The Daily Grind

I feel like my training in the Marshall Islands should have come with a warning label.

WARNING: While you may be in a tropical Micronesian nation, DO NOT expect to participate in any of the following activities — swimming, surfing, snorkeling, diving or spear fishing. You will simply be too busy learning how to teach the Marshallese youth of tomorrow, today. If you experience any negative emotions related to a lack of these activities find a small room where you can shout the following sentence at yourself.

I am not here on vacation, I am here to help!

Repeat as needed.

OK, I know that I am not here to just have fun, but it would have helped to have a little something to cushion my hard drop from “wow, I am in paradise,” to “geez, what does a guy have to do around here to lay in a hammock?”

The label could be big and yellow and it could have a logo of a dog chomping on a tall and skinny man’s rear (that story is for a different column).

My days here are a whirlwind from start to finish and that is fine, but when palm trees surround you, focusing can be hard...

As a group, we usually get up around 7:30 in the morning. We brush our teeth, we take our bucket showers and we eat our plain corn-flakes with our preserved milk. Then there is a few minutes for personal time which means that people bunch up into ones and twos and chat quietly and write letters home.

The ocean is always close and it beats in our ears but there is no time to go to its shores because the group has to head into a small and stuffy classroom trailer designed for kindergarten students where 45 of us sit on the floor (because that is what many people do in the Marshall Islands and we need to get used to it) and we try to listen to the brush-up grammar lessons.
We listen, we take notes, we doodle and we yawn and then we are let out with enough time to go back into our crowded and smelly sleeping rooms to switch our grammar books with our language manuals and then we are back out into the muggy day to sit in small groups and have our Marshallese lessons from high-spirited teenagers who chuckle at us as our mouths stumble over the unfamiliar shapes of their Marshall words.

After that, lunch comes and we pile our plates high with slightly differing mixtures of tofu, rice, noodles, cabbage, chicken and carrots. When we are done eating we clean up and have a few moments to relax. Some people choose to go down to the lagoon, others choose to lay in the sleeping room. In half an hour we meet back up for classes stretching straight until the edge of dawn before we are set free to witness the last dying breaths of the day.

Then we go to sleep and repeat the next day.

Wake, shower, eat, study, study, eat, study, study and repeat.

The other day our schedule was mixed up.

Our group woke up and boarded a bus. We packed our snorkels and sun screen. Our driver took us further down the one road in town than we had ever been before. We got on a boat and it took us out to another island far from anything that has to do with doing.

I disembarked, and set out across the island where I found two palm trees set apart about the right amount. I tied my hammock between these trees and I laid out with Hemingway in my hand and a sea breeze running over my face. I breathed in deep and felt myself sinking into my own skin.

Now this was paradise.

Repeat as needed.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Dogging It

I used to be a dog person... USED to is the key term here...

Yesterday morning I woke up before the sun rose and stumbled my way out into the courtyard of the building where we are staying (a prison-like head start where we sleep crammed together on thin mats that do little to disguise the hard floor beneath...) and took my camera bag out to catch a glimpse of the sunrise.

Well when I got to the courtyard I found the front gate locked and I couldn’t find my keys.

This should have been a sign to me. Go back to bed. Rest, catching the sunrise is not meant for you. However I ignored it and scaled up the chainlink fence, careful to avoid the section with barbed wire, and hopped down to the dimly-lit street below.

I had been witness to the dramatic sunsets that took place every night on the lagoon so I decided that my best bet to catch the sunrise was to head down the road and over to the ocean side of the island.

Even though the difference between lagoon side and ocean side is a matter of yards in the Marshall Islands, you can only cross from the central road to the beach at certain places because everything else is someone’s front yard.

I hiked my camera bag higher on my back and set off down the road.

In the Marshall Islands there are lots and lots of dogs, and none of them are stray, they all belong to someone. Some are aggressive but most are not. My program coordinator taught us all that the best way to take care of an aggressive dog is to either pretend like you are picking up a rock to throw at them, or at least actually throw a rock at them.

Being alone I chose to carry a whole pocketful of rocks with me.

As I walked along the scenes of the young Marshallese day greeted me. Women tending to fires, men sweeping out front yards and people sitting on chairs with towels around their necks, watching the road after a morning dip in the lagoon.

I was trying to live in the moment, you know breath it all in, when I heard a chorus of barking start up down the drive of a house. Nervously I fingered the rocks in my pocket and picked up my pace. From around the corner of the drive came a pack of five or six dogs growling viciously.

I remembered my training and pretended to wing a rock at them — they barely budged. Next I actually started throwing rocks. The dogs charged on through my volleys of desperation, but somehow I managed to make them back down and was on my way.

I breathed hard and said Yokwe (hello) to the people I passed and got some good photos (I think) of a boy carrying his spear out to the beach to do some fishing.

Then the moment of truth came — I had to turn around and make it back to the head start for a morning lesson. I wanted to take an alternative route around the pack of dogs but that is just the thing, in Majuro there is only one road, so it looked like I would have to go back and battle with the pack of degenerate pooches.

I loaded up my pockets with bits of coral (that is what rocks are here, just broken and crumbled coral) and set back with my jaw set and ready.

When I reached the house of the vicious pack nothing happened so I kept walking. I started to relax. My shoulders drooped. Then, as I was almost onto the next house, I heard a distant howl that sent a shiver up my spine. From around the back of the property came a barking mass of fur and teeth like some sort of bastard creature that God had messed up on but somehow allowed to roam the Earth.

I stood tall. I shouted back. I threw rocks.

And still they came...

Seconds before the lead dog closed in with his mouth aiming for a very important part of anatomy below the belly button and above the knees, I instinctively turned away from him. The problem with this is that it exposed my rump to attack and the lead dog was more than happy to oblige.

I yelped with pain and then with my last rock I turned and threw it into the mass and struck a dog near the back full-on in the face. He shrank away yelping and the others followed suit, leaving me free to walk on nervously.

I made it home alright but something fundamental shifted inside me.

I don’t know if you could classify me as a dog person anymore.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Guide Me

My journey to the Marshall Islands began in a trashy Greyhound station in Eugene. It was sketchy in all sences of the word. There were people who I didn't trust, busses that never seemed to come and a general feeling in the air that someone was about to get robbed or hit on.

