For the love of Rosie

By Diane Perea

“Life is a series of dogs.” — George Carlin

It was a celebratory day when she came into our lives.

Our oldest daughter was soon to be married and we were busy preparing for her wedding shower, which would be taking place at our home that afternoon. Out of the blue, this small black sprite of a dog came running into the house and right to me, rolling over onto her back, wiggling her skinny legs in the air and opening her mouth into a big grin.

Turns out our daughter had succumbed to the temptation of a pet adoption event at the local mall. But her fiancé was not exactly thrilled, and when left alone, the little dog barked continually and disturbed their neighbor.

A friend of my daughter’s was going to pick the dog up and keep her, so I played with the lively little pup while we waited for the friend to come.

That dog and I had an instant connection. She was alert, personable, funny and sweet, but we already had an active Queensland/Aussie mix named Tucker, and we were not in the market for another dog.

The friend showed up and took the dog away, but a couple of hours later the phone rang. Seemed the friends’ other dogs were not accepting the new addition, and she wondered if perhaps I might want to keep her?

That is how Rosie ran into our house, right into my heart, and came to stay.

She looked a bit rough, so skinny and tiny, barely weighing four pounds, with fur that was patchy in places. She was black, with white on her chest and muzzle. She’d been rescued from the streets of East Oakland, a rough neighborhood in the East Bay.

We were told she was five years old. She’d had dental work done, was spayed, vaccinated and microchipped. She was obviously a survivor and a happy girl. She came with a bed, blanket, toys, food and a small black hoodie complete with rhinestone skull and bones (SO East Oakland).

She also came with the name Mavis, but I changed it to Rosita to honor her chihuahua heritage, and we shortened that to Rosie. She was in need of her forever home.

Rosie immediately displayed her powers of stealth. Being small and black, she knew how to blend in. It made the transition of having another dog so easy, even Tucker accepted her right away. But she wasn’t docile or submissive. She had personality and the dignity of a small dog who never saw herself as small.

She had no destructive habits, was housebroken and she just wanted to be with us whenever possible. She was playful, loved to go on walks, and she was an awesome traveler: in the car, on long trips in our RV, on planes, even on the subways of New York. She was one of those dogs that everyone loved, she touched a lot of hearts.

I loved everything about that dog: her small, sleek body that fit so easily in one’s arms; her limpid brown eyes full of love and wisdom; her little delicate feet, with tiny bones and soft pads; her tummy, smooth, pink and warm and so willingly offered for a rub. I loved the smell of her head, like sweet warm earth.

In her later years, we had to have all of her teeth pulled except one, so her tongue hung out the side of her mouth. This only added to her cuteness.

Last October, at the age of 13, Rosie was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. When you deeply love someone and you spend every day with them, it’s easy not to see how much they’ve changed. When Rosie got that diagnosis, I realized that she had been declining slowly but surely for a while. Medications and a special diet helped mitigate her symptoms for a while.

Recently, after a couple of particularly hard days, we took Rosie back to the vet. She looked so frail and she only weighed three-plus pounds.

Compassionately, the doctor told us that it was probably time to let her go. I can imagine the shocked looks on our faces, because there was no way we were ready to say goodbye. So we took Rosie home, but it was obvious that her symptoms were exhausting her. Truth was, we would never be ready to say goodbye, but this decision was for her sake, not ours.

We scheduled to have a vet come to our house to put Rosie down. I spent our last morning together sitting on the sofa, holding her in my arms. I had contacted everyone I could think of whose life had been touched by this small being.

Rosie was leaving this world with the loving thoughts of so many. She died in my arms.

We buried her in the garden near where she used to love to lie in the sun, tipping her small snout into the air, sniffing the fresh breezes. I hated leaving her in that grave. The weather here in the Hudson Valley was still bitter, and it hurt to think of her being out there, cold and alone.

I was left with all the habits of loving Rosie. When leaving the house, I would glance to where her bed used to be just to be sure she was okay. I missed the group hug we had each morning when my husband brought her downstairs, and I would give her the first kiss of the day on top of her sweet head.

The throw blankets on the sofa stayed neatly folded now, no longer pulled down and bunched up to cover the small lump of her. I missed her gentle snores in the night. I knew we’d be sad, I knew we would grieve. What I didn’t expect was how fragile and vulnerable I felt without her.

It dawned on me that Rosie was not just a very special member of our family, but loving her was my refuge in what feels like an insane world right now. If I ever doubted the existence of love and sweetness, I only had to look at her. She was my reassurance that all is not lost in these uncertain times.

Steve, Diane and Rosie.

My friends say, “You gave her the best life, she was so lucky to be your dog.” I know that we were the lucky ones.

For nine years, Rosie asked for so little and gave so much. Her dying was a deep reminder that impermanence is embedded in every relationship. We’d always had a dog in the family since 1988. We missed Rosie desperately, but being without a dog to love just felt wrong.

To help alleviate the pain of our loss, we started to check online for dogs to adopt. It was nothing serious, at first. It didn’t take long before circumstances aligned and we found our next dog.

Her name is Pepper, a year-old Chihuahua mix rescued from a hoarding situation near the Mexico border in Texas. Pepper was in need of her forever home and we were happy to provide it. She’s a terrific little dog and we’re so happy to have her in our lives.

I didn’t think we would get another dog so soon. We still miss Rosie every day. But I think she would approve of our finding another dog to love, because love is what Rosie was all about.

“Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love. They depart to teach us about loss. A new dog never replaces an old dog, it merely expands the heart.” — Erica Jong

***

Diane and her beloved Rosie.

Diane Perea is a Bay Area native who moved to Beacon, New York, four years ago, due to the pull of a grandchild. A retired elementary school teacher, she loves being able to mono task now. She loves meditating, gardening, tap dancing, swimming and hanging out with her 5-year-old granddaughter, Sierra. And of course, she loves dogs and chocolate, too.

Editor’s note: Diane and I have been friends since high school in Fremont, California. I’ve always appreciated her zest for life, reflected in her many interests. We’ve navigated similar phases of life while living in different states and now enjoy a shared experience as grandparents with a soft spot for little rescue dogs.

Art, history and cultural pride come together at Chicano Park

The first time I heard about Chicano Park, in a history class I was auditing at my local university, I was stunned. Why hadn’t I known about this collection of more than 100 mural paintings under a San Diego freeway?

The park dates back to the early 1970s, when the Chicano movement for civil rights was in full flower. Mexican Americans were organizing in California, Texas and other states to assert themselves politically and gain community control of their schools, economy and culture.

In San Diego, that effort turned into something spectacular.

Long story short: Chicano Park in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood is a national landmark of mural art and a powerful symbol of Mexican-American history, claimed by community members who protected the area beneath a bridge from becoming a California Highway Patrol substation.

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I learned about its existence from Professor Marc Rodriguez when I took his course on “Chicano/a History, 1900-present” during the 2021 winter term at Portland State University. The park came up again the following year when I took a Public Art Muralism course taught by Hector Hernandez and focusing on Chicano and Latino artists.

I vowed to see the park for myself next time I was anywhere near San Diego. That opportunity came a few weeks ago during a visit to see my sister and other relatives in the area.

I was blown away.

Art, history and cultural pride all come together in a tangible way on these seven acres underneath the Coronado Bridge, south of downtown San Diego.

Here’s the background:

In the 1960s, the California Department of Transportation built the I-5 freeway through Barrio Logan, demolishing homes and splitting the neighborhood in two. To compensate, residents were promised that the land under the Coronado Bridge would be turned into a park, something the community had wanted for years. More time went by, but no park appeared.

