CNA SPRING CLEAN UP

By Tamara Anne Fowler | CNA Media Team

“He’s my baby. He’ll come back.” Nic’s positive. Nic is the parent of Finn, the cat who hangs out at New Seasons on 33rd Avenue and Killingsworth Street. Finn is so well-known he even has his own Facebook page.

Finn made himself the local ambassador at the store. He would stand at the front doors greeting all who wanted to shop. People started leaving food out for him which store employees would discourage, because that would attract rodents.

Ever the adventurer, Finn loved to jump into cars. New Seasons employee Keith said Finn had been holding court there for about three months before he disappeared.

Finn has been missing since Jan. 2, when somebody came to Nic’s house to deliver his empty collar. It was found in the grocery store’s parking lot, and Nic concluded someone had stolen him.

Shortly after moving to Concordia 13 months ago, Nic went to the Oregon Humane Society in search of a cat.

Finn had been surrendered in 2014 at age two, when his owners’ son had become more and more allergic. They had been leaving Finn outside. It grew terribly cold and was getting colder all the time. The family did not want an only outdoor life for Finn.

Nic discovered Finn and fell in love immediately. “He is quite the charmer.”

Finn is an indoor/outdoor cat and happy to be in both worlds. He spends his time lounging with his family indoors, and he will sit by the door when he wants to go out and visit his friends at New Seasons.

Finn was also an ambassador for outdoor cats. Nic thought it was important for him to correct misunderstandings about indoor/outdoor cats and outdoor cats in general.

“I’ve seen outdoor cats get a bad rap because of studies supposedly showing that cats kill billions of birds a year. I looked into this and found that most studies on this subject are inaccurate, due to wildly extrapolated statistics.

“Cats do have an effect on wildlife, but so do a lot of predators: coyotes, birds of prey, dogs, humans, etc.”

What Nic wants people to know is: Finn has a family, is loved and is eagerly awaited at home. If you have any information on his whereabouts, call 888.466.3242 toll free.

By Melissa Bearns

Six east Concordia kids huddled over large pieces of paper in my living room, intently sketching pictures of the gigantic red oak tree at 4810 N.E. 40th Ave. They painstakingly added details including squirrels, birds and acorns, along with personal notes to the man who will develop the property.

“Thank you for not cutting down the tree,” wrote 7-year-old Roxy. “I love the oak tree because you can ride your bike around it and you don’t have to go too far.”

When the property was sold last summer to Eric Thompson of Oregon Homeworks LLC, neighbors were deeply concerned the oak tree with a trunk diameter of 49 inches would be removed. In November, after a few visits to the planning department for research, I called the developer, who told me he intended to preserve the tree.

He has since filed his initial site plan with the Portland Bureau of Development Services, which shows the tree intact on the lot.

For the past decade, the former property owners hosted annual Labor Day potluck barbecues under the oak’s sprawling canopy. Across the years, residents enjoyed impromptu gatherings and other holiday celebrations.

“The oak has played a really important role in our community,” said Carol Apple, a neighbor of that property for 42 years. “It’s a place where kids love to play. As adults they return, and the oak tree is still there. It creates a sense of continuity. Having a focal point on the block where people gather helps build strong relationships.”

Prior to the sale, the property owner and her neighbor, Cindy Black, nominated it for Heritage Tree status, which would give it a high level of protection in both residential and development situations. The Heritage Tree Committee approved a lesser designation of Tree of Merit.

That affords no additional protection for a tree; however, our red oak appears to be safe from the chainsaws for now. Unfortunately, that cannot be said for many other magnificent trees that are equally important across Portland.

City code Title 11 governs tree management. It includes special protections for trees with trunk diameters greater than 36 inches. But Title 11 also has loopholes, which allow developers and property owners to skirt those protections and cut down even very large trees like the red oak.

I’m researching how the tree code was developed and compromises that were made to honor the different needs in our rapidly growing city. My goal is to find a way to balance those needs and still protect large, valuable trees like this oak.

Melissa lives near the red oak and has nine trees on her property. She has always loved trees, but gained a deeper understanding of their value to the planet and people while reporting on Ascending the Giants, an ongoing project of two Portland arborists to climb and measure the world’s champion trees. She has climbed some of the world’s largest trees, many of which are located in the Pacific Northwest.

Editor’s note: Melissa has more to share on this topic. For the rest of the story, visit ConcordiaPDX.org/preservinggiantoak. And, if you’re interested in following what’s happening with the red oak tree, Developer commits to preserve giant oak “The oak has played a really important role in our community.” – Carol Apple learning more about Portland’s trees and neighborhood tree-related events, or wanting to get involved, email Info@SaveOurTreesPDX.org.