Eventually my bus came though and I said goodbye to my girlfriend and stepped aboard a bus packed almost to the brim with sweating humanity.

The trip was full of slightly unsettling occurrences.

Every single time I glanced at the man next to me, no matter the time of day, he was staring straight back with his high-domed head and thin, snake-like smile. Meanwhile, the bus driver couldn’t seem to keep in one lane and liked to do 80 all of the time and behind me a man kept screaming on his cell phone about how he just got out of jail and he was about to beat people up.

Suddenly the 900 some miles left to go to Los Angeles seemed impossible.

What was I supposed to do though? I had paid for the bus ticket and I had a flight leaving the next day out of LA so I pulled out my Ipod and plugged out the Greyhound with my headphones and soothed my worries away with some Sufjan Stevens and his band.

Through the mountains near Shasta I got deep into my thoughts with Cat Stevens. In Sacramento I had a mid-journey pump-me-up session with the Killers. Taj Mahal got me through a rest-stop in the middle of nowhere and Nora Jones helped me keep my cool when I missed three different buses in a row and wasn’t sure if I would make it to LA.

I made it though, with music as a guide — and my batteries lasted the whole way.

One of the first things I learned after stepping off the plane in the Marshall Islands — after coming to grips with the fact that it is so humid here is feels like you are just stepping out of the shower all of the time — was that before the people of the RMI had the luxuries of modern navigation, they relied on a sort of vocal map passed down through the generations in the form of song. They would literally sing as they rowed and through the lyrics they would be reminded that there was a coral reef to be avoided here, or a swift current to be careful of there.

The songs kept them on course.

I have only been in Micronesia for a couple of days now and all of my time thus far has been spent pushing through an intensive training course designed to get me ready for what lays ahead with a room full of little brown faces peering up at me expecting me to give them direction through the day. While this role has intimidated me in the past, being here so far in the tropics has made me come to peace with it.

I think that I need to be realistic and know that I am not always going to do or say the exact right thing all of the time — but I will do my best.

Sometimes things seem to be completely off the course, like when you are sitting next to a creepy man, riding on a swerving monster bus from hell or trying to take a nap a few rows ahead of a guy who is itching to go back to jail with the fast end of his fist, but if you have a loose guide to get you through, like music, it is possible.

For my little bus journey down south I had singers from Sufjan Stevens to Nora Jones to help me, the people of the RMI long ago had rich oral histories to help them and now, hopefully, 35 little kids at Rita Elementary in Majuro, RMI will have me.

The picture is courtesy of Dan, and is of a sunset literally 30 feet from our house...

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Greyhound, or better said: Grrrrhound

So I just got off a whirwind journy on the Greyhound that had me waiting, waiting, sitting, cramping, waiting, smelling, stinking, and guess what...WAITING.

It was my idea in the first place to go Greyhound and save some money and I convinced Dan to tag along, but after missing bus after bus after bus because they either overbooked it or were very, very late I realized that in the battle of saving money vs. traveling in a sane manner traveling ALWAYS wins.

Here is a log of the texts I sent out to family and friends to keep my mind occupied on the long journy:

July 20, 12 a.m.

Just got into Roseburg. Hope to get some sleep now.

July 20, 1:24 a.m.

Now I am in Grants Pass. Arm hurts from hugging pillow. Old couple next to me is cool. They hold hands and peel apples for each other.

July 20, 2:48 a.m.

Made it through Medford. Have two seats to myself now which is nice. Had to start blowing nose in pillow case. Desperate times.

July 20, 7:10 a.m.

75 miles outside of Sacramento and Cruising. Dan is on a different bus and I have no idea where he is. The whole bus is sleeping and everyone sure looks nicer when they are drooling.

July 20, 8:26 a.m.

Sac town station is clean and safe. I will wait for Dan here. Maybe work on a crossword for three hours.

July 20, 12:34 p.m.

Finally on the road with Dan after 5 hours waiting in Sac town.

July 20, 2:41 p.m.

South of Modesto with Dan and driver who goes a little heavy on the AC. I can see my breath. Flight is in the morning.

July 20, 4:46 p.m.

Hello and goodbye Fresno. Just picked up a new driver. Sorry to see Bruce go. He said some funny things when he talked to himself.

July 20, 6 p.m.

This is slowly turning to hell. Bus is absoultly packed and Dan smells.

July 20, 7:54 p.m.

Out of Bakersfield and 100 miles until LA. Dan has reverted to chewing his jacket out of frustration.

July 20, 10:18 p.m.

In Taxi and on the way to sweet, sweet beds. No more Greyhound hustle and bustle for us.

So there you have it. Now I am sitting with fresh shower water pleasantly drying in my hair, enjoying some of my last US comfort.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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The First Baby Steps

First of all, for any of those out there interested in what Syd would look like as a bride, and I know there are a few of you, I have the first exclusive photos of how he would appear.

Shocking?

Yes.

Astounding?

Of course.

Surprisingly appealing?

Who would have guessed...

OK, enough of these inappropriate jokes...

I said a glut of goodbyes today and yesterday in Portland. My apartment is finally packed away into storage which leaves the wooden, creaky place ripe for echos. My cousins will now be able to do the construction they have wanted to on it. I can’t wait to see how it looks on my return!

I had a going away barbeque which was great, but as is often the case at gatherings where you are the host, you never are able to spend enough time with specific people because there are always others to greet. Regardless, it was a great time.

Leaving on a journey like this is something that sounds exciting in the planning phases, stressful in the preparation phases and terrifying in the doing phases.

I am in the doing phase now and I am still excited but also sad and scared to leave behind most of the people I love for a year and face a new challenge, thousands of miles away.

Tiffany drove me down to Eugene today, and as I wait for her while she is in class, I can’t really comprehend the fact that I will be so far away in a few days time.

Seriously, take a globe and give it a spin, because I will be on the opposite side of it in a few days time.

If it wasn’t scary though, something wouldn’t be right.

In closing, there is a photo of Ellie with her doll. This is my favorite photo so far with my new camera, although it is kind of creepy because of the doll.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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These are the people I leave

Today is my last at the Molalla Pioneer and I am left with a few questions.