On April 22, 1970, residents learned that the promise had been rescinded and the land would be used for a California Highway Patrol station. The local community rallied quickly to halt construction. Hundreds of men, women and children converged on the site, forming a human chain around bulldozers. They occupied the space for 12 days, attracting the attention of government officials.

Months of negotiation followed as city and state agencies argued questions of land use and ownership. Residents, led by the Chicano Park Steering Committee, kept up pressure. The artist Salvador Torres proposed to transform the bridge’s massive concrete pylons into a towering canvas for expression in the spirit of the Mexican Mural Movement.

The formation of Chicano Park was signed into law in 1971 and mural painting began two years later. As years passed, more artists from across California were invited to contribute, producing a range of pre-Colombian, colonial, modern and contemporary imagery.

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In 2011 and 2012, almost two dozen murals were restored with federal funding. Then, after six years of planning, the Chicano Park Museum opened in 2022, celebrating the park and all the artists who have made it such a vibrant place. The museum also functions as a community center and as well as the base for the nonprofit Turning Wheel Project, a mobile classroom that draws from the arts, literature, poetry, music, oral history and the sciences to take those lessons into the community.

I visited the museum and community center while I was there on a quiet Saturday, April 6. I bought a couple of items from the gift shop and toured the exhibition titled “Son de Allá y Son de Acá.” (“They are from there, and they are from here.”)

The multidisciplinary show is a traveling exhibition featuring more than 40 contemporary Chicano/a and Latino/a artists from Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

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The show’s title suggested that the artworks would reflect influences on both sides of the southern border. In that sense, it served as kind of a dessert to the main course of Chicano Park itself.

Honestly, it’s hard to grasp the scale of the landmark park without being there yourself, walking under the massive bridge supports and gazing at dozens of colorful murals stretching as far as the eye can see. (I took more than 150 photos that day, so you’re seeing only a fraction in this post.)

Strolling through alone with my thoughts, I felt enormous appreciation for the activists who stood up for Barrio Logan and transformed this plot of land into something special.

As a Mexican American, I felt immense pride in this celebration of Chicano history and culture.

And not least, I felt tremendous admiration for the various artists who created these spectacular murals for one and all to see for generations to come.

Those feelings are summed well in this quote from the late Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez, a local activist and musician.

“There’s an energy there that’s hard to describe. When you see your people struggling for something positive, it’s very inspiring. The park was brought about by sacrifice and it demonstrates what a community can do when they stick together and make it happen.”

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The magic of The Cheech

Cheech Marin in front of Benito Huerta’s “Exile Off Main Street,” 1999 (Credit: Gustavo Soriano for the Los Angeles Times)

From stoner comedian to collector of Chicano art, Richard Marin has traveled a unique path to namesake of a fabulous new museum.

I was in my teens when Marin and fellow comic Tommy Chong blazed their way to popularity as Cheech & Chong. Their “Big Bambu” album cover (1972) stands as an unforgettable reminder of the pot-smoking slacker humor that filled college arenas back in the day and launched the feature-length film “Up in Smoke.”

But you can forget about all that when you visit The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California.

From the moment you step into the lobby and lay eyes on a 26-foot tall piece of art — a dazzling representation of an Aztec earth goddess — you know you’ve arrived at a special, magical place.

That piece is titled “Gaiatlicue.” It was commissioned for the opening of the museum two years ago and it’s one of those things you need to see to appreciate the genius of its creators and the intricate work that brought it to life as an example of “lenticular art,” layered images that give the illusion of depth (3D) and movement or merge two different images.

Einar and Jamex De La Torre’s two-story lenticular installation projects an animated image of the burly Aztec Earth goddess Coatlicue, who shape-shifts into a transformer-like machine made out of lowrider Chevy Impalas. (Photo credit: Carlos Jaramillo for The New York Times)

And while that piece is mind-blowing, there’s plenty more to appreciate in this museum that celebrates Chicano art, reflecting Mexican and American influences.

“¡Méjico, Mexico!,” a wall-sized canvas painted in 1984 by Frank Romero.

Marin has amassed a collection of more than 700 paintings, drawings, sculptures and mixed-media works by Chicano artists, a trove of Chicano art believed to be the largest such collection in the world, according to The New York Times.

The Cheech is housed not in a glamorous space in a big city, but in a modest former public library in Riverside, a majority-Latino city of roughly 330,000 people, about 55 miles east of Los Angeles. Very cool.

My best buddy, Al Rodriguez, joined me on a tour of The Cheech in early April when I was visiting family. Visiting this gem and another area attraction the following day — the dozens of outdoor murals that make up San Diego’s Chicano Park — instilled in me a double dose of Chicano pride. (More on Chicano Park in my next post.)

Al and I saw everything we wanted to see at The Cheech in about two hours, thoroughly impressed by the quality and variety of paintings, drawings and photographs displayed on two levels.

Some pieces drew me in for closer inspection to admire the execution of details — a single brushstroke here, a subtle shadow there, or an ambiguous facial expression. Others grabbed me by the collar with their vibrant colors or compelling subjects. I really liked the artwork that captured ordinary people in their everyday lives but then I loved the more whimsical ones, too.

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  “Ojos de Miel” (“Eyes of Honey”), 1995. Acrylic on paper by Gaspar Enriquez.

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  “It’s a Brown World After All” 2006. Oil on canvas by Eloy Torrez.

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  “El Mas Loco” 2014. Oil on canvas by Ricardo Ruiz.

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  “The Strange Serenade” 2018. Oil on canvas by Ricardo Ruiz.

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  “Autumn,” 2000. Acrylic painting by Patssi Valdez.

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  “Little Girl in the Yllow Dress” 1995. Acrylic on canvas by Patssi Valdez.

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  “Descanso and Larissa” 2018. Acyrlic on wood by Jacinto Guevara.

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  “Freeway Wars” 1990. Silkscreen on paper by Frank Romero.

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  “Downey Happy Birthday, 2007.” Colored collage by Shizu Salamando.

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  “Frontlinerz” 2023. Photo by Humberto Flores.

On the day we visited, there was a special exhibition featuring the artist Judithe Hernández.

According to her website, during the early 1970s, Hernández was part of the celebrated Chicano artist collective Los Four. With her joining as the fifth and only female member, the collective would become a major force in the Chicano Art Movement. After graduating from art school in 1974, she began her career as a muralist, working with the late Carlos Almaraz, also a Los Four member, on murals for labor rights leader Cesar Chavez. They also did community murals, such as the Ramona Gardens Housing Projects in East Los Angeles where they painted a pair of the first feminist empowerment murals.

In 2019, at age 71, Hernández did a seven-story mural “La Nueva Reina de Los Angeles” (“The New Queen of Los Angeles”) on a building near the Hollywood Freeway.

At The Cheech, I was mesmerized by the beauty and breadth of Hernández’s work spanning more than 50 years. She does lush pastel paintings that depict poor Mexican and Indigenous women, exploring the legacies of colonization and the U.S.-Mexico border, and frequently includes antlered figures in her work. These were some of my favorites:

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  “Juarez Quinceañera” 2017. Pastel mixed media.

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  “Portrait of a Luchadora” 2008. Pastel on paper.

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  “The Beginning of Sin” 2010. Pastel on paper.

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  “The Sword of Saint Joan” 2013. Pastel mixed media on canvas.

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  “The Virgin of Darkness” 2010. Pastel on paper.

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  “Juarez: City of Death” 2008. Pastel on paper.

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  “Women of the Shadows” 1982. Pastel on paper.

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  “La Mano Negra” (“The Black Hand”) 1983. Pastel on paper.

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  “La Bruja y su Gato” (“The Witch and her Cat”) 2009. Pastel on paper.

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  “Photograph of Judithe Hernandez” circa 1978. Taken in her home in Lincoln Heights by Lèo Limón.

