Good morning to everyone! I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful! Ours certainly was, a gathering of sixteen people surrounding a table filled with joy and love and exquisite food, all sharing gratitude for this moment and for our lives together.
And now let's go shopping!
Well, truthfully, even though I've walked holes into most of my socks, I'm laying low during Black Friday, and I'm listed as questionable for the Freddies 2-for-1. Just getting over a toddler cold, I don't want to pick up a doorbuster virus. Tomorrow's Small Business Saturday is different. You have to feel for family-owned local establishments. They're stepping into the ring against the goliath Amazon, and doing so with bricks, mortar, and little or no marketing. I want to invite you, if you own a small business, to write something about your enterprise and post it in the comment section of this Facebook post. Bookstore? Craft shop? Toymaker? Anything--if it's just you and Pop, let us know, and Dripsters, let's swing by!
Though I squandered my youth at another college, I've always liked the Oregon-Oregon State football rivalry, even though it's sometimes a one-game playoff between teams that are otherwise going nowhere. Still, with all the green or orange flags flapping bravely from cars heading down I-5 to the battlefield, it's a statewide event where the odds go out the window, and underdoggery sometimes rules. Now, I've heard dissenting thoughts lately about the name of the event, from people who say the Civil War of our history was a tragic necessity to purge the young nation of slavery. Some fear a second Civil War is looming in this rhetorically-riven country. And the people I know who hate war the most are those who have actually fought in one. It's not one of the great moral questions of our time, but if you can think of a better name for this game, toss it out there.
Now, the Apple Cup? There's a name. And tonight, that'll be a game.
By the way, though I'll probably listen to the Civil War game on 1190 KEX while walking in the rain, because I like Mike Parker's play-by-play, the semiobscure FS1 is the TV channel that's carrying the OSU/OU showdown, and once you find it, remember it, because Sunday's Portland Timbers playoff match is on that channel.
Say...if you're traveling...check the mountain weather. Snow level in the Cascades is 4500 feet, webcams show roadside show at Government Camp, and there are rumblings that Mt. Hood Meadows may open for a "preview" day tomorrow!