They nag at the forgotten corners of my mind and turn my nights into restless bouts with tangled blankets.

First question: How the heck can my editor still have a positive attitude about life?

Here is a guy that didn’t just slip up a bit in his grand life plan but tripped and fell head-first into a pile of crap that is usually reserved for large fertilizer outfits and yet I don’t think that I have ever met a man who smiles quite as much as him.

I have met many average joes out there who have gone through a fraction of what this guy did and they are paralyzed.

Even though his often off-color humor can sometimes illicit steely stare-downs from the news reporter in the office, I think that it is exactly his ability to laugh at himself that has kept him sane up until this point.
Here’s to hoping his trajectory continues upward.

Second question: If our display ad person were in an action movie, exactly how many bad-guys would she kill?

The easy answer to this question is some crazy hyperbole in the 100’s but I am serious about this question. She once demonstrated on me exactly how quickly she would be able to leave me laid out and broken if she wanted to (she is a black belt) and it was quite possibly the most terrifying experience in my life.

Chuck Norris could destroy the whole world with his left thigh if he had half a chance, and I think that if this lady had a meaner disposition the whole office would be leveled and left with a hollow ringing sound — much like the scene after an intense hurricane.

That is just the thing, she doesn’t have that disposition. Not a mean bone in her body. And so, the office survives… At least for now...

Let’s cheer for her to stay on the good side of things.

By the way, my prediction would be 25 bad guys killed and five left without the ability to reproduce…

Third question: If our classified person had better aim, would I be blind?

The answer to this question is a quick and enthusiastic yes. I would have been nailed and in the emergency room in about two seconds if she could shoot rubber bands worth her beans.
As it is, I am safe.

All in all, she is the more “you just quit it!” type.

Anyway, I can’t say that I don’t provoke it — what with my comments about her daughter, my insistence of dancing in front of her desk and my propensity to threaten to report her to corporate, I almost shot a rubber band at myself.

Cheers for putting up with me.

Fourth question: How come our news reporter isn’t an international correspondent for CNN yet?

The basic answer is that most major media outlets are idiots. This girl has so much drive it makes my head spin.

I just vomited after writing that sentence it was so chalk-full of drive.
The real answer to the question is that she is new to the industry, but given a little bit of time and a little bit of luck, she will be a famous TV personality someday and I will be the poor slob begging for a job because I spent my formative years traipsing around the globe.

Fifth question: What is the funniest caption you can think of for this photo?

The best that I can come up with is “Cowboy finishes up on the bottom end of things…”
I am sure there are better ones out there…

The love you give comes back in the end
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One lump, or two?

My friend Humphrey thinks that you can tell a lot about a coffee shop from its sugar.

If the joint serves its sweetener in generic white-cane packets then it is a get-it-and-go type of place. If they are serving raw sugar they are a place concerned with health and naturalness. And if their sugar comes in glass jars that pour sweet white waterfalls into your rich dark lifeblood then you know that the place wants to form a lasting relationship with you. They want you to know that they trust you, so sit down and have a cup of joe at your leisure.

My friend Humphrey thinks that you can tell a lot about a coffee shop from its sugar.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Goodbye Portland and Molalla, Hello Marshall Islands

I was up until 2 AM last night. I had butterflies bumping heads in my stomach and a cotton mouth that soaked up every last drop of water I slurped down.

I had just received my email from the folks at WorldTeach telling me exactly what school I would be volunteering in during my year-long stay in the Marshall Islands.

Suddenly it was real.

My six-month application had come to bear fruit and I was going to pack my bags with light and loose-fitting cloths and travel half-way around the world to a poor island nation to help underprivileged youth learn English. I was going to be in the front of 30 plus kids every day teaching them a language I am not completely sure I have mastered yet.

I felt like I had received a kick to the stomach and a blow to the head and was left just sitting there stunned with the world spinning around me.

I was excited, anxious and terrified.

What if the kids hate me?

What if they won’t listen to me?

What if I get kicked off the island because I couldn’t get my job done?

For a long time I have been living by the philosophy where I expect the worst and hope for the best and it has served me well. It sheds situations of their grand and bloated expectations and streamlines things into a form of reality that can be surprisingly hard to attain when everyone is focusing on feeling spectacular and you are looked at with concerned eyes when you respond “OK” to the how-are-you question instead of “GREAT.”

The problem with expecting the worst and hoping for the best is that it can result in an attitude where you don’t put everything you have into a certain thing because you expect it to not work out. It would be great if it did, but it probably won’t.

As I laid there in my bed I realized that the main reason I couldn’t sleep was that I was too busy expecting the worst instead of hoping for the best.

My stomach of rebelling against my body and my mouth was having a contest with the Sahara for the most arid place on earth because I expected to fail.

I think that it is OK to have realistic views of what is possible — just as long as it doesn’t cloud out too many other things as impossible.

HOPING FOR THE BEST and expecting the worst is probably the best way to go.

At least I know you sleep better.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Put Down the Basketball, Kid and Pick Up a Dang Rope

OK, stop me now if I am being ridiculous but it seems to me that things were a lot different back in my heyday of sports. Way, way back when — okay just 10-15 years ago — I thought I could become a professional at any sport I happened to pick up that day from baseball to backyard wagon racing. Man, those were the days.

I was basically in every youth sport opportunity that came my way from soccer to swimming — and I had fun doing it all.

It seems these days that kids are not afforded the same opportunity. At a very early age kids are streamlined into one sporting discipline that they seem naturally inclined towards and from there on out they play with a stamp on their forehead.

QUARTERBACK.

PITCHER.

SPRINTER.

There were symptoms of this when I was young as well.

All that my friend Andrew ever did was swim. Before school and after school he would be doing laps, working on the fine points of his turns and conditioning himself for greatness. He constantly smelled of chlorine and had a tan from swimming outside.

Andrew was a great swimmer — he had the fastest 50 meter sprint time for the whole high school as an eighth-grader — but I often wonder if he would have had fun doing other things as well.

I know a basketball player can learn a thing or two about patience from a baseball player and I am sure that Andrew could have gleaned something from some mean backyard wagon racing.
Right around now the summer rodeo season kicks into high gear and as the PRCA athletes come touring through town we all get to see first hand a sport that celebrates mixing things up.

