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Today's Featured Biography

 
Douglas Bartley

Hi, everyone.

Guess I'll leave my old bio below and just jump in here to say hi and lament the fact that the planets have not aligned in such a way as to allow me to make it to the 45th!

Seems I'm stuck here in Japan on the wrong side of that big Mar Pacifico.

Was looking forward to checking out Fort Vannoy Farm (glad *somebody* didn't sell the farm) - the first place we lived in GP after moving to GP in 1963 was about the 9 mile post on Lower River Road so road the school bus to Fort Vannoy with Bob C., Debra Ferguson and others.

I'm still alive and occasionally kicking - living and working here in Hamamatsu, Japan (let me know if you'll be in the neighborhood - we'll leave a light on).

Only big news this year being that my daughter graduated from university this year (at age 34) thanks to GI benefits and a lot of hard work. Never say never, no?

Anyway, best regards to all - I promise to make at least a modest effort to be alive and in shape to make it to the 50th and hope you will also.

Happy trails to you (until we meet again),

Doug B.

BTW - don't endorse most of the views on the site, but here is a little something I wrote the other day with a GP connection - the friend I refer in it is 'Big Daddy' BRC:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/06/05/1534676/-Bobby-Kennedy-Birthday-Blues


(old profile)
Hi, all - still alive and working in Japan - but wanted to send a 50th Anniversary greeting to you all - it was 50 years ago this September that my family moved to Grants Pass.

I can't always remember where I put the car keys, but I remember 1963.

Of course one thing I remember clearly is the November day that we were playing outside at noon at Fort Vannoy School - must have been rainy, we were outside, but in the roofed over area where the basketball courts were.

We came back and Mrs. Howell told us she had some bad news and told us that President Kennedy had been killed. Don't remember the exact words she used, but was serious and to the point.

Might just be me, but it seems like despite having smartphones, better beer and herb (well, not much of
that here in Japan :-(, unfortunately) that the we've sure gone downhill in a lot of ways.

Someone was pointing out on some site or other the other day that the minimum wage in 1964 was $1.50 or six silver quarters at the time. If you had the same six quarters now, even though the price of silver is down recently, you'd have about $26.00 - almost three times the current minimum wage.

I don't get the impression that the once-common expression "it's a free country" is all that common anymore...

My 1963 started out in a crappy house in what had to be
the crappiest area of Burns, Oregon - my mom almost died
that winter. But in the spring, we moved to what had to be the coolest house in town - a completely originally furnished three story Victorian - built originally by a guy who struck it rich in the Klondike gold rush and came back to be a prominent judge in Harney County.

My older half-sisters stayed with us that summer and we spent a month or so at a Forest Service Guard Station on the Ochoco National Forest where my dad worked - I went out with him some days and we would see antelope or elk - went fishing, found arrowheads...

My dad transferred to the Siskiyou NF and we moved to GP in September and we moved to a house out by the nine mile marker on Lower River Road - my sister and I entered Fort Vannoy.

I got a dog, a black lab I named Rebel, but he got away from my mom one morning and came running up to where my sister and I were waiting for the school bus - I was yelling at the dog (useless, of course) and he came charging out in front of an old yellow logging crummy and some loggers headed to work - they had no chance at all to stop and that was it for Rebel. Never occurred to me till decades later that if I had ignored the dog and tried to flag down the oncoming cars it might have been avoided.

Anyhow, then there was the Kennedy thing and a cold winter sleeping on Army cots - but in the spring my folks bought the house next to Blaine's on NW Lawnridge. I entered Highland (Mrs. Sherk's class) and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, Happy 50th to Debra L., Bob Crouse and to anybody else from Fort Vannoy that I might be forgetting. And to all of you in general!

Prayers and RIP to JFK and others who didn't make it this far or areexperiencing trying times.

- And a special hello to the girl I always think of when I hear "When I'm Sixty-Four".

You can't find e on Facebook or follow me on Twitter - my idea of social networking is a few beers and conversation with some friends - which is where I'm headed just about now.

Always happy to hear from folks through the site here, though - or drop by if you're in the neighborhood!

Happy Trails to You,

DB

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