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email: info@wllovillage.org
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Note: This is a long newsletter, click the link at the very top that says, 'View this email in your browser'. Enjoy reading what's new and newsworthy with WLLO!
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This month's articles
(click on the title link to jump directly to the article):
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Guest Essay
A USER’S GUIDE TO AGING
Lessons for 70 and beyond
By Anne Lamott
Invisible and exposed — but adaptable, as only the old can be
Anyone who survived eighth-grade gym class believes that the worst is over, that it will all be downhill from that peak of vulnerability and mortification.
And then you get old.
For decades, the focused attention on raising families and/or yourself, all that competitive hustle, strive and fixation with appearances, provides a kind of carapace. You were always as vulnerable as kittens, but you could ignore it in your big-girl-in-charge years. Then, one day, you wake up and find yourself simultaneously invisible and exposed again. Maybe you’re not standing there in the locker room in your underpants, but you’re equally revealed to the world’s harsh, arrogant eyes.
Eyes? Did someone mention eyes? I had made peace with the decline of my eyes — the weakening vision, the saggy eyelids’ hostile takeover of the eyeball, the eight remaining lashes — until two years ago, when dry eye appeared. Dry eye in my case has meant symptoms too repulsive to go into here.
So I made an appointment right away, and the ophthalmologist gave me a prescription to use twice a day, along with instructions to use over-the-counter eyedrops five times a day and gel drops at bedtime.
Regrettably, I mostly forgot to do all this, or could not be bothered to, except for the prescription.
Curiously, the condition did not improve.
My excuse for not following directions was that it seemed like too much to do, and there were other priorities. My family, my writing, sick friends, elections and pickleball, but I finally decided to make another appointment to see my ophthalmologist.
The HMO to which I have belonged since I was four has new systems in place. New systems do not really work for me or my older friends. When we joined this HMO in the 1950s, pediatricians made house calls (and smoked with your parents in the living room). Also, you could telephone and make same-day appointments.
Now, you have to discuss your wish for an appointment with an advice nurse.
So, the other day, I called Ophthalmology and was placed on hold for 45 minutes, while warped séance/Ouija board music played, the first time in my life I have pined for a Muzak rendition of “Up, Up and Away.” I finally hung up, thinking it was a glitch in the system. I tried again, got put on hold for another half-hour, and hung up again. Having errands to do near the medical center, I decided to drive up and make an appointment in person.
The superpower my older friends and I share is that we have learned to adapt to changing circumstances, like England’s peppered moths that, during the Industrial Age, darkened in tandem with the arrival of soot. My colleagues and I gladly adapted to bifocals, hearing aids, Depends, custom orthotics — whatever we needed to keep our standard of living as high as possible. (My husband and I thought of registering for wedding gifts at the local Jack’s Durable Medical Equipment and Pharmacy.) We’ve learned to adjust when things go wrong, rather than try to control things. How do we know things will go wrong? Because that is the nature of life.
Two receptionists were behind the desk when I got there, one older and cranky-looking, and a friendly younger one who looked about 15. When the younger one waved me forward and asked how she could help, I explained how long I’d been on hold and that I’d driven up because I needed to be seen.
The mean nurse butted in and said, “This is not the ER. This is not triage. If you need to be seen, go to acute care.” I drew myself up with a look of appalled distress that would have made Maggie Smith proud. I said, “I don’t believe I’m speaking to you. Please don’t interrupt.”
Where did that perfect retort come from? Thank you, age.
It shut her up, and I would have claimed victory, had I not then started to cry in silence. The young woman said gently that she wanted to help me but they weren’t nurses and so could not make appointments. I’d have to get back on the phone. There was a wall phone off to the side of reception where I could call the advice nurse.
Another of the gifts of older age kicked in: surrender. I lay down my weapons. The young woman showed me to the phone, and pulled up a chair for me. I sat down, no longer teary.
I got a Madame Blavatsky serenade again. Sigh. But then I remembered something: On planes, a voice always reminds us that, if the lights go out, path lights will come on to guide us. What are the path lights when life does not work?