Kids aren’t pigeon-holed into saddle-bronc riding, they are encourages to spread out their efforts over a variety of events.

Heck, there is even a winner for ‘all-around.’

There are those gifted youngsters who are so naturally inclined toward one athletic discipline that it would be a shame to not foster that; but for the vast majority, it is sad but true, transcendent athletic prowess is not on the horizon so diversifying our sporting outlets is a positive thing.

Getting out of one’s comfort is the best way to really grow.

So to all of the kids focused on being the next Derek Jeter or Michael Jordan, put down your baseball bat and basketballs and take a page from the rodeo book and jump on a steer, rope a cow or tame a bull — it might come in handy down the road.

Then again, I just might be ridiculous.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Tripping up North

Story by: Tim Lane

Date Published to Web: 6/27/2007
GLADSTONE — Something was just a little off in Molalla’s Friday game against Gladstone. In the 12-2 loss, the 6-2 Indians loaded up the bases twice and failed to convert anything onto the scoreboard.

“The kids all came out a little bit flat,” Molalla baseball coach Rick Dishner said. “Nobody really came with their ‘A’ game, and I don’t know why. I don’t think that anyone knew why, we couldn’t figure it out.
Molalla gave up six runs in the second inning alone and committed seven errors on the afternoon, something that is decidedly unlike the Indians.

“We are usually a good defensive club,” Dishner said. “That is really unlike us. We haven’t had that many errors all season long. We just misplayed a couple balls.”
Molalla faced a pitcher that had given them fits during the high school season.
“They had a pretty good lefty on the mound,” Dishner said. “He did a nice job.”
Riley Falk pitched the first five innings of the game while Alex Cain went to the mound for the final two.

“Neither of the pitchers threw particularly bad,” Dishner said. “We did have a tough time of getting anything going, and Riley had a tough time with some of his mechanics.”

Falk was getting ahead of himself in his pitching motion which left his pitches very high in the strike zone.

“He left a lot of balls from belt to belly-button high,” Dishner said. “And that is a sweet spot, no matter who you are.”

Gladstone is a team that finished last season on top of the Capital Conference.

The loss was only the second in the Indians’ summer season; the other loss was against Lakeridge in the first game back from high school ball.

“We are feeling pretty good about our record,” Dishner said. “I mean, these are competitive teams.”

The win put Molalla at 4-1 on the week as they swept both Lake Oswego and Canby double-headers on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

“We are doing pretty well for summer-league,” Dishner said. “Sometimes I am not completely sure about who I am going to have to play because kids have other things going on, but that is just summer.”

The Indians played LaSalle on Monday and North Marion on Tuesday but results were not available at press time. From Friday through Sunday Molalla will play in the Philomath tournament.

Put me in the game, coach

Isn’t it funny how time distorts things?

Like a half-empty glass set over newsprint it stretches things here and it condenses things there.

I spent much of last week watching high school basketball players sprint up and down the court and a part of me wondered if they really knew how lucky they are.

Here they are, focusing strictly on sports with their parents and community cheering them on and they have the luxury of dedicating hours to a game—how cool is that?

For most of them, there will never be another period in their lives that duplicates these moments. Soon enough there will be kids and bills, marriages and mortgages to worry about. As I sat there, separated by a 3 X5 view finder, I longed for my hay-day when I was pushing myself to be the best that I could.

I wanted to be off the sidelines and in the game.

I wondered what great things I could accomplish if I threw down my camera, and jumped into the game and demanded the rock on the low block. A delusional fantasy of myself sprinting up and down the court and gliding to the hoop crowded the space between my two ears.

Forget drafting Oden or Durant—draft me.

Never mind the fact that I would be dropping lungs instead of threes if I got back on the court; I still wanted to go back and squeeze every last drop out of my time in between the buzzers of every quarter.

I imagined myself to be great.

I imagined myself to be dedicated.

Suddenly it was a distinct reality that I was a sports legend in my high school days (far from it) and that I held records that crowded out the white on walls (actually I only have one).

Then I realized that I had stopped watching the games, I had stopped doing my job.
So I took a deep breath and wiped my hands off on my pants and got back to clicking a camera.

Time is a pretty funny thing. Add a little bit of it to anything and you can get something completely new.

Childhood? Sprinkle on a few years and suddenly it was either super hard (walking to school, up hills both ways) or it is ecstatically happy (oh, those were the days).

Mix time up with a sports reporter and suddenly you get a history of how amazing he was back in the day. Soaking up the moment is key to enjoying life but dang-it I just wanted the high school glory again for a second.

Kids playing basketball, like any in prep sports, are in a unique spot, and they should enjoy it to the utmost, but they will soon discover that life won’t end at the buzzer—or even when the graduation gown is put in the closet. There will be other challenges and triumphs in the road. There will be a time when these high school kids are men and women and are defined by things other than points and wins.

And sometimes they will look back on their days through the half-empty glass on newsprint and they will see sections that seem bigger than they actually were and others that seem smaller than they really were and they might want to jump in off the sidelines to get back in the game.

The problem is that time spent on the sideline is as crucial as time spent on the court because life doesn’t listen to buzzers or refs.

So I am happy behind my lens because time is a shifty thing, and if I am not careful I will be looking back on now and thinking, "man that was sweet when I watched sports for a living."

I mean, I get paid to go to games—how cool is that?

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Baseball and Life

Baseball and softball are head games.

They are all about mental strength, fortitude and rhythm.

There isn’t the constant action of basketball or even football where athletes can play their way into or out of a slump. Baseball moves in jerky stop and start motion like a CD playing with scratch marks. A batter comes to the plate and swings away knowing that it will be a while before he will get up there again. There will be time to think and time to stew.

God forbid if that batter goes down swinging, slicing up a big hunk of air and winding himself up in a knot because then he is banished to the bench where he needs to wait for a chance to redeem himself. Hopefully that batter will be able to get back out onto the field for defense and make a solid catch or a good throw, and get his mind back to the right spot to compete. If not, then it will be a rough night.

Baseball and softball players are nervous creatures.

They chew seeds compulsively, they chatter amongst themselves on the diamond, pounding their mits with their fists to pass the time and chant little words strung together.