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  Judithe Hernández discussing her work in a short film shown at The Cheech.

The retrospective, titled “Myself, Somewhere, I Wait for My Arrival,” runs through Aug. 4, so if you’re visiting Los Angeles or San Diego anytime soon, you should make plans to see it. Totally worth the drive.

***

In the final minutes before leaving The Cheech, I homed in on a statue of Cesar Chavez and a heart-shaped sculpture of the iconic nopal, the cactus plant found throughout Mexico and the American Southwest. (Heck, I’ve even seen it in Oregon.)

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  Labor leader Cesar Chavez, who headed the United Farm Workers union.

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  Cesar Chavez.

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  The Donor Heart Sculpture, featuring nopales (prickly pear cactus leaves), was created by the De la Torre brothers.

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  George and Al in the lobby of The Cheech.

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  Annie Guadarrama made us feel welcome.

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  The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California.

We also took time to thank the young staff member who greeted us so warmly when we arrived.

Annie Guadarrama told us she grew up in Riverside and has seen her city develop in positive ways in recent years. As guest services manager, she’s had a front-row seat as this public-private partnership between the Riverside Art Museum and the City of Riverside and Richard Marin has taken flight.

In the year after its grand opening on June 18, 2022, The Cheech surpassed its projected annual goal of 100,000 visitors by nearly 30%. The museum has received flattering media coverage and welcomed guests from around the world. I hope to return someday with my wife Lori. I know she’d love it as much as I did.

Resources:

Judithe Hernández’s website:

New York Times interview with Cheech Marin and backgrounder on the museum.

CBS Mornings feature on The Cheech. Lenticular art mentioned above comes to life in first minute of the video. Watch it!

Next: Art, history and cultural pride come together at Chicano Park

Hanging with family and friends in Southern California

In early April, I carved out some time to fly down to southern California, hoping to reconnect with my sister and other family members, and spend time as well with my bestie, a guy I’ve known since we were in grade school.

I arrived Tuesday, April 2, with a loosely crafted plan to spend six days in the greater San Diego area. I flew in and out of the airport in Santa Ana, about 35 miles south of Los Angeles, and put 500 miles on the rental car visiting various folks and venues in five cities in three counties.

I saw a baseball game in San Diego, had dinner with my sister and breakfast with her daughter, both in Oceanside, visited a museum featuring Chicano/Latino art in Riverside, had lunch with a niece and nephew in Del Mar, saw the vibrant outdoor murals that make up historic Chicano Park in San Diego, and ended things Sunday at a “get-to-know-you” coffee with a cousin much younger than me in Santa Ana.

Yeah, that’s a lot of activity. But the main purpose of the visit was to spend time with my older sister, Rosemary, who lives in Oceanside, about 40 miles north of San Diego, with her husband Robert. Both have been retired for 20+ years. Their daughter, Bernadette, and son-in-law, Terrell, live a couple miles away.

I hadn’t visited the area since 2016, when Bernie and Terrell hosted a 90th birthday party for my father. Since then, the only time I’d seen Rose was at our dad’s funeral the following year. With both of us now past 70, I wanted to get something on the calendar so the two of us could just hang out, catching up on each other’s lives, reminiscing about family, and chatting about whatever.

We haven’t lived anywhere close to each other since the mid-70s when both of us left our hometown in Fremont, California. Robert’s career with the Marines took him and Rose to Virginia, Hawaii and southern California. My marriage to Lori and our career paths took us to Oregon, where we’ve firmly planted ourselves in Portland. Our younger sister also left Fremont, moving first to Arizona and then to Alaska.

So how did things go?

Pretty well, I’m pleased to say. Geographic and generational differences can create emotional distance even with a sibling, but the family bond and cultural grounding helped close the gap. Rose is 5 years older than me, so we never attended high school at the same time, and there was no overlap whatsoever in our respective groups of friends.

Living apart from each other for half a century has been a challenge. And yet…

I enjoyed our one-on-one conversation at dinner at a Japanese restaurant Wednesday night. Three days later, I went along to a Saturday afternoon church service with Rose and Bernie. My sister is a devout Catholic, someone who’s served as a greeter and eucharistic minister at the parish near her home. We sat at the back of the sanctuary and it was nice to see her chatting with friends who came by, trading smiles and hugs, enjoying the social connections. Clearly, it’s a big part of her life.

At dinner afterwards, we talked a little about our experiences with church, religion and faith. I’m a religious skeptic and ex-Catholic, but I didn’t challenge anyone’s beliefs. There were no debates. Just respectful listening. And for that I was grateful.

As for the rest of the trip, I’ll hit the highlights here, but I’ll be posting separate blogs on my visits to The Cheech, shorthand for The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, and the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center.

Tuesday:

I arrived mid-morning at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. Had nothing scheduled, so I picked up my rental car, eased onto the I-5 South and was blown away by the speed and volume of traffic, feeling very much like a tortoise amongst hares on the five-lane freeway. Pulled off to settle my nerves and grab an early lunch in San Juan Capistrano. Popped into the Basilica, a gorgeous, modern structure near the historic mission founded in 1776, enjoyed a peaceful, quiet walk in the historic downtown, and sat down to a nice meal at an Irish pub.

Checked into my hotel in Oceanside that afternoon and then headed over to the Amtrak station to pick up my best friend, Al Rodriguez, who rode in from Santa Barbara, four hours north. Had a great Italian dinner as we got caught up on each other’s lives.

Wednesday:

The Major League Baseball season had begun just a few days earlier, and Al and I had tickets to see the San Diego Padres in their highly touted ballpark. Petco Park is a 20-year-old stadium located in the heart of downtown, near light-rail tracks and the Gaslamp Quarter Historic District. It’s a beautiful ballpark with great views of the city and a wealth of concession booths.

Game time was 1:10 pm and we figured we’d catch a trolley (what we call light-rail) on the southbound Blue Line so we could avoid driving into the city. A good plan, but one that turned out to be shared by hundreds of others. We stopped at five consecutive park-and-ride lots, only to find every single space taken. By the time a local resident suggested we try another one, near a humongous shopping center, it was nearly 1pm by the time we parked and boarded the trolley.

What can you do?

We arrived in the third inning with the Padres already leading, 2-0. They would go on to win, 3-2, against the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a sunny afternoon and we were seated in the shade along the right-field line next to a friendly group of office workers.

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  Portland guy in front of an image of San Diego Padres Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn.

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  View from our seats just beyond first base.

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  Jersey honoring the best and most popular player in Padres history.

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  George and Al. Friends for about 60 years.

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  Tribute to two Hall of Fame players.

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  Padres fans leaving the stadium after a 3-2 win over St. Louis.

Thursday:

Another day spent with Al. We drove three hours to Riverside to see The Cheech. Yes, it’s named after the guy who was half of the Cheech & Chong comedy team that was so popular in the ’70s. And if you didn’t know, Cheech Marin is a serious collector of Chicano art.

The museum opened nearly two years ago as a public-private partnership between the famed comedian, the Riverside Art Museum and the City of Riverside. Los Lobos, one of my favorite bands, played a benefit concert in Riverside a month ahead of the grand opening June 18, 2022.

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California.

Acrylic painting by Leo Limon. “Un Poquito Sol” (A Little Sunshine”), 1991.

The Cheech is housed in a former city library housed in a compact building of two floors. We saw everything in a little over two hours and, wow, was it amazing

Had lunch across the street at the Mission Inn Hotel, a national historic landmark that features Spanish Mission-style architecture and takes up an entire city block. My niece Bernie said it was a can’t miss spot and she was right.

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  The historic hotel takes up an entire city block.

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  Interior of the Mission Inn Hotel

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  One of six restaurants and bars at the Mission Inn.

