The week’s just begun, and we’re already halfway through! Hi y’all, it’s Wednesday, May 29, 2019, a day that begins with our typical clouds and spotty drizzle and ends up with a shiny 72. Hey, we were all pretty shiny in ’72, right? Sunrise 5:27 AM, sunset 8:49 PM.
It’s the morning after a wild night in America, as monster tornados and powerful storms imperiled the populace from Kansas City, where travelers were herded into airport parking garage tunnels to shield them from a twister, to metropolitan New York, where people took shelter in a high school from a possible tornado in New Jersey. Late-spring lightning danced across Oregon and Washington too, with thunderstorms lighting up many a county seat and rural hamlet east of the Cascades. Severe weather is possible today in a broad arc from Dallas to St. Louis to Pittsburgh to DC. It’s been the longest tornado outbreak in decades.
As friends and family pray for an against-all-odds positive outcome, a search continues for missing Salem mother Karissa Fretwell and her 3-year old son Billy, whose biological father was arraigned yesterday on charges built on “an ever-growing mountain of circumstantial evidence” that he killed them.
Here’s one small step in the recovery from the Eagle Creek Fire: the upper section of Larch Mountain Road is now open for the first time since flames rampaged across 50,000 of Oregon’s most beautiful acres.
Oregon lawmakers have voted unanimously to include Holocaust education in the state’s school curriculum. The bill was passed in honor of Holocaust survivor Alter Wiener, who was hit and killed by a car in Beaverton last year. Just listening to Mr. Wiener, in his hundreds of public appearances, inspired generations of Oregonians to want to know more. But in a world that hears denials and downplaying of that unspeakable chapter in history, Oregon will do its part to live up to the admonition, “Never forget.”
The DC3 from Aurora that’s heading for a DD reenactment in Normandy arrived overnight in Reykjavik.
Is your rose garden in bloom? We’re told that the International Rose Test Garden is–and that the fragrance is other-worldly, for those who take the time to stop and smell the roses.
Some tasty changes are coming to the Wells Fargo Tower in downtown Portland. PDX Eater reports that by late this year, the first two floors of Portland’s tallest building will include a “food hall” with small but excellent restaurants run by Los Angeles chef Doug Miriello.
Crosby, Stills & Nash released their debut album 50 years ago today.
Today would have been JFK’s birthday. He’d be 102.
If you think these autumny mornings are unseasonable, think how Bing Crosby must’ve felt on this day in 1942. That’s when he recorded “White Christmas.”
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The best part of waking up..is Good News in the Cup!
–“As Disabled Man Frantically Wheels Himself Home Before Tornado, Teen Hops Out of His Car to Help”
–“Look how this teacher engages with kids–customized to each individual”.
–“Jewish Teens Don’t Regret Helping Save Man With Swastika Tattoo”
–“Teen shop worker goes ‘above and beyond’ for autistic girl”
–“With “Wedding Month” upon us…here are some really ‘engaging’ photos!”
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I’m waking up a little grumpy today. After obeying my doctor’s dictum of lights-out at 8 PM, I was jangled back to wakefulness by a call from an Oregon Public Broadcasting fundraiser at 8:56. What’s up with that, OPB? I sleep with the phone turned on in case the family needs me, not in case somebody wants to sell me a Nina Totenberg tote bag! Grr. I may have been brusque with the caller, sorry. Not.