“Swing batter, swing batter.”

“One more, one more.”

They look for things to pass the time between action. Those moments when a batter is taking time at the plate and they are in the outfield and are set to stand at attention for action that might never come are crucial.

For many in today’s world, that is baseball’s biggest cross to bear—a lack of consistent action in an American society that has a tiny attention span.

That is however its biggest asset as well. People are drawn to innings, runs and outs because it does not come cheap. Like the affections of a cat it takes time for appreciation of the game to come. However, with time, I challenge anyone to say they can’t at least appreciate it. Baseball and softball are too alike to life to not be appealing. In baseball the action comes in truck-loads or not at all.

The same could be said about life.

So baseball and softball players cling to little things to string them along until the next big thing.

Chewing seeds, making idle chat is the same as following a TV show or repainting the bathroom. They are not crucial things, and they are not what it is all about, but they get you on the way there, they accent the real thing. In life you are defined by how well you can take advantage of the opportunities presented to you.

In baseball and softball it is the same—you need to be ready for when the ball comes flying at you, even though it might never happen.

You need mental strength, fortitude and rhythm.

Baseball and softball are head games.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Liz Liechty Profile

Broken and Healed Again

By Tim Lane
Molalla Pioneer

A tale of being tough

In high school Elizabeth Liechty’s shoulder could be a bother sometimes. It had a tendency to pop out of its socket, making the painful process of pushing it back in a necessity for those around her.

“I just remember that dang shoulder,” Liechty’s high school basketball coach Ray Williams says. “When it first popped out I was mind boggled. Then I went over and felt it and I was stunned. I would have been crying but the other girls just said ‘oh, this happens all of the time,’ and they just popped it back in and she (Liechty) cringed a little bit and then got back out on the floor.”

She cringed a little bit and then got back out on the floor. She stopped, acknowledged the pain, and then pushed through it and got on with it.

Working through difficulties has been a trend in Liechty’s life.

Liechty knows pain and injury. It is something she has to deal with regularly.

Forget anticipating the worst, forget worrying if something dreadful might happen. For Liechty, she has been there, and the question in her life has always been, what now?

“We have always tried to instill in our kids that quitting is not an option,” Liz’s mother Melissa says. “Being part of what would be considered a large family by today’s standards our kids have always experienced patience and hard work because they competed with each other. None of what she has conquered has surprised me because she has always been tough.”

Liz had to be strong—she grew up in a household with four men, her father Paul, her older brother Dan, 22, and her younger brothers Aaron, 17, and Ben, 15.

“She had never quit anything in her life,” Melissa says. “She is tough. My husband always says she is tougher than all three of our boys.”

Tough like being able to keep playing a sport that knocks her shoulders out of whack.

“When I was in high school, I had two surgeries on my right shoulder,” Liechty says. “It still dislocates on a regular basis now.”

The next level

When Liechty graduated from Molalla High School in the spring of 2004, after the Indians finished fourth in the state, she decided that she wanted to continue playing.

“I got offered full tuition to play basketball and soccer at Treasure Valley Community College, but I decided that it was too far away,” Liechty says. “So I settled on Western Oregon because it was small and I really liked the campus.”

Liechty went to her freshman year of school with no guarantee that she would be able to play for the Wolves but she had a passion to compete that pushed her on.

That passion has been with her ever since she was young.

“Liz has always loved basketball,” Melissa says. “Liz slept with her basketball in grade school and middle school, hoping her ball handling skills would improve.”

After starting the sport in kindergarten and enduring two shoulder surgeries, making the Western Oregon basketball team did not seem like such a giant hurdle.

“My freshman year of college I stayed in shape and never really gave up the idea of playing,” Liechty says.

Along with the work that she put into staying in shape, Liechty also went to Western Oregon games.

“I went and watched (the) team play all their home games my freshman year,” Liechty says. “When I watched I said to myself I could be out there, I can do what they are doing.”

That spring of her freshman year, Liechty contacted the coach and started working out with the team. Those workouts and the show of dedication paid dividends as Liechty made the team as a walk-on her sophomore year of school. Then, a week before the Wolves’ first game, with about 10 minutes left in a practice something went wrong.

“I shifted my weight and my knee gave out,” Liechty remembers. “I tried to walk it off but I knew something was not right.”

After the trainer looked at her injury he agreed something was wrong and a doctor’s visit confirmed it—Liechty had torn her anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL.

“Liz’s Dad, Paul, and I were crushed when Liz called to tell us about her injury,” Melissa remembers. “She had made the cuts to play basketball and had been practicing for a couple of months (when it happened).”

Starting over

Liechty had surgery in November of that year and started throwing herself into the rehabilitation process when another obstacle was thrown up in her way—her basketball coach who had given her a roster spot on the team, resigned.

“I was told that because I had not played because of my ACL I was going to have to start at zero with a new coach,” Liechty recalls.

It was another setback, but also another chance to push through.

That new coach was Greg Bruce. Bruce came into the program looking to revamp the team into a winner.

He made it a priority to visit each one of the players on the team from the area.

“We didn’t have a lot of local kids on the team so I made it a point to visit each one,” Bruce says. “The thing that struck me the most about Liz was that she was honest and willing to do whatever it took to get on the team.”

So Bruce threw Liechty, and the rest of the team, into the fire with an intensive preseason training regimen.

“At the start of the year I went to 6 a.m. track workouts three days a week along with individual workouts in the afternoon and weights also,” Liechty says.

The workouts were no walk in the park for Liechty.

“I think that the preseason conditioning was a shock to most of the kids and I think that Liz struggled a little on the track and in the first few practices in the gym,” Bruce says. “What I liked about her though was that she accepted criticism and she allowed you to coach her. She is a ‘yes sir’ or ‘no sir’ kind of player.”

Hard work over talent

Liz’s dedication propped her up to success, even though she might not have been as naturally gifted as other players.

“If you want to stack talent on talent she was on the short end of things but through hard work she has been able to succeed,” Bruce says.

Once again, Liechty’s hard work in the face of challenge paid off and she made the team. Her goal this year was to start at least one game and she did it, along with leading the team in field goal percentage and scoring a career-high 10 points against Metro State in a tournament in Montana.

