Boy Howdy:

The salutation 'Boy Howdy' was made popular by returning GI's after WWI. One of it's many meanings says 'Listen Up, I've got something to say.'

So here it is.

When the Pandemic hit I found myself in Central Oregon and decided to stay. Through circumstance I found myself writing about history in the area around Cove Palisades Park where I now live. Isolation is good for a writer.

I started to get published in local newspapers, newsletters and with the Jefferson County Historical Society . Many of my writings are works in progress and show in the toolbar to the left. Your comments are welcome and always appreciated, just respond at Send Me An Email.

For those of you meeting me for the first time

here is a bit more about my journey

After spending twenty three years as owner/director of the Photographic Image Gallery in Portland and five years as a docent at the Portland Art Museum, I decided to retire to Central Oregon.

Fifty years ago I bought property at Lake Billy Chinook and with my brother built a cabin near the lake. For all those years it became a refuge for an extended family.

I knew the Metolius River and the surrounding lower desert held memorable stories and a forgotten history, one that had never been covered in a single book. A chance meeting with 96 year old Hope Nance, the last survivor of Grandview, was the key that opened the door to that history. Who doubts that a single moment can change your path in life and open such possibilities?

I interviewed people who were approching the end of their life, I walked the rutted dirt roads and searched abandoned places. I turned to the local libraries, Family Finders, newspaper archives, hand drawn maps, diaries and the internet to find answers. Now loaded with my research have been contributing articles to local newsletters, newspapers and the files of the Jefferson County Historical Society.

This is New

In the Summer issue of Boy Howdy I'll be adding a new column, Dispatches from the Dry Side. Since moving over to the Dry Side I have ben reviving old relationships with artists and photographers and adding new ones with writers, poets and filmakers who are bringing their unique vision to the State.

Dispatches from the Dry Side Culture, Curiosity and Character about the Oregon East of the Cascade Mountain Range

Finding Hope

The true story of a young girl's memories growing up in Grandview, Oregon

After serving time at Atlanta Penitetiary for Conspiracy & Injuring a US Revenue Agent, Alonzo (Zonie) Nance, his wife and two sons left for the silver mines of Idaho.  After a short stint they moved, in 1917, to the newly formed farming community of Grandview, Oregon, just as a third baby was about to join the family.  Alone at a neighbors cabin Vetra felt the baby coming and passed out from the pain as she gave birth to their fist daughter.  A neighbor discovered the baby alone and writhing on the bare wooden floor.  "I never saw anything so blue and so dirty," she would say. They named her Hope.

When Hope was six her mother died and their grandmother moved in to care for the children while Papa worked in town and could only come home on weekends.  Grandmother moved away when Hope was eleven and left the six children to raise themselves.  Hope taught herself how to cook and feed the family three meals a day.

Hope was riding before she could walk.  "Old Prince was a pony, a strawberry roan gelding, spotted all over.  He was my best friend and I talked to him while we rode."  It was probably quite a sight to see this small and barefoot strawberry blond riding a srawberry roan bareback at a full gallop, gripping his mane as they flew in the wind.

Hope's story is one of growing up on a homestead, fighting and peacemaking, teaching herself how to cook and finding her way into womanhood.  All in the memory of a mother she barely knew.

Publishing in Fall of 2021