bobwelch23
- Mar 19, 2020
- 6 min
Jim Bartko: 1965-2020
Editor’s note: This is the Jim Bartko obituary that appeared in The Register-Guard March 19, 2020. Jim Bartko, a former University of...
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bobwelch23
- Jul 8, 2019
- 4 min
Two foul balls go gently into Dylan Thomas’ ‘good night’
Daughter-in-law Deena, here with our son, Jason, and their three boys. When a foul ball flies toward you, a spectator, there’s not much...
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bobwelch23
- Aug 8, 2018
- 5 min
Hiking Pacific Crest Trail unveils a unique cast of odd but friendly characters
An Israeli couple — trail-named Bugs and Bunny — hiking with speakers atop their backpacks, listening to rock music? Check. Yours truly,...
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bobwelch23
- Jul 26, 2018
- 2 min
My PCT race against death
This isn’t how our trip was supposed to end. But a fire near he Oregon-California border has once again curtailed a Pacific Crest Trail...
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bobwelch23
- Feb 5, 2017
- 4 min
The lesson Prof. Coleman taught me
Nothing puts life into context like death. And so it was that while at Edwin Coleman’s memorial service last Tuesday, I was reminded why,...
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bobwelch23
- Oct 2, 2016
- 4 min
After 900 miles on the PCT, 10 lessons I’ve learned
But having just finished another section — 217 miles from just north of the Columbia River to Snoqualmie Pass east of Seattle — to...
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bobwelch23
- Sep 12, 2016
- 4 min
What I learned while teaching inmates to write
SALEM — An hour before I’m to present a three-hour writers workshop at the maximum security facility of the Oregon State Penitentiary,...
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bobwelch23
- Jun 6, 2016
- 3 min
A brush with something other than fame
Appeared in Register-Guard newspaper, June 5, 2016 I was high on a ladder, doing something I’d vowed I’d never do again, when a neighbor...
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bobwelch23
- Apr 3, 2016
- 4 min
To Haiti, with, I thought, love
From the April 3, 2016 Register-Guard By Bob Welch It was March Madness season. She Who Was Leaving Me had packed her bags and was ready...
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bobwelch23
- Dec 7, 2015
- 4 min
The ‘coast road’ is for ‘The Birds’
BODEGA BAY, Calif. — The schoolteacher in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds” is talking with the newcomer in town. “Did you drive up...
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bobwelch23
- Jul 8, 2015
- 3 min
Editing: Pay Now or Pay Later
It happens every time. OK, nearly every time. I unwrap the book-size package and am soon holding the dream-come-true from one of our...
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bobwelch23
- Mar 13, 2015
- 4 min
Lessons from Dave Frohnmayer
A FEW YEARS AGO, Dave Frohnmayer and I were speaking at Northwest Christian University on the subject of leadership when he shared an...
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bobwelch23
- Dec 27, 2014
- 3 min
Two Words of Advice: Stop it!
We were going around the room, introducing ourselves at a recent writers workshop I was leading, when one of the attendees got negative...
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bobwelch23
- May 2, 2014
- 3 min
First grandson turns 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: When Cade Welch, our first grandson, was born in 2005, I began a ritual of writing a once-a-year letter to him in The...
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bobwelch23
- Mar 5, 2014
- 3 min
Entertaining angels
I’ve been marketing books of mine now for more than 20 years but only recently realized a big mistake I was making: Thinking it was only...
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bobwelch23
- Feb 12, 2014
- 3 min
Living a Yahtzee life
They say if you want to make money in the writing business you find a niche and go to that place again and again. In other words, if the...
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bobwelch23
- Feb 12, 2014
- 3 min
Mother of Rain outstanding
Mother of Rain, about hardscrabble life in the hills of Tennessee in the 1930s and ’40s, is the most intriguing read I’ve experienced in...
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bobwelch23
- Dec 12, 2013
- 2 min
Weekend in Bedford Falls
SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — Tonight, in a snow-swept town south of Syracuse, I stepped foot in Bedford Falls for the first time. Sort of....
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bobwelch23
- Nov 16, 2013
- 3 min
Time for my ‘Second Life’
A colleague once told me that column writing is a little like running in front of a combine in a farmer’s field: exhilarating, exhausting...
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bobwelch23
- Jun 6, 2013
- 4 min
Going out on a literary limb
When She Who Endures Me is away at the coast or on a quilt retreat, it’s the go-to movie I watch alone: A River Runs Through It, Robert...
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