Seven Random Facts

Several bloggers whose blogs I read have posted their seven random facts and then stated that they won't tag anyone, just feel free to post your own seven random facts about yourself. So I decided to do that this morning.

Here are mine:

1. I am a native Oregonian and my father was a native Oregonian. I was born in Portland, he was born in Norway, Oregon, a little dairyland coastal wide spot in the road in Coos County. When I returned to Portland to live in 1990, I was driving a car with California license plates. People would pass me on the freeway and glare at me or honk. In the 90s a lot of people were moving into Oregon from CA cashing out on their homes and buying big places in Oregon and making the housing market shoot up. I was returning home, but they didn't know that. There was a joke going around during that time, the punchline of which was "what do Oregonians fear most? A Californian with a U-Haul." I wanted to roll down my window and yell, "I have Oregon roots from 1915! When did your family get here?!"

2. I've had dinner with a cannibal. Really. We lived in the jungles of New Guinea on the Indonesian side of that second largest island in the world. When we first moved into the Moskona tribal area we hiked in from a helicopter base to visit the "chief" of the tribe and ask his permission to live there. Yikmemo was the biggest, fiercest chief, had ten wives, many sons, and was reported to be one of the last cannibals in the area (our villagers always maintained that THEY had never eaten people, but the people in the next village down river did; we'd go to that village and hear, we never were cannibals but those people upstream were.) I was five months pregnant with Mike, so I was walking a little slower than the rest of the group. Our friend Doug took off with the carriers and Dan and Deb, and John stayed with me. When John and I arrived twenty minutes after they did, muddy from slipping and sliding along the jungle trail, breathless, and a little concerned about our pre schoolers, we found them sitting by Yikmemo, happily consuming sweet potatoes while he stared at their little blonde heads. So we just sat down and joined them.

3. I learned to knit left handed when I was six years old by sitting facing my Grandma Rylander and copying what she did.

4. I love to read children's books. When I was in grad school getting my teaching credential I took a Children's Lit class. It was one of the best classes I ever took and the teacher's love for children's books ignited mine. One of my life goals is to own (and read) all the Newberry Award books.

5. This spring I walked into two arrest incidents on the streets near my house. We are living in LA's inner city and we like to walk. One night we were going north on Vermont, saw four or five LAPD cars, and were told as we approached, "There are a lot of reasons why you don't want to pass along here." Those reasons were lined up against the wall, hands over their heads, waiting to be frisked. We went around the other way, about 1/2 mile out of our way. No problem. The other time we saw what we thought was a tow truck with lights flashing so we just kept walking along the side street. We didn't realize until we were about 10 feet away that the USC Security Patrol was handcuffing a man who was leaning against the wall. Don't know why USC Security was on a public street a mile from campus, but we decided not to ask...

6. I've always loved the beach. My first memory of seeing the beach was waking up one morning in a motel room where we had stopped on the way to Coos County to see my grandparents and seeing the beach and ocean. I fell in love right then and there. How appropriate that John loves the beach too and that we spent much of our courtship year going to the beaches in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties.

7. When I was a young girl, I collected coins because my brother Jim collected coins and I wanted to do everything he did. I still have a lot of the collection, particularly my penny collection. I lost the 1943 steel penny at some point and I'd love to have one again.