Our little Wanderers group has gotten very good at this gathering, repeated four times a year, so last night's, on December 20, just seemed to happen. Someone thanked me later for putting it together, but I only played my usual role, bringing lentils.
I didn't even expect to be among one of the first to arrive. The building's main business was only just closing for the evening so as it turned out we were able to smoothly transition to potluck mode when I showed up a few minutes early. I'd just been teaching my data analysis with Python class through 6:45 PDT and wasn't thinking to be the opener, nor to coincidentally meet up with Dr. D.
We're a thinning group. Bon Bornemann had a jazz gig that evening in Camus, and let me know he was thinking of use by texted invite. Trish Buckland had been expected but, like Lynn Taylor, she lives some distance away and isn't driving these days. A lot of us aren't, for various reasons.
I'm still gadding about in "maxi taxi" which I used to ferry Don to the farm pretty recently. Don being our captain Wanderer, owner of Meliptus, still in the water in good shape, but Don starting to show it off (a wife to a prospective buyer: "no, you can't have a boat"). Lots about said boat in these logs (blogs, journals). I'll put its picture up top.
Some of our celebrants were new so more than the usual amount of explaining went on: Linus Pauling had lived here, an Oregon son and times two winner of the Nobel Prize, in both chemistry and peace.
We're kind of Peace Studies think tank, or have been, under the auspices of the nonprofit ISEPP, for which my late wife's bookkeeping partnership had been the bookkeeper. I tagged along as a database guru, meaning I knew my small timer dBase 'n stuff. I could help grow the ISEPP mail list, which list helped recruit Greater Portland's cognoscenti to some excellent science and culture lectures, the Linus Pauling Memorial Lecture Series, with Mentor Graphics one of our leading sponsors, amidst many others.
Our lecturers included Cousteau (Jacques son), Leakey (another son), Jane Goodall, the Black Sea and Titanic guy, Ballard, and of course Stephen Hawking, whom Terry (president of ISEPP) wrote a book about: little anecdotes about his times with Stephen, amidst his own musings on matters thermodynamic (Terry is a specialist in that Carnot family, father and son).
These lectures were almost monthly, although not all year and ran for over a decade, keeping Portland very much in the loop in terms of the state of the art in various fields, at least from a layman's perspective. We took over some of the biggest venues downtown, in the heart of Portland's theater district.
We were not zealously devoted to researching Linus Pauling's legacy so much as thinking about engineering and public policy, however we'd done enough homework to visit, as a group, the Oregon State University Pauling archives, and we did that field trip to the reading room, which Doug Strain helped endow. Ava Helen's WILPF connections lived on in my mom and Dr. Linda Richards, both of whom gave presentations at the Pauling House itself.
The big name guests Terry would invite sometimes joined us in the Pauling House for get togethers. Paulo Livio was among these roamers. We'd often take our guest to Tanh Thao next door, a favorite Thai-Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood (I live pretty close by to this location, on the more westward side of Chavez).
If you take some of the words above such as ISEPP and Wanderers, as search terms, and scan these blogs, you'll fish up a lot of what these lectures featured, often with notes from the dinners after. All those lectures and dinners helped knit a rather closely networking social group, meaning the Wanderers, this being another Winter Solstice gathering thereof.
Barry brought ribs, which are excellent. Don has continued networking from his new location. I brought my dog as we have a policy of welcoming animals (I expressed animal pride at the event), nonhumans included. Lynn usually brings her dog, as did David Feinstein his English mastiff. Cats aren't as easy to haul around and haven't been so dominant but we nevertheless talk about them and other animals that weave through our lives, both living and dear departed. Oregonians think about Keiko sometimes, or at least the older ones do, and the historians.
Dr. Steve Mastin joined us by Zoom. I used the ISEPP account (it still exists). Given it's a place of business, and has very limited kitchen facilities (we have theories about a dumb waiter, from when it was a boarding house, but maybe that's all wrong I forget). I'm referring to when this was Linus Pauling's mother's place, Linus's dad having died.
How much do I know of this history? Not a whole lot. I know Doug Strain, ESI president (by the time I knew him), had been a student of Pauling's at CalTech and had helped rescue this place, with Terry's assistance. So the original house still stands, across from the old Third Eye here on SE Hawthorne, adjacent Adorn and the new weddings outfitter, previously a photocopier repair place. We share the block with a Newar Buddhist temple and the district New Seasons, and with Movie Madness, now owned by Hollywood Theater. Those were the days.
