years, I guess because of the fact that its attached to our first date.  I took Missy to the White Eagle in Portland.    I remember it was super awkward, I did most of the talking.   After dinner, I suggested that we go out for drinks afterwards, so we drove across the bridge to downtown and went to Kells Irish Pub, which was a pretty popular watering hole and still is today.   I remember this part of the date pretty vividly because a gal I had dated a bit and her friend were there.   She thought we were a little more exclusive then I did and proceeded to question me quite thoroughly about Missy, while her friend questioned Missy about how she knew me.   Needless to say we didn't stay long.    Our first day had not gone well and didn't even end with a kiss.   I even pondered not calling for a second, but I did and each date went better and better and the rest they say is history.  

I'm not sure how this chance encounter at bar worked out as perfect as it did, but as luck has it Me and Missy were perfect for each other.    We are celebrating our 20th anniversary next week and I couldn't be happier.   I hear guys complain about their spouses all the time.   I never do, I still look forwarded to seeing her and spending time, even if that's just hanging out at the house.  

The Kids