By Marsha Sandman | CNA Media Team

Concordia resident Gayle MacDonald, M.S, LMT, has a few tricks up her sleeves. So many that you’d think she has many more sleeves and more than just two hands. But oh what those hands are capable of doing: massage therapist, educator, author, traveler, mentor and astrologer.

Gayle’s family brought her to Portland from Montana when she was just two months old, and she has spent practically her entire life in the Concordia neighborhood.

She has taught health and physical education at Jefferson and Adams high schools. Then, for 1985-1986 she received a Fulbright scholarship to teach health and physical education in Scotland.

After an illness forced her from her original career, she became the health and physical educator she always wanted to be.

Massage became her passion. With her teaching background, the massage school she attended asked her to develop a program doing massage at an assortment of locations, including drug rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, as well as at naturopathic and chiropractic offices.

In 1993 Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) asked Gayle to send massage students to work on cancer patients. Early in her massage education, Gayle had been told massage could cause cancers to spread.

However, her in-depth research indicated otherwise. She learned it is possible, with specialized skills, to offer massage to cancer patients and survivors.

So, since 1994 she has worked with cancer patients, and she has provided specialized massage training to massage therapists at OHSU and other hospitals throughout the United States, Scotland, Australia, Ireland, Sweden and Holland.

In 2005 she wrote “Massage for the Hospital Patient and Medically Frail Client,” now in its second edition. In 2014 she wrote “Medicine Hands: Massage Therapy for People with Cancer,” now in its third edition. They have been translated in two languages.

Gayle is the creator of the Oncology Massage Healing Summit and Oncology Massage Education Associates. You can reach Gayle at MedHands825@gmail. com.

Her students are often seen at OHSU attending to cancer patients who, in the past may have been denied the therapeutic and soothing effects of massage.

What’s next? She is remodeling her home, planning more overseas teaching, developing programs to mentor therapists and teachers, and teaching astrology workshops.

While she is dedicated to teaching, natural health and nutrition, Gail said she would just like a little more time to write Haiku.

After living east, south, north and west, Marsha is home at last. And she wants to hear your story. Contact her at MarshaJSandman@gmail.com.

By Tamara Anne Fowler | CNA Media Team

Winston Ross travels the world writing for Newsweek and, when his assignment end s, he comes home to Concordia. He’s lived in a charming home next to Fernhill Park for the past 1½ years.

He knows he is lucky. Once the original deal for the house fell through for another buyer, he was able to snap it up.

Winston first began writing in junior high in Berkeley, California, when he joined the student newspaper. The faculty adviser gave Winston a lot of leeway. He was able to write opinion pieces, and felt like he had a voice – very rare for a 13-year-old kid. Winston felt he mattered.

He continued on the staff of school papers through high school and then at the University of Oregon.

Upon graduation, Winston wrote about the coast for the Eugene RegisterGuard. Lately, a topic of the utmost urgency is the threat of earthquake and tsunami – especially since a 2015 New Yorker story claimed Portland is due for a catastrophic quake. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is 50-70 miles out to sea and an earthquake would be a disaster for the Oregon coast.

Ten years before that story appeared, Winston traveled to Japan to report for the Register-Guard on that country’s earthquake and tsunami preparedness. He stayed in Japan for several weeks to write a three-part series. But his travels didn’t end.

“For nine glorious months I wandered Europe in search of good stories, from the refugee crisis to true love in Amsterdam to the death of Venice. Datelines included Spain, Germany, Austria, the French Alps, Paris, The Netherlands and Italy.”

Back home, one of Winston’s favorite things is Concordia’s overall walkability. Outside of Europe he has not experienced such a walkable city.

Winston loves the hilly terrain of Fernhill Park. “It feels like a forest or a state park, not a city park,” he said.

He can walk to the Kennedy School where he can soak, watch a movie, or sit inside and smoke a cigar accompanied by a fine scotch.

New Seasons is within walking distance as is Extracto, which, he said, “has the best coffee and a secret back patio.”

Winston is happy that Portland has awakened to the challenges of rampant development.

“We need to work hard to preserve character, stay engaged and fight to keep the charm of our Portland alive.”

Tamara is Edit Kitten, a writer with 20-plus years of experience offering a softer, gentler approach to editing and coaching. Her personal editors – Armani, Max Factor and Spicey’D – are also her cats. Visit her at EditKitten.com or contact her at Tamara@EditKitten.com