Like most of Liechty’s other goals, she earned her achievements and people around her have taken notice.

“I think Liz has truly been an example for everyone around her,” Melissa says. “She has faced whatever life has thrown her way with determination and drive. She is stubborn, she doesn’t give up. We were all extremely proud of her.”

On the flip side of that, Liz is just as thankful for the support her family has provided.

“My parents and extended family have supported me in every way and pushed me to always do better,” Liz says. “On average I had about 15 family members at every game. Whether I played 40 minutes or zero they were there. My parents have helped me the most. They always supported me and told me not to give up.”

For Liechty, the road to where she is now has been long, and at times bumpy, but the process has been worth the result.

“I never really had a low I guess,” Liechty says of working through pain and injuries on her way to becoming a college athlete. “It is weird but I enjoy practice so much. I try to go everyday and give all I have. Both my shoulders and knee still bother me but there is no way I am going to let that stop me from playing. I don’t hold anything back because I
have worked so hard to get where I am now.”

Liechty, along with playing for the Wolves, is an American Sign Language major with a minor in Physical Education. She hopes to work as an interpreter in an elementary setting.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Dear Burly Fisherman

To Whom It May Concern,

Alaskan fishermen are tough mothers, I’ll tell you what.

I was out at the bars, having a few beers and fortifying myself with a false sense of strength when a burly and bearded man with arms bulging with muscles challenged me to arm wrestling.

Mano a mano.

I thought, I am tall, I have leverage, and I have beaten most of my friends at this before, so why not.

I plopped down and made a big show of stretching and getting ready and then clasped hands with the man who smelled of fish oil.

He creamed me and as he smiled and took a pull off of his hand-rolled cigarette I challenged him to a rematch in a couple of weeks.

“No time for that,” he said. “I am off fishing starting tomorrow. Will be gone for three months.”

I called my girlfriend, dejected and depressed.

“Did you bet me?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Well, then you are fine,” she said.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Body Worlds 3 at OMSI---Welcome to the Club

See the Eyes


Death and life are often viewed as the hopeful beginning and the dreadful end.



Our relationship to our body, the instrument that is our filter to the outside world, is often ignored and clouded with fear and ignorance because of that beginning—but more likely because of that end.

I see through my eyes but I do not see my eyes.

Right now at OMSI you get the chance to see the eyes.
It is creepy and eerie in a way that is difficult to pinpoint, but nevertheless it is worthwhile.

Real skeletons strapped with muscle tissue and tendons, veins and organs flapping outward, kick-flip skateboards and jump hurdles down at OMSI in Portland, Ore. starting today.

Body Worlds 3, the brain-child of Dr. Gunther von Hagens, will be on display for anyone who has time to spare and a strong constitution in the stomach region.

If not, you might end up emptying your stomach onto a stomach.

The bodies are preserved, with consent from the donors, using a process known as plastination—developed and perfected at von Hagens’ own Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, Germany.

Technicians inject different types of plastics into the body and replace the liquids, which preserves the body’s tissue in a pliable and creepy way that is supposedly permanent and makes it so the muscles and tendons shake and vibrate when people walk by.

Half of me expected the body’s eyes to dart and focus at me at any moment.
The exhibit is spread out over two floors in strategically lit rooms with large canvases draped down in the manner of great mansions or cathedrals displaying various quotes on death and our relationship with it made by some of the best thinkers our world has ever produced.

Suddenly death is not something marked with a tombstone and a few eloquent words etched in stone, it is a very real, very vibrant and colorful dissection of ourselves, to show that death is in an intimate and committed relationship with life.

At least that is what the exhibit conveys—death and how much a part of life it is.

However as I walked away from the collection of bodies posed in positions ranging from praying to running—all done with brains, livers, hearts and multiple other organs blown out the back so gawkers could amble by and stick their noses into someone’s else’s chest cavity—I had the much more profound impression of life and its relationship to death.

Here was an exhibit that showed me just exactly how the muscles lining the truck of my body bend and flex to keep me upright and balanced, a showcase that displayed just how negative a consequence smoking can be to the delicate tissues in our lungs.

And it came from the death and preservation of someone else.

We are living until we die and Body Worlds 3 blurs that line and shows just how close we are to the other side.

The “VIP” opening of the event coincided with the graduation ceremony of OHSU, so as I ambled around the completely exposed corpses of people long since dead, there were men and women in suits strolling beside me and making offhand medical observations on the form and function of the displays.

These were health workers who were “in the club.” They had been “seeing the eyes” for quite some time now.

As I leaned intently over a glass box containing the perfectly preserved enlarged heart of a person dead of a heart attack a very well dressed man with gold-rimmed glasses commented to his wife.

“I had a patient with a heart condition just like this one last week,” he said with a smile. “The guy croaked before we could get him into the O.R.”

Doctors and nurses and others intimately involved with the health industry have long dealt with life’s relationship to death while everyone else has voluntarily sheltered away from it.

We live everyday not really understanding how.

The health world knows and it is jaded, in a sense, to the point that they will smile and point out the reason a patient of theirs died last week.

Body Worlds 3 lets us into that exclusive club that sees the eyes, not just through them—even if we are not ready for it.

Welcome to the beginning of seeing the end… Or is it the other way around?

It is all in the eyes.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Battleing the Red Tape Monster

Man, do immigrants have it tough or what?

Last week I was cycled through various public buildings in order to secure a visa to work and live abroad in the upcoming year. The granite structures ranged from the central police precinct to something called the Justice Building

I assume the Justice Building is the place where justice originates from. I imagine wearing a black cape.

I had to show various forms of identification, had to sign onto a list with my reason for coming and I had to wait in small little rooms lit by the flickering of a tired neon light who just wanted to get some rest. The light seemed cranky, and I was cranky and the guy who was helping me out? Well, guess what? He was cranky too.

We all just needed more sleep I suppose.

Little processing fees seemed to pop up at every corner like molehills in a freshly mowed lawn and I could feel my energy drain with the dollars in my bank account. My hand was stamped as I was ushered through turn styles much like the entrance of a night club, but unlike a night club, when I finally got through the craggy bouncer, the throng of others waiting and the various ID checks, there was no pulsing music, no excited ambiance and certainly no stiff drinks.

