RAPS Group Reports The RAPS Book Club will meet at 1:30pm on Tuesday, March 18, hosted by Maxine Thomas at 6535 SW Canyon Court in Portland. Contact her at thomasm@pdx.edu or 503-291-1279 to RSVP and for directions. We will discuss A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev, translated by Evan Fallenberg. It is described on the cover as follows: From the internationally acclaimed Israeli writer Meir Shalev comes a mesmerizing novel of two love stories, separated by half a century but connected by one enchanting act of devotion. During the 1948 War of Independence--a time when pigeons are still used to deliver battlefield messages--a gifted young pigeon handler is mortally wounded. In the moments before his death, he dispatches one last pigeon. The bird is carrying his extraordinary gift to the girl he has loved since adolescence. Intertwined with this story is the contemporary tale of Yair Mendelsohn, who has his own legacy from the 1948 war. Yair is a tour guide specializing in bird-watching trips who, in middle age, falls in love again with a childhood girlfriend. His growing passion for her, along with a gift from his mother on her deathbed, becomes the key to a life he thought no longer possible. Unforgettable in both its particulars and its sweep, A Pigeon and A Boy is a tale of lovers then and now--of how deeply we love, of what home is, and why we, like pigeons trained to fly in one direction only, must eventually return to it. In a voice that is at once playful, wise, and altogether beguiling, Meir Shalev tells a story as universal as war and as intimate as a winged declaration of love. Looking ahead, in April we will discuss Hallucinations by Oliver Sachs. --Mary Brannan The RAPS Bridge Group will meet on Tuesday, March 4 in the conference room of Friendly House’s Anderson Building. This building is on the north side of NW Savier Street, around the corner from the main entrance to Friendly House. This is a day change and a room change. From now on, RAPS Bridge will meet on the first Tuesday of each month. Switching rooms and regular meeting dates allows us to continue meeting in our usual 1pm to 4:30pm time slot. Please save the date, April 1, for our April meeting. (No April Fool joke, we will be meeting the first Tuesday in April.) If you wish to join us, please contact Steve Brennan by phone at 503-646-6297, or by e-mail at the.steve.brennan@gmail.com. --Steve Brennan On February 14, The RAPS Hiking Group walked the Springwater Corridor between mileposts 6 and 9 for a hike of approximately five miles. We were prepared for rain, but the weather held for us. We saw chickens, including crowing roosters, a goat, and a cat. The goat was a surprise to me. Johnson Creek was pretty high, but still below its banks. The March 14 hike will be the first of this year outside of the Portland area. We will hike the Lyle Cherry Orchard loop. Round trip will be five miles with an 1100 foot elevation gain. This is in the eastern section of the Columbia River Gorge a few miles east of Lyle, Washington. We hope some wildflowers will be in bloom. There will be panoramic views from the top. Bring a sack lunch -- we’ll eat at the turnaround point in what is left of the old orchard. The trail has poison oak just off it. Long pants are recommended. This is Hike #62 in Sullivan’s 4th edition of 101 Hikes in Northwest Oregon. Meet at the southeast corner of the Gateway Transit Center parking structure on Friday, March 14 at 9am to carpool. Please confirm with Larry Sawyer by Thursday, March 13. Larry can be reached at 503-7711616, or larry_sawyer@comcast.net. (There’s an underscore between “larry” and “sawyer” in that e-mail address.) --Larry Sawyer 4
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