You just can’t go wrong with deep breaths. Us praying people pray — I say in silence, “I currently hate everything about life so please help me. Have at it, Pal. Amen.” After doing that, I made a gratitude list — this was dry eye, not third stage ocular melanoma. Also, no hairy spiders nearby.
I ate a protein bar from the Carter administration that I found in my purse.
Ten minutes later, the ophthalmology advice nurse came on, and I explained that I’d been on hold nearly two hours.
Right off the bat, the nurse snapped at me for complaining, as he had to handle 50 calls a day. Tears began to roll down my face again. This time, I was glad to be invisible. He asked whether I was doing exactly what the doctor had said to do, and repeated the protocol. I was busted. He snapped that I would not need an appointment if I did what I had been told. I somehow managed to tell him I wanted one anyway. He made an exasperated sigh; you would have thought I’d asked him to come by my house and give the kitty a flea dip. But he gave me one for a month away.
I hung up, dried my tears and put on some lip gloss. Then, I went to the front desk. The young woman looked up expectantly. Better? One of the gifts of vulnerability, of exposure, is that you show, so she could read me. I smiled and nodded and she smiled, too. “You’re going to have a good life,” I told her. “I can tell these things.” She patted her heart gratefully; love had tiptoed in on little cat feet. (Older people know how much words of appreciation can change a person’s life, or at least their day.)
Puffy clouds hung high in the sky for me like the frostiness of the sea turned upside down. They are only water vapor and air, but look how deliciously solid their shapes are. It’s a celestial trick, proof once again of how substantial the insubstantial can be.
I hated feeling as though I were back in the eighth-grade locker room, but at least this time it was for only a few hours. Ever since, because I’ve been doing everything the advice nurse said, my eyes are a lot better and you know what? I’ll probably cancel the appointment.
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In the News - Jody Carson
Congratulations to WLLO volunteer Jody Carson, who was profiled in the local paper last week for her community engagement and activism.
Jody Carson is determined to preserve her city’s past. She believes doing so will help secure its future.
Carson is a longtime resident of West Linn’s Willamette Historic District who serves on the Historic Willamette Main Street and the Advocates for Willamette Falls Heritage boards.
Previously, she served on the West Linn City Council, the West Linn Planning Commission, the Willamette Falls & Landings Heritage Area Coalition and other local civic organizations. She also helped get West Linn’s historic City Hall on the national register.
“It’s my home. I have a sense of community here,” Carson said. “I have good friends and neighbors. I have people I enjoy being with. There’s really that sense of a close community.”
While Carson has developed encyclopedic knowledge of the Willamette Historic District, West Linn and Willamette Falls over her 35 years in the area, she began life in Colorado.
While Carson has developed encyclopedic knowledge of the Willamette Historic District, West Linn and Willamette Falls over her 35 years in the area, she began life in Colorado.
She first experienced Oregon during her college years and, later, came back to stay for good, eventually settling into a fixer-upper in the Willamette Historic District. She's never left.
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm home," she said. "I'm a part of the community. All my friends are here. Why would I leave?"
Her current volunteerism
Over the course of her life in the area, Carson has served on a plethora of boards and volunteer organizations, but right now she’s focusing her efforts on the boards of Historic Willamette Main Street (she’s served there for 10 years) and Advocates for Willamette Falls Heritage (she’s served since the group’s inception in 1999).
Historic Willamette Main Street focuses on business and community development, as well as historic preservation. It’s part of a national movement formed to improve the quality of life in small-town America and invigorate the economic health of the Historic Main Street central business districts.
“I have been very engaged in trying to preserve the character of the neighborhood,” Carson said. “I really want to see this area survive and be protected and maintain its historic character, and for people to find out about it.”
Advocates for Willamette Falls Heritage (formerly the Willamette Falls Heritage Foundation) are dedicated to supporting historic preservation, educational initiatives and heritage-related projects within the region from the mouth of the Clackamas River to the mouth of the Tualatin River.
