Category: events

The Great Interstate Donut Run of the 2020 Pandemic

It started with a Saturday night message, inquiring as to my availability the next day and my intended exact location, with little other input.

Sunday morning at precisely 9:11, I received a call from my old friend and colleague, jamesa, telling me that he was “picking up the donuts” and would be near my door in seconds.

After about an hour and a half of discussion and a little driving/riding and some quick and dirty documenting, he was gone, almost no sooner than he had arrived.  Returned to his home in northeast Oregon where his wife was waiting, as he had told her that he was going to pick up some donuts, and probably promising to be back “before long”. Turned out that it was her birthday and he knew that her favorite donuts could be procured at Popular Donuts in Walla Walla as a surprise treat.

Upon his return to the Oregon outback on his wonderful BMW R1100RS, jamesa reported that the 180-mile run, via Tollgate, was pleasant (and relatively cool on the higher-elevation Oregon side) and yielded 47.8 mpg at decent (but not the hard-charging of his younger years — as he says, “The older I get, the faster I was.”) speeds.

Jamesa arrives in WaWaWA in the mid-morning after a 90-mile one-way sprint over the mountains from Eastern Oregon.

And a little more doc:

Angela Davis Smiles (and Speaks)

Last night, Angela Davis lectured at Whitman College’s Power & Privilege Symposium.  She spoke of social justice, her own prison history and briefly mentioned He Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered.  The audience, largely appearing to be students with a few grayhairs here and there, jam-packed this, the largest auditorium on campus.  Angela Davis, a late 60s-early 70s hero, still has an inspiring and trenchant message.  Of course, photography (or any recording) was forbidden.

Angela Davis Smiles
Angela Davis, Unauthorized

For any youngsters who may not know of Angela, here’s some starter background.  And there’s a ton more on YouTube and elsewhere on the interwebs, like this. And this.

Finally, a found early photograph, circa 1970:

(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

 

More to come on HHR …