Of greater personal interest, I've continued a process of self-education in various fields: playing a little jazz piano, hosting a jazz radio show, writing book and CD reviews for local and internet publications, reading extensively in various areas (in history, medieval west Asian / eastern Mediterranean history, Native American, African-American, ancient Greek; in literature, mostly foreign fiction and poetry in translation), keying out the mountain wildflowers in the spring and summer and hunting mushrooms in Oregon's rainy autumn.
This summer (2004) I will celebrate 31 years of marriage with my wife, Marilyn Robert, who works as an artist and as both art instructor at our community college, and adjunct art professor at UO. Our older son lives in Portland where he works supervising state-supported private residential care of mentally impaired adults. Our younger son, who married Aki Tashiro two summers ago and now has an infant son, started working last fall at UO as Assistant Professor of Jazz Piano / Associate Director of Jazz Studies. Marilyn and I love helping to raise our grandson.
Eugene can be a rewarding place to live -- for instance, I sometime see great blue herons on my half-hour bike-path commute. Having watched the city grow, I've learned not to be surprised if I fail to meet any acquaintances in a public space, but there are still plenty of places where figures in my own local history inevitably show up -- the farmer's market, the weekly crafts fair, the grocery, the public library, periodic political campaigns. I am enriched by my community as well as by the wider global cultural history lasting some thousands of years in which I participate with fascination and no small reverence.