“Currently, our focus is on what’s going to happen down around the falls and, in particular, along the island and the walks,” she said, noting that Willamette Falls is the second-largest waterfall in America by volume of water. “We really want to see some of the historic buildings down there used — historic adaptive reuse — as opposed to all of them taken down.”
What’s still ahead
Despite her groups’ many successes over the years — the Wednesdays In Willamette Summer Street Market is thriving and its annual Halloween celebration draws more than 1,000 people — there’s more work to be done.
Here are some of what Carson and her fellow volunteers are working on:
• Building awareness of Willamette’s Main Street and encouraging more local residents to take advantage of its many offerings
• Adding interpretive signage about the log rafts that used to bring lumber to the sawmill and paper mill at Willamette Falls (which operated for more than 100 years beginning in the late 1800s)
• Preserving the Lady B — a tugboat that ferried lumber down the Willamette River for more than seven decades — and adding interpretive signs about it
• Reminding local residents about the industrial past associated with Willamette Falls, including the T. W. Sullivan Hydroelectric Plant (still in operation, it’s a hydroelectric dam on the Willamette Falls built in the late 1800s that was the source of the nation’s first long-distance power transmission), a sawmill and a paper mill
• And encouraging main street equivalents in neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan area.
“West Linn needs to remember its history,” Carson said. “We need to figure out ways to bring those stories to life.”
In addition to all of this volunteer work, she is a WLLO Village member and volunteer and is active with the West Linn Adult Center.
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Welcome new volunteers!
We are pleased to welcome Kathy Rise as a new volunteer and driver! We are in the process of orienting several other new volunteers and members.
We are seeking a volunteer or two to write and publish the WLLO Village week-at-a-glance for members and volunteers, and/or monthly newsletter.
Weekly "Week at a Glance" is issued every Sunday for members and volunteers (can be set up in advance):
* Track scheduled activities on the WLLO Calendar for WLLO members and volunteers - you'd be on the distribution for the activities group
* Use Club Express system to assemble and publish the coming week's schedule of activities
* requires basic computer skills to learn how to use the correspondence and mailing function in the Club Express app on your computer, change fonts, edit photos, copy zoom links, etc
Monthly Newsletter is issued the last day of each month (can be set up in advance) using the MailChimp system. We could use content creators and newsletter assemblers.
* Compose, assign or find materials of interest (Member profiles, articles to reproduce, monthly columns from contributors, local activities to advertise)
* Requires comfort level to learn Mail Chimp system on your computer to assemble newsletter, change fonts, format content, edit photos, copy working links
Please contact the office if this sounds like something you'd like to do. (503) 308-8223.
We are grateful for our WLLO Volunteers! Thank you for all you do!
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NO GUILT BOOK CLUB’S NEXT MEETING IS
TUESDAY, JULY 14 AT 10:30 AM
I n June, we discussed Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
Join us in July! Ellen Steel will be hosting and we will discuss The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline.
Our upcoming reading list is:
July - The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
August - The Killings at Badger's Drift by Caroline Graham
Sept - Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Oct - My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Nov - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Return to Table of Contents
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Elk Rock Garden
11800 S. Military Lane, Portland
https://elkrockgarden.org/
This garden is in Dunthorpe between Lake Oswego and Portland. It is possibly the oldest, private estate garden in the Pacific Northwest. It was established in 1893 by Peter Kerr who lived there until his death in 1957. On a difficult 13- acre site (thin soil, limited sunshine), it was initially used for recreation (golf, tennis) by its bachelor residents, as well as a smallholding with vegetables, fruit trees and animals. Later it was a private family refuge. The paths are not paved but are gravel and packed, so you could enjoy exploring this garden with a walker.
Date Established: May, 1893
How Many Acres: Originally almost 13; now 9
Must See Highlights: A garden for walking, which draws the visitor through the property, along a stream, under mature magnolias, to several views of the Willamette River, Elk Rock Island and Mt. Hood. A garden with “good bones” it is strongest in winter, spring, fall.