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  Kennedy, Ford, Reagan and George W. Bush are among U.S. presidents who’ve stayed at the Mission Inn.

Friday:

Said goodbye to Al at the train station and then jumped on the I-5 again (people seemed to be driving faster than ever, inching closer to my bumper) to meet a niece and nephew for lunch in the beach town of Del Mar.

Melissa and James are two of the four children born to Lori’s brother, Jim, and his wife, Judi. Their two sisters live near their parents in the Portland area, but these two moved down to San Diego long ago; it’s where they’ve made their homes and careers and also met their spouses.

With nephew James Rauh at a restaurant in the oceanfront town of Del Mar, California.

Melissa is one of three daughters and James the only son of Jim and Judi Rauh, Lori’s brother and our sister-in-law.

Hadn’t seen either of them for several years, so it was fun to spend a couple of hours talking and laughing with these two delightful human beings as we enjoyed an ocean view.

Melissa founded Elum Designs, a boutique online stationery shop offering greeting cards, notecards, journals and more, and now works as an interior design consultant. James co-founded a specialty coffee roasting company that operates three cafes and sells wholesale to area restaurants and cafes. He recently sold the business.

After lunch, I was back on the freeway, this time headed into San Diego. My destination: Chicano Park, located beneath the San Diego–Coronado Bridge in Barrio Logan, a predominantly Mexican American and Mexican-migrant community located south of the downtown core, about 20 miles north of the Mexican border. The artwork in the 8-acre park was stunning.

Saturday:

Another light day. My niece Bernie picked me up and we headed out to breakfast at a place that’s popular with surfers and other locals. Loved the conversation. Though I’ve known Bernie since she was in diapers, it dawned on me that this was the first time I’d sat down with her as an adult, just one-on-one.

She’s smart, funny, opinionated and fully dedicated to her aging parents, now 77 and 81 and increasingly homebound. She does their grocery shopping and drives her mom wherever she needs to go. Plus, she’s there on Saturdays for church and a customary Mexican dinner after services.

Bernie is director of customer services for a chain of nurseries and, boy, is she busy at this time of year. Terrell, her soft-spoken husband, works for the same company and prevously operated a family-owned flowers-and-gifts business. Earlier this year, he was among 25 Young Black & N’ Business members honored for their dedication to the San Diego community and to recognize their work. Each recipient was nominated by a peer, colleague or partner to receive a Presidential Voluntary Lifetime Service Award.

Sunday:

Checked out of the hotel and headed north on I-5 toward Santa Ana, happy to see traffic had lightened considerably from the weekday rush.

Met my cousin Richard Rede at a wonderful coffeeshop in Santa Ana, the perfect spot between my hotel and his home in Los Angeles. Richard is 54 — 17 years younger than me — and a well-established professional and family man. He’s a broker and co-owner of a real estate firm, married and the father of two boys.

His dad, Joe, and my dad, Catarino, were two of seven Rede brothers. My father was several years older than his, so my sisters and I came along well before Richard was born. He would have been in kindergarten when I was just finishing college, and he’s lived all his life in L.A., nearly a thousand miles away.

Interestingly, it was only four years ago that I reached out to him on Facebook (“Hello and forgive me. How do we know each other?”) and established that we were first cousins. And yet…

We greeted each other with a big abrazo and got to know each other as grown men. It was our first conversation ever and we took turns clarifying who was who in our big, sprawling family, and providing updates as best as we could.

George and Richard, Rede cousins “meeting” for the first time in Santa Ana.

All this time I’d thought he was the son of my Uncle Joe’s second wife, a light-skinned redhead. Um, no. There was a third wife I didn’t even know about, an Afro-Mexican woman, that explained Richard’s darker skin. I also learned he has a stepbrother (and possibly one or two more) and we got caught up on several cousins he sees regularly.

He said goodbye at noon. My return flight wasn’t until later that evening, so I had still had time to make a choice: go see the Angels vs. Red Sox ballgame in nearby Anaheim or find a sports bar to watch the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game between Iowa and South Carolina. Opted for the latter and it was a good call.

Angels got hammered, 12-2, and I saved the cost of a ticket and parking. Iowa lost, but I had a good seat at the bar and a basket of wings.

Closing thought: Living so far away from my sisters and parents for so many years — at one point, we were in four states in three time zones — made it difficult at times to maintain strong relationships or even visit each other. Now? I’m grateful I got a chance to spend time with my older sis, “meet” my cousin Richard, and see my nieces and nephew. This trip showed me it’s not too late to reach out. The bonus was hanging out for a couple days with Al, who’s known me longer than any non-relative (about 60 years) and whose friendship I will always treasure.

How I felt after reconnecting with assorted family members.

Next: The magic of The Cheech

Impressions of a pro-Palestinian protest at Portland State

With tent cities springing up on campuses across the country and university administrators trying to strike a balance between free speech and a safe learning environment for students, I decided to see for myself what a protest might look like in my own city.

Normally on Monday afternoon I would have been in class, starting Week 5 of a 10-week course on Palestinian resistance and politics that I’m auditing this term at Portland State University. But knowing there was a pro-Palestinian protest scheduled at the same hour, I ditched class and instead went straight to the rally in the heart of the campus.

What follows are my impressions from a little over an hour spent observing the scene, first on the periphery and then snaking through the crowd to a spot just about 20 feet from a pop-up canopy where I had a side view of speakers as they addressed a crowd of about 500 people gathered outside the university’s Millar Library.

Outside the Millar Library.

I say “impressions” because I didn’t interview a single person, as I’d have done if I were still a working journalist — or if I’d wanted to add individual quotes or perspectives to this account. I didn’t do so because it was apparent that student sentiments were uniformly obvious. Among the messages scrawled on the library windows and the handmade signs being carried were these:

“Let Gaza Live.”

“Free Palestine. Save Palestine. Cease Fire Now.”

“Stop Funding Genocide.”

“Bombing Hospitals Is A War Crime.”

“Glory To Our Martyrs.”

“Fuck Your Homework. People Are Dying.”

That said, my biggest impressions were these: the rally was orderly and non-violent (at least for the 75 minutes I was there), there was no sign of antisemitism, there were no counterprotesters and there was minimal property damage. The gathering had all the trappings of a Hollywood movie scene: lots of young people dressed in black, faces partially obscured behind masks, and several wearing kaffiyehs. Honestly, it struck me as almost tame.

Over the weekend, protesters built a makeshift barricade on the steps of the north entrance to the library after Portland police pushed them out of city-owned property Thursday and Friday nights. PSU President Ann Cudd asked that it be dismantled but demonstrators vowed to keep it up until the university issues a statement in support of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and permanently cuts any ties with the Boeing Co., which shipped bomb kits to Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. They also want the university to stop selling Israeli-made merchandise on campus.

I spotted a couple of slogans spray-painted onto park benches and on one side of the library, but no broken windows anywhere. I saw Black Bloc protesters but no obvious law enforcement presence. The rally was held in the South Park Blocks, which are city-owned, while the library is on university property.

I left campus just after 5 pm, but things ramped up later in the evening. Around 7:30, I received a PSU email alert advising folks to avoid the library area.

Later, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported, “social media posts claimed that an undisclosed number of people were occupying the library, which they had renamed Refaat Alareer Memorial Library for the Palestinian poet who died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in December. And at 11 p.m., PSU’s president announced she had asked Portland police for their help in clearing the library of the protesters, then estimated to include 50 to 75 people.”

This morning, I awoke to another PSU alert saying the campus was closed Tuesday because of the ongoing incident at the library.

“Police brass told press outlets that they hoped to resolve the situation without force, and Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt added that he would pursue charges for crimes such as breaking and entering,” Willamette Week reported.

