Embrace the Bacongal, and what ever I'm itching to say !

I grew up in Canby, Oregon. It's a small town, what some would call a bedroom community for Portland, but when I was young it was more a farming community. Few people commuted every day into Portland. There were three grocery stores in town. Hi-way market, Cutsforth's Thriftway and Roth's IGA. Dad shopped at Roth's, my dad called the others, "Cut throats and Hi way robbers". But Mom shopped at Cutsforth's, don't ask I can't tell you why they shopped at different stores, but they did. There were three pharmacies, but no big clothing stores. No Fred Meyers. So when we needed clothes or shoes or home furnishings we went into Oregon City to J.C. Penney. I remember school shopping and dress shopping all at Jacque Pen Wahh. Than we would have hot Roast Beef sandwiches at the PineWood Restaurant. Good memories, good time. As you travel from Canby to Oregon City along 99E you go through a tunnel right past a large paper mill. One that has...

I wrote this below, almost 3 years ago. It was a different time, and I was a different person, but that is the beauty of writing. It's like a snapshot of what was then, but this is now. I'm working this weekend, and worried for us all. September 11, 2001 was the day the world changed for me. September 11 9-11-01 is a date that none of us could forget, nor should we. It was like a wakeup call in the most horrific painful way, for the whole country. For me it was a wakeup call on a completely different level. I didn’t know it was a wakeup call for another 8 years, and those 8 years will be something that I can never regain. On September 11, 2001 my husband was spending a long weekend with another woman. His mistress. His first mistress, that I know about. Her name was Dora. Dora Elise Perez to be exact. I just said that out loud as I typed it. Because for years and years I was afraid to say it out loud, to think it even. Because if I thought it, than I would...