 
A place of respite, privacy, contemplation. Open Monday – Friday from 8:00 am – 5:00pm. There are no restrooms and no dogs allowed. Visitors may feel they “have the garden to themselves.”
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70th West Linn Annual Old Time Fair
July 10-12, 2026
Willamette Park, West Linn
Experience the charm of summer at the 70th Annual West Linn Old Time Fair, July 10–12, 2026, at scenic Willamette Park! Celebrate community spirit and local heritage with three days of family-friendly fun along the banks of the Tualatin and Willamette Rivers. Entry and parking are always FREE!
Enjoy classic attractions like the lively community parade, thrilling amusement rides, and the beloved Olde Time Baseball Game. Stroll through exhibitor and food vendor booths, savor a Lion Burger or sweet treat, and relax or dance to live music from local bands. Don’t miss the custom car and antique boat shows, hands-on lumberjack competitions, and a bustling beer garden.
With highlights including a pancake breakfast, water ski shows, Mutt & Pet Show, Raffle, Pie-Eating Contest, and activities for all ages, the Old Time Fair is a treasured tradition that brings West Linn together. Admission is free-bring your family, friends, and sense of adventure for a weekend of memories at the heart of the community.
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Summer Concerts
Celebrate the season with the return of Summer Concert Series in West Linn and Lake Oswego! Enjoy free, live music in our beautiful parks, featuring a lineup of talented local musicians.
- Live Music: A diverse lineup of artists bringing the best in local sound.
- Picnic-Perfect: Bring your blankets, low-sand chairs, and your favorite snacks. Outside food and beer/wine/cider are welcome!
- Delicious Eats: Wednesday and Thursday concerts feature a variety of local food vendors available for purchase.
Whether you’re dancing, dining, or simply soaking up the summer vibes, our concerts are the perfect way to enjoy warm evenings with family and friends.
For performer bios, parking details, vendor info, and more, visit the concert date-specific web pages.
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Return to Table of Contents
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TERRY'S EARTH FRIENDLY TIPS
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 CONFESSIONS OF A RECYCLING RADICAL
By
Terence M. Shumaker
My mother used to read a magazine named “True Confessions.” In that vein, I offer this full confession of my recycling mania. Of late I have found myself grasping at ways to justify and defend some of the anal antics surrounding my recycling addition. And my wife sometimes shakes her head when passing through the kitchen as I assiduously prepare materials for their next reincarnation.
Reason or Rationalization?
The best personal economic reason I can come up with regarding serious recycling is that it saves money on our garbage bill. After reducing the amount of garbage we generated in 2020, we switched to once-a-month garbage pickup. Our monthly bill dropped from $35/month to $15.11/month. It now costs us $18.88 per month, but it’s still about half as much as once-a-week pickup.
That’s a good reason. And if you ask me, my personal justification for my rabid recycling rituals, is not a rationalization at all. It is all about repurposing and reusing as many of our resources as possible.
Everything we create, consume and use is either animal, vegetable or mineral. The first two, animal and vegetable, we eat and make more. Just like Doritos. But the last one, mineral, well, we can’t make more. We have to ration the finite supply we have on Earth. So, it behooves us to reuse those resources instead of burying them in a landfill.
With a teeming mass of 8.3 billion people consuming the Earth’s resources, we are rapidly approaching a tipping point regarding some minerals. While scientists and engineers are working to find ways to avoid depleting valuable resources, our job as consumers, is to preserve finite minerals by our efforts to reduce our consumption, reuse, repair and repropose materials and recycle as much as we can.
What’s left over we call “garbage,” a word akin to “weed.” Most of us have heard the old saw that a weed is just a plant whose usefulness has yet to be found. But “useful” only relates to human use. Not use by other organisms. Likewise, “garbage” is saved for those things which we no longer have a use for and can’t, at present, be repurposed or recycled. But what we now refer to as garbage is actually valuable resources that are discarded because they are no longer useful. We’ve created far too many complex consumable products than cannot be easily dealt with when their life ends.