***

On Monday I got to campus a little before 4 p.m. as a light drizzle ended, just in time to see a group of students marching toward the Park Blocks chanting what you might expect: “Free, free Palestine! From the river to the sea!”

A couple of local TV news crews set up on the lawn for live reports. There was a table offering granola bars, chips and handwarmer pads. And this being Portland, there were at least six dogs, all leashed.

Once the marchers arrived at the library, there was a lot of milling around. People chatted in pairs and small groups. Activists gathered signatures for a statewide initiative to raise corporate income taxes. I ran into three students from my class (one undergraduate and two “senior auditors” like myself), as well as our professor, a Palestinian who is a visiting Fulbright scholar from a university in the West Bank.

The professor didn’t officially cancel class, but if anyone showed up they would have found an empty classroom anyway, with many of us drawn to the rally.

Gaza protesters gather near the barricaded entrance to Millar Library.

Speakers did their best to rile up the crowd, demanding a free Palestine, denouncing American imperialism and criticizing the university’s ties to Boeing. 

President Cudd issued a statement Friday saying “PSU has no investments in Boeing but accepts philanthropic gifts from the company and, given that Boeing is a major employer in the region, many of our alumni work there.”

She also said the university will organize a moderated debate in May to address concerns about Boeing. Until then, she added, PSU will pause seeking or accepting any further gifts or grants from the company.

I’m sure students in my Palestine class will have a lot to say when (or if) we meet on Wednesday. I’ll be sure to write a separate post on my takeaways from the course once it’s finished. For the moment, I’ll say this: Though Monday’s protest followed a script you’d expect from a progressive campus like this one, I commend those students who participated, whether it was carrying a sign, making a speech or even singing along with the recently formed PSU Ceasefire Choir.

(Those who broke into the library? Not so much.)

It’s all too easy to criticize university students as naive or ill-informed about the complex issues underlying the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that’s been thrust onto the world’s stage by Hamas’ horrific attack on Oct. 7 and Israel’s furious response in Gaza.

But at least they are taking a stand, whereas many Americans are more concerned with inflation, crime, immigration, housing and health care. All of these are legitimate worries, but I suspect many Americans don’t want to be bothered thinking about whose blood is being shed in the Middle East and why or about the consequences of their federal taxes being used to arm the Israelis.

About 1,200 people were killed by Hamas militants while upwards of 34,000 Palestinians have perished at the hands of the Israeli military

At the same time, I do hope PSU students and their peers across the country recognize the privilege they enjoy to engage in protests like these, unlike people living under authoritarian regimes in other countries.

On Monday, police arrested dozens of protesters at the University of Texas and Columbia University began suspending students who defied a deadline to leave an encampment of about 120 tents on the New York City campus. Across the Arab world, officials in Egypt, Morocco and Jordan have arrested people at pro-Palestinian protests or detained them for social media posts criticizing their government. In Saudi Arabia, many people are too frightened to even speak on the issue, according to The New York Times.

At Portland State, I’ve met people who call upon Israel to “finish the job” in Rafah as well those who’ve been critical of President Biden for not doing more to negotiate a ceasefire and stop the flow of U.S. weapons to Israel.

Monday’s protest showed me that at least a few hundred students on this commuter campus of 21,000 students are willing to act on their values and beliefs in this instance. We will see what happens with the small group of protesters who broke into the library and, ultimately, whether PSU accedes to their demands.

A long weekend with the grandkids

Lori and I are definitely at that stage in life where grandchildren are a dominant topic among our circle of friends. How fun they are! How fast they’re growing!

Some friends have the convenience of living near their children’s children and see their little ones regularly, as many as three or more times a week. Overnight stays with the grandparents are common and so are family trips to the Oregon coast involving multiple households and generations.

Others, like us, don’t have that luxury. Visits to each other’s homes are fewer and far between when you’re separated by hundreds of miles or more than one time zone.

Last weekend, though, we grabbed the opportunity to spend four days and four nights in southern Oregon with Emalyn and Wesley, the children of our youngest son, Jordan, and his wife. Jamie. They live about 20-25 minutes northeast of Medford, just beyond the city of Eagle Point. We arrived Thursday afternoon after the customary 300-mile drive down I-5 and then east over to Oregon Hwy. 62.

(Jordan was in New York, finishing up work on his doctoral degree, so we missed him on this visit.)

Emmy is 7 years old and nearing the end of second grade. She is a bundle of energy, always planning the next two activities before we’re even finished with the one we’re doing. She’s a farm girl through and through, nearly always wearing a baseball cap, leggings and boots, and eager to show us what’s new on the property. Like her mom, she’s been raised around chickens, horses and geese, as well as dogs and cats. She knows how to drive an ATV and ride a horse, and loves helping her mom tend to little brother’s needs.

Emmy helps Wes at mealtime.

Wes is 16 months old. The last time I saw him was at Thanksgiving, when he was still crawling or being held in Mama’s arms. And now? He’s a walking, talking toddler, a constantly smiling redhead who warmed up to us a little more each day. By the time we left Monday morning, he was shouting “Noni!” and “Papa!”

It really is amazing how quickly our grandchildren grow up — and by “our” I mean everyone’s.

They come into this world with eyes closed, delicate in every respect; they get weighed and tested and handed off to their parents wrapped in a blanket like a human burrito. They sleep, eat, sleep, poop, sleep, cry, sleep, eat — endlessly repeating this cycle, utterly dependent — and before you know it, they’re smiling, laughing, grasping and learning their first words.

They learn to roll over, sit up, crawl, stand and take their first steps. Blink your eyes and all of a sudden they’re heading off to preschool, riding a bike or scooter, holding their favorite chickens, learning to read and developing their personalities.

It’s an amazing process. And in the case of these two young ones, they’ve been blessed to grow up in a loving home with a stay-at-home mom and a dedicated young father.

***

During our stay, we city slickers got another taste of the rural lifestyle. The young Redes live under the same roof as Jamie’s parents, who grew up in this area and are both still working.

We drive up a dirt-and-gravel driveway to reach the house, which is situated on more than 100 acres just off a two-lane state highway. Horses graze in a field across the pond from a pair of geese that are expecting a gosling or two any day now. Three roosters watch over a dozen hens, who produce the tastiest eggs you’d ever want to have.

The nearest neighbors are out of sight and nighttime brings a splendid show of stars against an inky-black sky.

Emmy kept us busy visiting with the chickens, playing board games, reading a new book and snuggling up as we watched her favorite videos.

On Friday, we took the kids on a long walk on a bike path flanking a golf course in Eagle Point while Jamie got a pedicure — a rare treat.

Saturday morning we got to see Emmy’s ballet class in action in Medford. We returned on Sunday to visit the Children’s Museum of Jackson County on a day when it was free admission and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival sent actors and other staffers to liven up the action.

The museum is a great resource, with interactive exhibits, do-it-yourself stations to build or decorate things, and lots of outdoor activities, including face-painting, climbing equipment and musical instruments. Kids could climb inside an ambulance, play in the sand or just have fun rolling down a small fake-grass hill.

For the youngest visitors, like Wes, there were areas where they could play safely with soft toys and furniture and meet a new friend or two. (View slideshow)

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During the weekend, we also got to spend time with Jamie’s older sister, Beth, and her 11-year-old daughter, Lavender. (Nice that Emmy and Wes can see their aunt and cousins frequently. Beth has a teenage son, as well.)

Jamie’s parents, Jeff and Linda, took us to lunch at a great barbecue place in Shady Cove on Saturday and we indulged afterwards in ice cream cones served up at Phil’s Frosty, a community landmark housed in a bright pink building. Yours truly prepared albóndigas soup (Mexican meatball soup) for dinner Sunday that everyone loved.