The last difference was especially appalling because I have found that once the red tape of any government establishment is navigated, you could use a stiff drink.

OK, I am exaggerating... Horribly.

The whole thing probably lasted less than thirty minutes, but at the end of the day it was pretty bureaucratic and if I had not done extensive research before I went as to what I should bring, the whole thing could have been truly painful—and this is coming from a guy who has been a citizen his whole life and has no criminal record.

I don’t have a better solution as to how the system should work. Part of the reason for having extensive hoops to jump through is to catch the people who should be caught. The unsavory characters in this world. The whole issue of red tape is probably just a necessary evil.

Still makes me think, if it can be such a pain for a citizen, what must it be like for someone here from another country. Someone who was fleeing a life of poverty to set up something better? They don’t have the little plastic cards that validate their presence, they don’t have the language skills to successfully navigate the bowels of public buildings and they have nothing in the way of practical experience to apply to the process.

Man, do immigrants have it tough or what?

The love you give comes back in the end.

Champion

At the beginning of the Linfield College softball season freshman Jessica Popiel knew that her new team was good—she just didn’t realize how good.

“We always knew that we were probably one of the best teams in the country, but I don’t think that we realized that we were the best team in the country,” Popiel said.

The Linfield Wildcats (37-11 overall, 22-6 conference) won the NCAA Division III softball title with a 10-2 win over Washington-St. Louis on May 22 at the Moyer Sports Complex in Salem, Va. It was the first women’s national team title in school history and Popiel was an intricate part of the success throughout the season.

“It is pretty surreal,” Popiel said. “I don’t think that it has all sunken in yet. I think that when we start getting stuff like our championship rings then it will feel more real. It is not overwhelming now, not yet.”

While Popiel sat out the championship series with an injury sustained in a game against the Redlands on May 13, she doesn’t think that the team felt too much anxiety in the big series.

“To be honest, it didn’t feel like too much pressure,” Popiel said. “It just felt like any other game, just another tournament. Afterwards, it didn’t feel like we should be done playing.”

After the Wildcats won their trophy, Popiel’s phone started ringing with calls from well-wishers.

“Everyone has been calling me—my family, my old coaches, my friends and the coaches of my friends—everyone,” Popiel said.

That thrill of winning has carried over to her fans as well.

“It was very exciting,” Jessica Popiel’s mother Irene said. “It was really fun to be able to go and watch (Linfield games during the season).”

While Irene was unable to make it to the championship series, she followed her daughter’s team intently.

Jessica, who played shortstop for the Molalla Indians in high school, switched into the outfield for Linfield, spending most of her time in the right field.

“It is a very different perspective out there,” Jessica said. “You are the last line of defense. Well, there is the fence back there, but if it gets there that is no good.”
Jessica was thrust into the new role out of necessity.

“We really had a need for our freshmen class to step in and help us in the outfield and with

Jessica’s ability to run and make plays she was a natural candidate for the position,” Linfield softball coach Jackson Vaughan said. “It was hard for her to break a lot of her infield habits but the more she worked at it the better she got and by the end of the season she was one of the better defensive outfielders in our conference.”

Proof of Jessica’s success is in her 41 starts, 43 games played, a .309 batting average for the season, 25 runs, 19 RBI, eight stolen bases with one home run.

That ability to excel from all spots in the field made her valuable.

“Jessica’s biggest strength is probably her athleticism and versatility,” Vaughan said. “She is very athletic and has the ability to play a number of defensive positions.”

The jump from high school ball to college ball has meant better treatment as a player for Jessica who does not miss riding to games in the classic yellow school buses.
“It is very different,” Jessica said. “It is an amazing feeling to know that you are flying across the country to play softball.”

Another difference for Jessica has been the jump in the ability of opponents.

“You have to realize real fast that everyone can play,” Jessica said. “In high school there are competitive people but there are also people out there to have fun. In college you are always playing to win, and everyone has the ability to do that.”

The best part of being on the softball team for Jessica has been the support it has provided.

“Everyone on the team is great,” Jessica said. “They are all supportive so the feeling is really awesome because you know if you have a problem you can come to them with it and they will fix it. The seniors were really encouraging to us. They didn’t make us do anything like carry their bags or anything like that. They did make fun of us a little bit though.”

There will not be much rest for Jessica to enjoy her new status as part of the best team in Division III softball. She will take two weeks off before jumping into a summer workout regimen targeted to improve her strength and conditioning. That will lead her right up into Fall ball where she will have three practices a week for four weeks with the rest of the team to hone that strength and conditioning before running right up into the 2008 season in January.

“In softball you are always doing something and then pretty soon the year is over,” she said.
Jessica should have a central role in the team’s future.

“Jessica has a bright future in our program,” Vaughan said. “She needs to continue to work hard and develop her skills as a hitter at the college level but with her work ethic and attitude we expect her to be a contributor for years to come.”

Preparation for that future begins now and Jessica is eager to play a pivotal role in the Wildcats’ bid to repeat as champions.

“We are very hungry to repeat,” Jessica said. “Once you get that feeling of what it is like to win, you just want it more.”

Set to join Jessica on 2008’s edition of Linfield softball is former high school teammate Kendra Guest who is coming off of a dominant season of pitching for the Molalla Indians where she was named a first-team all-league pitcher.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Art Found

There is a boat permanently moored and half-destroyed in the yard and a metal tree snaking up the side of the chimney. Standing on the front porch is a metal man sawing on the fiddle and in the back yard are Japanese faces painted on side sections of cut logs, propped among the bushes and glaring down.

The Benavidez property is anything but typical; David and Carolyn have made it a reflection of themselves.

“We can’t help but make it ours,” Carolyn says of her unique yard and its decorations. “We love sculpture, and in a way our home is an extension of that.”

All over the yard and within the house are things taken from nature and incorporated artistically in the design and layout of the Benavidez living space.

“We like to take things from nature and put our touch on it,” Carolyn, who has been living with her husband in Colton for the past nine years, says.

One such piece is a rock, about the size of a misshapen basketball that sits on a pedestal on the way to the front door. It is a rock that they found beside a lake in their travels through Canada.