OK, I Confess
About my obsession and the related confession. The reality of my compulsion came one day a few years ago as I sat innocently peeling the thin foil from a Hershey Kisses, slowly extracting the long paper ribbon and placing both on the table next to me. I then carefully flattened the foil with a quick couple of brushes of my finger.
I had never done this before. But it had also been a long time since I had eaten Hershey Kisses. And in hindsight, I realize that I had recently “graduated” from the Master Recycler program.
My actions were not lost on my wife, who never lost an opportunity to be honest and forthright.
“What in the world are you doing?”
And she’s direct.
I think the Hershey Kisses incident ushered in the days of my recycling fanaticism. And it only got worse. Or better. Depends on your point of view. And with the advent of Ridwell recycling services, my compulsion now borders on a listing in the DSM.
So let me step into this recycling confessional and bare my soul to you gentle readers.
Metal in a Can, Aluminum in a Ball
 Small pieces of metal, when combined with everything else in your recycling bin, can get lost in the tangle of materials, and wind up contaminating plastics or paper. A solution I learned in the Master Recycler class was to put small pieces of metal, such as paper clips, staples, nails, screws, washers etc.in a metal can. When the can is near full, sit the tin lid on top and crimp the lip of the can over to seal the contents. I then pound the edges down with a hammer.
 Another ridiculously tedious activity I engage in, much to my wife’s bewilderment, is the process of peeling the foil backing off of pill packets. And I know you’re asking yourself right now “Doesn’t this person have anything to do?” And as any self-respecting retiree would say, “I have plenty to do!” But I just can’t see that aluminum going to waste.
All of the pill liners, and a variety of small pieces of foil get tossed onto an unfolded foil/paper liner for Pepperidge Farms Sausalito Chocolate Macadamia cookies. Once I’ve got a pile of aluminum and foil pieces (caps and foil sleeves on wine bottles too!), I wrap the wad in a few more cookie liners, then wrap the whole thing in a piece of used aluminum foil. Balls of foil are easily separated in the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
But wait! There’s more!
 I purchase small pies from Market of Choice in West Linn, and proceed to cut them into quarters. I allow myself to consume one quarter of a tiny pie for breakfast. I admit it. I’m addicted to those pies. They are Blue Raeven by the way. And I receive no kickbacks for mentioning their name. But the point of this diversion is the small aluminum pie pans. They make great receptacles for those small foil pieces. Then the pie tin is wrapped in cookie liner foil.
Paper and Plastic Don’t Mix
   My compulsion spills over into plastic wrapping with paper labels. As a unit, plastic wrapping and mailing envelopes with a paper label adhered to it are not recyclable. But cut the paper label off, and the plastic is definitely recyclable. So, I expanded this small neurotic act into a full-spectrum activity. Now, no plastic wrap, bag, or mailing envelope is safe from my scissors. If you do this, just be sure to toss the paper label into the trash.
If you can push your thumb through the plastic, it can go into the plastic film recycle bag that your friendly WLLO Recycling Team picks up every other month.
Greasy Cardboard
Pizza boxes reign supreme in this category. But so do deli take-out boxes and those boxes that cakes and other delicacies come in. So don’t toss that entire pizza box! It’s a former tree redesigned into a throwaway container, most of which are destined to landfills after only a single use. Such a waste. The entire container can be reused. Simply cut the greasy spots out and toss the clean cardboard into the recycling bin. The greasy parts? Toss those into your compost bin. It counts as brown carbon material, and works as a team with green yard trimmings and kitchen scraps.
 The small pies I buy from Market of Choice come in a cardboard box, and the dismantling of this box has become a weekly ritual in my garage. I exorcise the grease on the counter which I have named “The Altar of Recycling Compulsion.” On this operating table I first remove the clear plastic window, then I peel off the adhesive label that is layered with a thin plastic coating. These are tossed in the trash. Then begins the precision surgical removal of all offending oil and grease spots, and any areas contaminated by food residue.