That morning, Lori hung on in the back seat as Linda powered them up a steep hillside in her ATV. The view was spectacular, Lori said.

We slept soundly in the silence that a rural property provides, no doubt because we were tired at the end of each day from trying to keep up with the two munchkins. Fellow grandparents, you know what I’m talking about.

Monday morning, we rose early to walk Emmy to the bus stop, where she catches the same yellow school bus that her mom rode to the same elementary school up the highway.

Our long weekend was just the right amount of time. With Emmy out of school Friday, we had three full days to spend with her and little Wes before heading home.

Noni Lori with our favorite ballerina.

Hanging out with grandson Wesley Louis Rede. His middle name comes from Lori’s dad, Rudolph Louis Rauh.

As much as we appreciate the change of pace down there, we’re always glad to come back to Portland, with all the cyclists, dog-walkers, gardeners who share the streets and sidewalks in our leafy neighborhood. This summer, I hope, Jordan and Jamie can bring the family up for a visit in this part of the state. Gotta keep up with their growth!

Serious stories, harsh places

The first time I picked up a short story collection by Oregon author Gina Ochsner, I was mesmerized by her focus on telling serious stories of people living in harsh places, from Eastern Europe to Alaska, from Siberia to West Texas.

I’ve just finished a second collection by Ochsner and I have to say I liked it just as much. In “People I Wanted To Be,” she writes about ordinary people struggling with loneliness and a sense of unfulfillment, be it from an unhappy marriage, infertility, work or mental illness.

As with the other book, “The Necessary Grace to Fall,” Ochsner sets her characters in unglamorous places, ranging from Astoria, on Oregon’s northern coast, to Hungary, Russia and the Czech Republic. These men and women smoke and drink, quarrel too much, harbor jealousies and resentments, and long for love and recognition, at work and from each other.

If all that sounds like a recipe for a downer of a book, it isn’t. The beauty found in these pages lies in people’s determination to push ahead in the face of dire, sometimes dark, circumstances.

Ochsner has traveled extensively in Russia and central and eastern Europe, and what she brings is a sense of universality to her writing.

Just as Raymond Carver wrote about people from a working class perspective grounded in small towns of the Pacific Northwest (he was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, and grew up in Yakima, Washington), Ochsner presents characters who are rough around the edges and struggling financially and emotionally.

She’s unafraid to incorporate death and ghosts into her stories, and she pulls it off well. And if the people in her stories don’t rise above their circumstances, many of them at least make peace with their lot in life, accepting what is and grateful things aren’t worse.

• The first story, “Articles of Faith,” is set in Karelia, a region in northwest Russia, bordering Finland. Irina and her husband Evan are steadfast in their efforts to become pregnant but, facing the reality of infertility, they instead turn their imagination to the three children they never had.

“Whether or not he and Irina were granted their wish, whether they ever had real children or just these ghosts, he would have to learn to content himself with what he had. He would give in and believe that this kind of faith could satisfy him and these children here, slipping among the shadows, were tokens of such faith. He could continiue going to the lakes, picking stones from his field, doing what he’s always done, because there was nothing else he could do.”

• In “Halves of a Whole,” twin sisters Lucy and Estera help their Hungarian immigrant parents run the family business: a mortuary, where they grow up with the smell of embalming fluids and learn from their mother that”presentation is everything” for survivors of the deceased, especially victims of accidents involving the loss of limbs, fires, or drowning.

Lucy, born second, grows up in the shadow of her sibling, who’s lively and popular with the boys.

“Estera, with her long black hair and her strong Hungarian jaw, was beautiful, as pretty as any of the models in those magazines she was always reading. And Lucy knew it wasn’t for nothing that they were twins. She could be pretty too. Maybe even go out with a good Catholic boy. But the features she shared with her sister looked handed down, as if Lucy were made up of the leftover parts. The sisters were like two halves of a whole: Estera the beginning, the source, and Lucy her belated echo. And somehow Lucy knew it would always be this way.”

• In “A Darkness Held” (my favorite story in this collection), Imogene McCrary is drawn back as a substitute teacher to the Catholic school in Astoria she attended as a girl. Unmarried and unemployed, Imogene lost her teaching license on account of her drinking. Growing up poor “and with a horsy face,” Imogene now inherits a bulging body at age 38. Half a pack of cigarettes and one third of the way through a box of Franzia, she turns introspective.

“Alcohol sands down her complicated grief for all things lost — her parents and [brother] Frank and even those things and people she has never had and dares not hope for. But on days like these, when she’s increasingly long on recall, she thinks it isn’t fair that her memory pains her the way it does. And this she can’t quite understand: why God would make life hurt if it were meant to last so long. This, she decides, is further proof that God not only winks at a full-blown drinking problem but is actually egging her on.”

• In “From the Fourth Row,” Juri works in Prague illustrating advertisements for a marketing firm. He sits in a row of desks four rows from the front of the office, where the windows overlook Old Town Square. His seat is a marker of the lack of prestige he has gained in five years of working here, and he feels growing resentment toward his boss and co-workers.

Tasked with an assignment for an important client and stressed out by a fast-approaching deadline, Jiri hallucinates at work; he responds out loud to his long-dead grandparents, causing a beautiful co-worker he’d long admired to slowly back away toward her desk. Jiri puts his head in his hands and weeps.

“My shoulders shook and my eyes watered. Their words had triggered a recognition of something I’d noticed in myself. Despair. I wanted to name it, for I was a useless artist, unable to attract women. I had disappointed my mother in ways I was only just beginning to understand, and was altogether an insignificant human being. And these words, these admissions — I had been avoiding them for years.”

Gina Ochsner greeted me warmly when I met her at a Salem coffeeshop in December 2023.

Ochsner is a two-time Oregon Book Award winner who lives in Keizer and teaches writing and literature at Corban University, a small Christian college in Salem. She is the adopted daughter of evangelical Christians and the married mother of four adult children. 

I had the pleasure of meeting her last year when I reached out to her after reading “A Necessary Grace to Fall.” She was gracious and inquisitive about my own family and career when we chatted over coffee, and I left thinking I’d like to read more of her work.

Thanks to our longtime friends in Salem, Bob and Deb Ehlers, I wound up with a loaned autographed copy of “People I Wanted to Be” and breezed through it on a recent trip out of state.

Short stories are perfect for reading on an airplane, I tell you. Especially when they are crafted with such precision and empathy by a writer as talented as Gina Ochsner.

Visit Gina’s website here.

A timely exploration of the history of Zionism

Ever since October 7th, the world’s attention has been riveted on the Middle East. Count me among those horrified by the audacity of Hamas’ bloody attack on civilians, and by the scope and scale of Israel’s bomb-heavy counteroffensive.

Every development in this multifaceted tragedy has been almost too much bear, with a toxic mix of cruelty, arrogance and stubbornness on both sides. From the initial reports of Hamas terrorists raping, mutiliating and killing some 1,200 Israelis to the rataliatory ground and air assaults on Gaza’s innocent men, women and children, it’s been heartbreaking to watch from this side of the globe.

I could try on my own to make sense of this latest iteration of hatred between two sets of historically oppressed people, Jews and Palestinians. But thankfully, there are resources close at hand to help me deepen my understanding of the key events and leading figures underlying this ancient and endless conflict.

I’m talking about Portland State University and its open-door policy for “senior auditors” 65 and older who want to take one of the more than 5,000 courses offered each term at little or no cost.

During the just-concluded winter term, I took a “History of Zionism” class that was outstanding in terms of the breadth and depth of the course content, as well as the variety of media sources and perspectives presented during the 10-week class.