“If you want to talk about adventure, talk about bringing that rock out of there in a little CB plane,” Carolyn says. “It is special in its formation, and it doesn’t look like it weighs much, but that thing must be over 100 pounds.”

David is an artist and a professional arborist while Carolyn focuses solely on art and occasionally shows her work at the Indigo Gallery in Joseph, Oregon. She grew up in Oregon City, and has been practicing art for 50 years, although recently she has slowed down a little.

“I have been kind of on sabbatical for nine years,” Carolyn says.

Many of the features on the Benavidez property are creations of their own, but some are pieces from others.

“We sometimes trade with other artists,” Carolyn says.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the Benavidez yard is the large sardine boat that sits perched on a shallow grassy mound next to the front driveway. The large boat has its backside crumpled in a splintering of wooden planks jutting out in various stages of rot and decay.

“We saw the boat on a trip once and brought it back because we were going to repair it,” Carolyn says. “We never got around to it. We have kind of enjoyed watching it fall apart slowly. We will have to have a little marshmallow roast if we ever decide to burn it down.”

Letting their living space be molded and shaped by the processes of the natural world around them—like letting a boat rot away in their front yard and using fallen limbs in art work—is something that has shaped the progression of their yard decoration and landscape.

“I love to recycle what nature gives us,” Carolyn says.

Even when nature has not given them something to work with, its inspiration is enough. Coursing its way up the chimney in the side of the house is a metallic tree that David worked on for about a month. It starts with a root system and goes all of the way up into branches with a quarter moon sitting on top—all done in Cor-Ten, or weathering, steel. It is a type of metal that changes color without losing structural integrity due to the rusting process.

With things like a boat rotting in the yard and a metal tree clinging to the chimney, the Benavidez house is not a run of the mill place, it is an extension of David and Carolyn’s creativity and they would not have it any other way.

"We enjoy it, and people enjoy coming over,” Carolyn says.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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Learning the Ropes

When I first began my job as the sports editor at the Molalla Pioneer I was more concerned with writing than taking photographs. I just felt less comfortable with the clicking of a shutter than the clacking of a keyboard.

I have been writing ever since I can remember.

Little stories about marooned boys finding treasure on an island full of magic and pirates—normal preteen stuff I guess.

So when I covered my first game the piece of equipment with flashing bulbs and whirring focus sounds scared the crap out of me.

It was a Colton boys basketball game and my main concern was just getting a photo that would pass in the printed page.

Something that would not be blurry, have a face in it and not have too many limbs cut off and floating outside of the pane of the picture—aside from the poor composition it would cause the aspect of floating phantom limbs terrified me.

However, as time passed and I messed up with crappy lighting and blurry action I became more comfortable with the workings of photography. The intricacies of choosing the correct speed, ISO and aperture settings began to settle in on my brain I became better. Sure I failed, but I started to make some progress.

Suddenly I was going into events with shots already framed in my head, planes of focus that I wanted to nail down—moments in the action that would best tell a story.
I am not saying that I am some sort of expert photographer now. There is plenty more for me to learn. But it has struck me how many things in life are the same as my process of learning how to take pictures.

At first you just want to get through it. Just hope that you don’t screw anything up too badly.

However that passes, and if you become comfortable with the thing that were so new before, you are no longer strictly concerned with how to survive, and more concerned with how you can go about the best way to thrive.

To be stuck in the comfortable, the routine, is like pulling out a camera and fearing the clicking sound it makes just hoping that you get something right so you can move onto the clacking of the keyboard.

If you can break out though, if you can experiment and pick yourself up from a fall then you might be able to be concerned with something else, you might be able to put your stamp on something.

The love you give comes back in the end.

Look to the Cookie

In most towns and cities across the country there are a few obligatory landmarks. There is always a post office, always a bank and always food from around the world.

It doesn’t matter if you are in the smallest town in America I would bet good money that they will have a little taco joint, a Chinese buffet, a coffee stand or at least a neighbor who knows how to fry up a good Pad Thai.

We, as Americans, are global citizens whether we like it or not, and it has been that way since we first learned how to pinch pieces of chicken between two sticks.

There is an increasingly heated debate growing up in our nation over issues on immigration. It is the type of hot-button topic that you can only ignore if you close your eyes real tight, clasp your hands over you ears and choose to not get out of bed in the morning.

International influences have seeped into our everyday, and it is not a new occurrence. Unless you are a full-blooded Native American Indian you are an immigrant, and somewhere back in your lineage you were the foreigner.

For many immigrants to our country May 1 has become a day to protest how things are, a day to bring the country’s attention to the fact that there are nearly 12 million foreign souls living within our borders and contributing to who we are and yet feel like they are not being recognized.

Look around you and you will see that the typical image of an American—tow-headed with eyes like the sky—simply is not the norm.
Among our ranks of laborers, workers and student populations is a rising proportion of diversity, and it is growing with each year.

Don’t believe me? When is the last time you baked an apple pie? I bet that you have had 100 more cappuccinos in the last couple months than apple pie.

Maybe we should change the saying to “as American as a tall non-fat double cappuccino.”
Securing our borders from illegal crossing and addressing the high proportion of illegal immigrants in our country, while being related, should be dealt with in completely different manners.

It is one thing to deny a person entrance to the country in the first place, but revoking them residence in our country once they are already established is a completely different thing.
It is different because they are no longer who they were when they came. They are us, and in turn we become a little bit of them. Immigrants to our country invest time, effort and love into their new lives and that is felt from the tangible to the completely intangible.

It is illegal to issue a license to an illegal immigrant, but it is not illegal to provide them insurance. And so insurance companies, with the almighty dollar in mind, have complied and are now providing insurance to anyone who cares to pay for it. And so, in the strictly nuts and bolts manner of thinking, immigrants are contributing to our country, to our economy and to our livelihood.

Then there is the effect immigrants have on our nation that can’t be sliced and diced in clean numbers. The benefit of fresh perspectives and new ways of thinking, the infusion of new talents and skills—and then there is the food.

Foreign food is everywhere, and we love it. While I don’t know the right answer to the immigration issue, to who we should let stay and who we should send packing, I know what our taste buds think. We order pizza for the big game and we drink wine with fancy dinners. Our gullets have always been open, now if we could just do something about our minds.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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