Book Club: Doig’s ‘The Whistling Season’ The RAPS Book Group will not meet in December, but will begin its 2008 meetings on Tuesday, Jan. 15, at the home of Prue Douglas in Terwilliger Plaza, 2545 SW Terwilliger Blvd., Portland. Contact her at 503299-4928 to RSVP and for directions. We will discuss The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig, a Seattleite and author of several fiction and nonfiction books who focuses on small-town, early 1900s in the American West. The Whistling Season is described on the jacket as follows: “Can’t cook but doesn’t bite.” So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee along with a stampede of homesteaders drawn by the promise of the Big Ditch—a gargantuan irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the several kinds of education—none of them of the textbook variety—Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region’s one-room schoolhouse. For February, we will readThe Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan. Have a wonderful holiday season and join us in 2008! —Mary Brannan Bridge Group bids Dec. 11 The RAPS Bridge Group will meet 1:00 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 11, at Willamette View. For details or information about the group, please call me at 503-2920838 or email colinkeld@gmail.com. If you would like to play, please let me know as soon as you can and no later than Friday, Dec. 7. —Colin Dunkeld Hikers: Snowshoeing, anyone? There will be no December hike due to the holidays. In January we will hike locally. There will be more details in the January RAPS Sheet. — 3 — RAPS club reports The School of Health and Human Performance’s origins begin with Vanport Extension Center. In 1955, the Department of Health and Physical Education became part of the Division of Education. In 1966, the new Health and Physical Education Building opened, and in 1977 the department gained school status under Dean Lee Ragsdale. After Ragsdale’s retirement, Dean Jack Schendel continued to expand the school, and its name was changed in 1990 to the School of Health and Human Performance. In 1992 budget cuts forced closure of the school. The HPE building is now the Peter W. Stott Center. The school’s retired faculty and staff have developed a historical display that will honor this great school. Past Tense features glimpses into Portland State’s past. To submit a story (or an idea for one), email the RAPS History Preservation Committee at raps@pdx.edu. PAST TENSE The School of Health & Human Performance Jack Schendel Lee Ragsdale We have had some hikers ask about a snowshoe hike. If others are interested in a snowshoe hike, I will schedule an additional winter hike. Please let me know if you are interested in snowshoeing. Send your comments to larry_sawyer@comcast.net or 503-7711616. The November hike, held just after Thanksgiving, was on the Springwater Corridor between Sellwood and SE 82nd. There were a total of 12 people on the hike, the largest group ever to participate in a RAPS hike. (Maybe we should always hike after a holiday.) Nine of us had lunch at the Oaks Bottom Pub. The October hike was to Ape Cave on Mount St. Helens. Geology professor Scott Burns took a group to the cave a week earlier in rainy weather, and he told me it rained harder in the cave than outside the cave. However, we arrived just behind three busloads of middle-school students, and we decided to hike on the surface up to the upper entrance. When we got back to the lower entrance and had our sack lunch, we had the cave to ourselves for a good half hour. Some of the hikers had never been in a lava tube before, and we walked a short distance down slope, the easy option, to give them a feel of a lava tube. —Larry Sawyer
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