Dr. Nina Spiegel, an assistant professor of Judaic Studies, led us through an examination of the Zionist movement in Europe in the 19th century, the variety and diversity of Zionist visions, and the movement’s growth in Palestine from the late 19th century up until the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Professor Nina Spiegel taught “The History of Zionism” class during winter term. She is the author of “Embodying Hebrew Culture.”

This week, as the spring term kicks off, I am picking up where that course left off. I am enrolled in a political science class called “Palestine: Resistance and Politics” being taught by Dr. Jehad Alayasa, a Palestinian professor of public administration and policy affairs at Birzeit University in the West Bank. He’s received his Ph.D at Portland State and he’s a visiting Fulbright Scholar this academic year.

While there is some overlap in the pre-statehood era, this course will survey events including the wars of 1967 and 1973, the ensuing series of failed diplomatic efforts, the establishment of the PLO and Hamas, and the current war being waged by the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank.

The cost for both of these courses? Tuition: zero. Textbooks: a little over $100 for four books and that’s by choice. I prefer to buy my own used versions rather than rent them at less cost. Typically, professors put a lot of complementary material online that’s easily accessible through PSU’s teaching and learning platform. It’s free and a great way to add movies, video clips, book chapters, government documents and academic journal articles to our assigned textbook readings.

Find out more about the Senior Adult Learning Center, known as SALC, right here.

***

The History of Zionism course delivered everything I hoped it would. My purpose in taking the course was not to judge who’s to blame in this morass of propaganda and political gamesmanship, but simply to gain new knowledge that would help me understand how the Zionist movement led to the founding of Israel and better contextualize a host of complicated actions and issues that have arisen since October 7th.

These would include the rise in antisemitism directed, from both the left and right, at American Jews; the hardening right-wing policies of the Israeli government; growing calls across the globe for an immediate ceasefire and increased humanitarian aid to starving, homeless Palestinians; and demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for immediate elections and for the Israeli government to urgently negotiate the release of more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

The latest wrinkle? Germany, the No. 2 supplier of arms to Israel, is reassessing its support ot its longtime ally. Supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty in Germany because of the Holocaust, but the escalating crisis has pushed German officials to ask whether that backing has gone too far, The New York Times reported.

And the latest catastrophe? Seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza were killed by an Israeli air strike Tuesday, drawing condemnation from governments around the world.

We didn’t debate the moral and political implications of the United States’ role as Israel’s chief supplier of military weapons. Nor did we argue whether Israel’s declared objective of eliminating Hamas has morphed into what the international community would define as genocide. We can decide those things for ourselves, keeping in mind that upwards of 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died as a result of Israel’s campaign, according to the Health Ministry there.

I was glad to see that Prof. Spiegel’s framing of the course aligned with mine, starting with a simple question: What is Zionism anyway?

Zionism started as a secular movement in the late 19th century, as a response to widespread antisemitism and as a way to advance the growing popularity of Jewish nationalism. In other words, to encourage Jewish people who were scattered around the world to establish a homeland in Palestine, a place traditionally known in Jewish writings as the Land of Israel. It was a movement that embraced socialism and led to the establishment of kibbutzes, communal living arrangements historically centered around collective farms. (Even so, the majority of Zionists lived in cities and towns.)

We explored the ideas, visions and challenges of the earliest Zionist thinkers, beginning with Theodor Herzl, the undisputed father of Zionism. Born in 1860 in Hungary, Herzl was a thoroughly assimiliated Jew who was well educated and who spoke five languages (but not Hebrew or Yiddish). He was a playwright, journalist and novelist who spent years pushing the Zionist idea, only to die of pneumonia at age 44.

Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism. Born 1860. Died 1904.

We got an introduction to the different philosophies grounded in political, economic, cultural and religious thought that provided a foundation for the modern Israeli state. On particular interest was the call to develop a “Zionist body” in order to stand up to one’s enemies. Several Zionist leaders lamented the archetype of the Jewish male as bookish, physically weak and lacking fortitude. The emergence of a new archetype, the so-called “Muscle Jew,” was meant to inspire younger generations to be physically and mentally strong as well as serve as a political symbol of the emerging Israeli nation.

We examined the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and studied the society and culture the Zionist movement created during the years when Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and later when it was governed by the British, via a League of Nations mandate, following the end of World War I and continuing through the years after World War II.

It was important to see the sacrifice and effort of the mostly young and idealistic Jews who initially settled this arid territory of Palestine in waves of immigration from Europe and Russia, where they were typically had no rights, were herded into ghettos, limited to certain occupations and frequently attacked simply for being Jewish.

It was also important to remember what the Jewish people had endured during centuries of exile since being expelled from the Land of Israel — the same land claimed by the Palestinians. During World War II, 6 million Jews were murdered in Europe, leaving a scant 1 million Jews on the continent. A whole race of people nearly exterminated.

Driven by guilt over the Holocaust and their own self-interests in constructing a new world order after WWII, the leading powers agreed to clear a path to nationhood for Israel, even as neighboring Arab countries expressed their opposition to a divided Palestine at every turn. And why wouldn’t they?

Palestinian nationalism was on the rise. Local residents resented Jewish settlements in the region, even though much of this displacement occurred because Arab landowners profited handsomely by selling their properties to the new arrivals.

A catastrophic war immediately following Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, set the stage for decades of crisis, recriminations and political instability. Five Arab nations went to war against Israel. Between then and January 1949, about 15,000 Palestinians were killed and more than 700,000 were forcefully displaced by the Israeli military.

About 280,000 (38 pct.) of these Palestinian refugees went to the West Bank, 190,000 (26 pct) to the Gaza Strip and the remaining 250,000+ to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.

According to Al Jazeera, more than 70 percent of Gaza’s residents are refugees. About 1.5 million refugees live in eight refugee camps around the Gaza Strip. It’s the oppressive conditions that these people continue to experience under Israel’s authority that feeds their seething anger.

I am certain to hear more about the Palestinian perspective this term from Prof. Alayasa. And I consider myself fortunate to be able to take advantage of these scholarly perspectives on this perpetual international crisis.

***

Final notes and parting thoughts:

• Prof. Spiegel presented a well-rounded class that held my attention from start to finish. She’s been teaching this class for 15 years, including the past 11 at PSU. She specializes in cultural history and had us read the opening chapter of a book she wrote about Hebrew culture in the years before Israel became a state.

• There were 24 students enrolled in the course: just 6 undergrads and the rest of us senior auditors. The professor seemed accustomed to this, as history is a popular subject among auditors.

• The class met in person on Wednesday for two hours. In addition to lectures and assigned readings, Prof. Spiegel had us meet on our own in small groups of three to four ahead of each class meeting so that we could discuss these topics informally. We did this online and it was a nice supplemental learning strategy.

• At our final class meeting, she asked us a simple question: What most struck you about Zionism this term? And, she said, I want you to take turns pairing up with four randomly assigned classmates to share your answers. It felt like a high school history class, but in a good way.

• I had a handful of responses, but the most obvious one was this: How complex the history of this region is. I particularly came away with a better understanding of the role the British played in the governance and partition of Palestine, as well as the herculean task facing any people of creating a nation with its own language, laws, customs and heroes.

With this course as my foundation, I can’t wait to move on to my next course focusing on Palestine.

4 takeaways from an article about cystic fibrosis

I still have a vivid memory of the first non-sports article that I wrote for my hometown newspaper in Fremont, California. It landed on the front page of The Argus, with an accompanying photo, and it told the story of a fundraising event for people suffering from cystic fibrosis.

Police officers and local jocks were going to play a basketball game for charity, and I’d not only interviewed one of the intended beneficiaries but I also learned about a genetic disease characterized by a buildup of mucus inside the lungs that meant labored breathing and a short life expectancy.

It was an eye-opening moment for me, at age 19, to realize there was more beyond the world of sports that I could pursue as an aspiring journalist and, as well, learn something along the way.