That sounds unnerving. I have just consumed the pie, and yet I say “contaminated by food residue.” Of course, the reference is to the paper being contaminated and not my stomach. Once again, cardboard in the recycle bin and greasy spots to the compost.
 Ridwell to The Rescue
I have mentioned Ridwell in this space before, and for good reason. They take a lot of stuff that can’t go in the curbside bin. And for $20/month, it’s a great service. For example, all of those multi-layer plastic bags that contain chips, snacks, dog treats etc., are now taken as part of your monthly subscription. This category includes a wide range of packaging that we once tossed in the trash. Check out this link to see what they take. Eliminating all of this packaging would probably reduce your garbage enough to apply for once-a-month pickup.
What’s Next?
As if I didn’t have enough recycling avenues to explore, I’m always looking for an outlet for items that currently have to be tossed in the trash. And when I find a new source, I happily add it to my long list of recycling obsessions.
So there you have it. Confession complete. I feel better already. Although I don’t expect any of you to slip into recycling addiction that I battle with, myself and the rest of the WLLO Recycling Team greatly appreciate your efforts to divert valuable resources from the landfill to other uses. So check out the upcoming recycling pickups, and we’ll see you at the curb one day soon.
ITEMS FOR OUR NEXT RECYCLING COLLECTION
July 14 is our next pickup day. Bless us with your unwanted electronics, digital devices, cords and cables etc. See below.
WLLO RECYCLING COLLECTION SCHEDULE
Remember, we pick up plastic film, (no crinkly plastic film), and all clean clear #1 PET and PETE plastics. Please, no black or colored #1 plastic.
If you have a question about something you want to recycle, and it’s something your WLLO Recycle Team picks up, please contact the appropriate recipient given below. Their list of items they accept change regularly. Thanks for your help.
PLEASE REMEMBER: We can no longer accept #6 PS or Styrofoam plastics.
July 14: Electronics and everything with a power cord. PLEASE: NO LIGHT BULBS OR SMOKE DETECTORS! But LED light bulbs are ok! Free Geek rehabilitates and recycles this stuff. Please wrap up cords and cables and secure with a twist tie or rubber band.
https://www.freegeek.org/take-action/donate-technology
September 8: Furniture, linens, dishes (no chips or cracks or alcohol-themed items), kitchen utensils, mattresses/box springs, small appliances (in working condition), decorative items and artwork, rugs etc. Items are donated to the Community Warehouse. https://www.communitywarehouse.org/give-furniture/
November 10: Building materials, tools, plumbing and lighting fixtures, fasteners etc. The Rebuilding Center breathes new life into these items. https://www.rebuildingcenter.org/donations
January 12: Cleaners, pesticides, chemicals, light bulbs, smoke alarms, paint, batteries and other hazardous materials. Metro South Hazardous Waste site reclaims and recycles.
https://www.oregonmetro.gov/tools-living/garbage-and-recycling/garbage-recycling-hazardous-waste-disposal-oregon-city
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WLLO & Villages Events
Check out our calendar on our website homepage. It's easier to read, you can change how information is displayed and the calendar is also printable.
- Also be sure to check your Week-At-A-Glance email. Members and Volunteers receive Week-At-A-Glance emails every Sunday with detailed information for the upcoming week.
- Summary of Regularly Scheduled Events:
- Ted Talk Discussion Group - Monday 11:00 AM
- Book Club 2nd Tuesday at 10:30
- Brisk Walk Wednesdays at 9:00 AM
- Chat and Stroll Wednesdays at 10:00 AM
- 2nd Thursday of the month - Happy Hour in person at 4 PM
- The 3rd and Last Friday - Coffee in person at 10:00 AM or 2:00 PM
- One Friday of each month - Coffee Hour on Zoom at 9:00 AM. Watch Week at a Glance for date.
- For registration, calendar questions, or log-in help, contact the WLLO office (503-308-8223). To get log in details to specific events, email info@WLLOvillage.org. (Many events are for members and volunteers only.)
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