Learning to Ride a Bike1955 Eastridge Street, in the acute angle produced by its intersection with SW Wilshire Street, marked the southern boundary of the post-World War II apartment complex, and it was not just an arbitrary designation. The north side is where we lived and shopped. The south side presented perhaps …
Big Kite1954 It was early spring, a gusty mid-day Sunday, and Dad felt like “doing” something, as Mom would say with emphasis: elongation and raised pitch. He was in his early thirties and had a touch of cabin fever, after being inside, doing his taxes most of rainy yesterday and facilitating …
Dream – Bikeride Warning It is Sunday, the 26th of January, 2020, about 8:20 AM. The aura, and a few details, of a vivid dream persist after I awoke a few minutes ago with my dear wife Frances beside me in our little house in San Juan Bautista. I need to tell …
Eastridge Street Apartments, Cedar Hills, Oregon1954 – June 1956 Talking to an Airplane About 1955 Back in 1951, in the Brown House, at the “Weed Patch,” on Southwest Thurlow Drive, before Tommy was born, Dad enlisted my help in building a homemade “crystal set” radio. Even at the tender age of four, …
Music Lessons – beginning piano and cello When I was eight, shortly after moving to Leahy Road, Mom said it was time for me to start music lessons. It would be piano and she would be the teacher. I would practice nearly every day. She stressed sitting up straight on the bench, keeping a rounded …
March 26, 1979[Spring of 1979 Frances and I were getting acquainted at work but not yet romantically. We both drove VW beetles: hers green, mine white.] Strange comedy dream last night. I pulled into a filling station; just two pumps near some huge storage tanks … no building, no attendant. I hesitated to stop, but …
Charlotte McGregor Boggs Tompkins (Tim’s 30-year-old mother)Portland, OregonDec. 11, 1950 Dear Mother and Daddy [medical missionaries (Baptist) in Ongole, SE India], Just a note to go with record, which, we hope, will bring you a very Merry Christmas. Would you like to know how it was made? On Sat. morning we went down to the …
Tim; early December, 1988 I had this dream on our way, stopped for the night in Emma, our home-on-wheels, while driving down from Idaho to California. Frances and I were walking along the beach at night: the sand, the breeze, the ocean waves, the whole bit. We walked along and came upon a card table …
Tim / Dec 3, 1988 / Council, Idaho When we went to bed in our apartment, it was still the third of December, a Saturday. But both of us woke up about midnight, which was unusual. I had been dreaming that Frances and I were driving in our home-on-wheels, Emma. We were navigating a winding …
Tim, 2/19/83, 2066 SW 10th Ave., Portland, OR I dreamed I had a minor part in a play and I didn’t know my lines at all. I was walking in the forest, had to get back to my bungalow to study my script. Came to a fork in the path and didn’t go the way …