Hello Albert,

Well, it's been kind of a bumpy ride for the past month. I took a trip to the East Coast to visit my family and celebrate my Mom's 80th birthday. I got to see lots of family, had a visit to the cabin, petted some cicadas, and set a neat project in motion.

My cousin O. Ben Karp who lives in Tokyo and I had been discussing

my family's album collection and where it might go next. He's got an interesting music program that he's involved in supporting Liberian musicians. He's offered to take our record collection and catalog it. Here's the first collection on Spotify. I'm listening to Michael Cooney as I write this! Brings back some memories.

Like many people, I'm trying to get a handle on what comes next. I've been reading a lot of interesting articles in the Atlantic about Covid and how it's affecting our society. Videos like the one below are wonderful guides for me as I hope to recreate some of the magic my community has provided for years and also try for something that stimulates me in certain particular ways. If this resonates with you follow Jim Kwik's work. I've been a fan of his for years - he's particularly good at teaching some useful skills - memorization and speed reading being two that I've learned a lot about - but he's now expanding through learning and leading in lots of other areas.

I've been working on some tree-related issues in the past months. Many Portlanders are particularly worried about a Parks Department plan to clear-cut many mature trees in the South Park Blocks. It would be like someone coming to Central Park in NYC and saying, yeah, we think we'll just 3/4's of the trees. Probably worse in Portland. If you're interested in this we could use a lot of pressure on our City Council which will review the plan on July 7th. I can't even believe they would be OK with cutting one tree down. The trees are healthy and a treasure. You can learn more about the issue here. For years I've been building a group of tree activists on Facebook. We've had some good success over the years.

We're over 500 at this point and have attracted the alliance of a neat group called TERT - Tree Emergency Response Team. TERT organizes people to come out to trees that are threatened and paint them. Watercolors. Oils, you name it! The idea is to bring attention to threatened trees + give people a chance to hone their craft and gather safely. It's a brilliant project and I love having them as allies as we work to keep trees standing in Portland and beyond.

The theme for the next while seems to be health. I've had a few friends pass recently. And a few others who are needing lots of care. A friend broke her leg while hiking the Appalachian trail and just arrived last night for a stay with us @ Scooterville. This is my friend, Indra, who used to work at Breitenbush. If you'd like to drop off a casserole or pie - let me know! And I just had a lipoma removed from my arm - ouch! But glad that I was able to get that taken care of.

I'm still keeping my eyes and mind on lots of other issues, too, but they will have to wait till next time. What's keeping me sane and abreast of the news is Heather Cox Richardson and Robert Hubbell's almost daily writings about history and current events + a healthy dose of late-night comedy.

I hope this missive finds you well and that you're finding some interesting insights about yourself and society and that we continue to evolve and enjoy this one life.

Lots of love,

Albert