Five decades later, my attention was drawn this week to an article about CF in the April 2024 issue of The Atlantic: “After The Miracle” by Sarah Zhang, a staff writer who covers science and health.

Jenny Livingston credits Trikafta with dramatically improving her CF symptoms, but she still uses a vest and inhaled treatments to prevent lung infections and other complications from the disease. (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 2019)

In the 1950s, a child born with cystic fibrosis could expect to live until age 5. In the ’70s, age 10. By the early 2000s, age 35.

But a new treatment, a triple combination of drugs called Trikafta, has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected, Zhang reports. For the 40,000 Americans afflicted with CF who begin taking Trikafta in early adolesence, this miracle drug means they can expect to survive into their early 80s.

So, what do they do now?

Here are 4 things I took away from the piece — not focused on the medical aspects but on the existential and moral implications of living a longer life.

• Appreciate that you’ve always imagined you’d have a future. Many of these CF patients were accustomed to living in the present, only to realize they will now be around much longer. As a result, doors have opened to once-impossible futures. Zhang writes:

A 22-year-old told me he decided to train as an aircraft mechanic, a job that would have been far too physically demanding when he was being hospitalized multiple times a year. One woman started dating. “I don’t want to fall in love with somebody, knowing that I’m not going to be around very long,” she had thought. Now she and her boyfriend have been together for four years. A father who was being evaluated for a lung transplant before Trikafta felt healthy enough to spend the summer of 2020 tearing down and rebuilding his family’s deck, and now expects his CF lungs to see him through graduations and grandkids.

Jenny Livingston, who lives in central Utah, credits Trikafta as the medical breakthrough that has changed everything for her and other CF patients. (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 2022)

• Understand that this remarkable turn of events also has brought complications for patients. Some who were no longer dying grew depressed, anxious and even suicidal at the thought of living.

Death is an end, after all. Life comes with problems: Patients who spent lavishly during what were supposed to be their last days now had no money to live on. Those who stayed with a lover in sickness found that they could not actually stand them in health. They fretted about insurance and paperwork and chores, everyday annoyances that would no longer be obliterated by imminent death. 

• Make the most of your opportunities to mend fences. I have some of this work to do within my extended family. Jenny Livingston, the woman featured in this article, is liberal, whereas most of her relatives voted for Trump, and is no longer religious, unlike her Mormon family.

Still, Jenny has made a point of staying close to her large, tight-knit family. Knowing she would die young had long ago clarified that she wanted to leave with no regrets, no grudges, and no words left unsaid to the people she loved.

• Understand the depth of heartbreak that any parent who’s buried a child undergoes and carries with them. My late mother lost three children in infancy before I was born. That kind of loss is almost unimaginable. Two days after Zhang visited Utah to report this story, Jenny’s dad, Tom, had a heart attack while chopping firewood, but is recovering well after quintuple-bypass surgery.

He’s become more open about his emotions; still a jokester, he’s taken to saying that his heart has been opened in more ways than one since the surgery….“I was going to bury my kids. And (now) I’m not. They get to bury me, which is the way it’s supposed to be.”

Want to read the article? Find it here:

After the Miracle Drug

Or here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/cystic-fibrosis-trikafta-breakthrough-treatment/677471

Or here:

Cosmic perspectives from Neil deGrasse Tyson

On a neighborhood walk with our little terrier, I came upon another of those free lending libraries that are found throughout this book-loving city called Portland.

My takeaway this time? “Letters from an Astrophysicist” by the distinguished scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Score!

Tyson is probably one of the few contemporary scientists readily recognized by the American public, what with a long list of well-received television and radio shows, a podcast, and more than a dozen books to his credit, including two New York Times bestsellers: “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” (2017) and “Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military” (2018).

Plus, he’s a popular speaker, with 15 dates remaining on his 2024 national tour. (Closest to us: Seattle, April 15-16.)

The book I snagged was an illuminating read, revealing the author’s intelligence, sense of humor and dedication to educating the public about science generally and our universe in particular. Its compact dimensions — just a little larger than a checkbook register — and format made it easy to plow through several chapters at a time.

Over the course of 238 pages, Tyson responds to people from all walks of life, almost all complete strangers, who wrote to him over more than two decades when his email address was publicly accessible as director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Others reached out via social media and traditional snail mail.

In this collection of 101 letters, Tyson draws upon his professional training and personal perspectives as he touches on a wild array of topics: aliens, astronomy and biology; pseudoscience, race and religion; faith, philosophy, parenting and UFOs.

He writes respectfully to these assorted correspondents, no matter if they are schoolchildren, science skeptics or fellow parents, most memorably to the father of two bright teens who wrote him from San Quentin, where he was doing time for manslaughter. The imprisoned dad said his daughters had a keen interest in astronomy and he wanted to know how to encourage their STEM studies.

“Dear. Mr. Boatwright,” Tyson wrote, “One of the great revelations of parenting: when you have curious, motivated children, the intervention of a grownup carries almost as much risk in squashing their ambitions as it does in nurturing them. Deep down we know it’s true. As the saying goes, we spend the first years of children’s lives teaching them to talk and walk, and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down.”

Ouch.

Better to encourage kids’ curiosity and exploration of the Internet than try to steer them to a desired outcome, said Tyson, 65, a married father of two.

Neil deGrasse Tyson attended the Bronx High School of Science, went on to major in physics at Harvard, and earned a master’s degree in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Ph. D. in astrophysics from Columbia University, and is the recipient of 23 honorary degrees. Not too shabby.

As someone who gravitated to writing and literature, I’ve always felt sheepish about my lack of knowledge when it comes to the natural and physical sciences. Even so, I was amused when I read Tyson’s response to a reader who took issue with his 2012 tweet that declared, “On the day we reserve to tell ourselves America is great – July 4 – Europe reminds us that we suck at science.”

“Every metric of America’s performance on the world stage of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields among industrialized nations put(s) us in the bottom 10%,” Tyson wrote. “We also have an ever-growing fraction (nearing 50%) of the electorate that denies the discoveries of science when they conflict with their politics and/or religion. So to imply that I have somehow misrepresented the state of American science is simply false.”

Harsh? No. True? Unfortunately, yes.

There are many more nuggets like this throughout the book, with catchy titles like “Thinking for Yourself” and “God and the Afterlife.” I won’t share any more responses in the hope you might be enticed to get hold of a copy for yourself.

I will end, though, with a profound quote from “The Cosmic Perspective” — adapted from an essay Tyson wrote for his earlier book “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.”

The cosmic perspective comes from the frontiers of science, yet it’s not solely the province of the scientist. The cosmic perspective belongs to everyone.

The cosmic perspective is humble.

The cosmic perspective is spiritual — even redemptive — but not religious.

The cosmic perspective enables us to grasp, in the same thought, the large and the small.

The cosmic perspective opens our minds to extraordinary ideas but does not leave them so open that our brains spill out, making us susceptible to believing anything we’re told.

The cosmic perspective opens our eyes to the universe, not as a benevolent cradle designed to nurture life but as a cold, lonely hazardous place.

The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote, but a precious mote and, for the moment, the only home we have.

The cosmic perspective finds beauty in the images of planets, moons, stars, and nebulae but also celebrates the laws of physics that shape them.

The cosmic perspective enables us to see beyond our circumstances, allowing us to transcend the primal search for food, shelter, and sex.

The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where there is no air, a flag will not wave — an indication that perhaps flag waving and space exploration do not mix

The cosmic perspective not only embraces our genetic kinship with all life on Earth but also values our chemical kinship with any yet-to-be discovered life in the universe, as well as our atomic kinship with the universe itself. We are Stardust.

I can relate to that.