Typewriter winner found!

For some reason (still under investigation), Deb Wolff's e-mail informing me that she holds raffle ticket 266860 never reached me.

So add finding typewriter raffle ticket winners to the list of many bizarre occurrences that happen in the Hillsdale Farmer's Market each Sunday.

"I won the typewriter!" were the first words out of Deb's mouth when I ran into her at the market today.

No, she didn't have her stub with her but I have no reason to doubt her.

First, the farmers market is where everyone is honest (and, yes, "all the women are beautiful and the children are above average").

Second, I have been checking with likely winners among those I could remember who bought tickets at last Sunday's Hillsdale Benefit Book Sale. The winning number came early in the big wheel of tickets so I could focus on early ticket buyers. (I know, I should have asked purchasers to write phone numbers or e-mail addresses on the portion of the ticket in the drawing jar. Call it a rookie raffle organizer's mistake.)

So at next week's market, Deb will exchange her winning ticket for a great old portable Royal typewriter. Along with the typewriter, Deb also wins a certain caché: Hemingway used a Royal Quiet De Luxe just like it.

The raffle raised $93 for Hillsdale Alliance organizations, which include the farmers market, the schools, Neighborhood House and the neighborhood association, to name a few.

Congratulations, Deb!

Chinese Scooters and Paper Cranes

Last Tuesday I closed the deal on a barely used scooter, one of those knock-off Chinese faux Vespas. So for the past four days, sweaty of gloved palm, I've been riding around Portland on red alert, sporting a day-glow orange, hooded sweatshirt that you'd have to be blind not to see.

Talk about exposed.

Two days after my purchase, I read reference in David Reinhard's Oregonian column that he rides the very same model scooter. I happen to know David, disagree with him intensely and like him a lot. Yes, it is possible. Hint: He's a lot more personable than he comes across in his columns. So a call to David about his experience with the TN'G Milano (uh huh...) is in order. I'm hearing from reliable sources that I should expect "quality issues." David and I need to talk about things just possibly more dangerous than George W. Bush.

So far, I am having a fun adrenaline rush scooting about ever vigilant in a world of hazard — potholes, near-sighted drivers, loose gravel and wet, oily pavement.

The whole host of dangers is graphically described in the Oregon Motorcycle Driver's manual. Reading this dark little pamphlet is a little like reading the surgeon general's report on cigarette smoking. With this grim tract out there, it's a wonder there are any scooters in the state.

In an inelegant, disconnected transition from scooters to Origami, it's time to report that I've now tried my hand at folding peace cranes. I got lucky on my first attempt, a diminutive pink birdlike wad, but can't seem to replicate it. My plan, as reported earlier, is to fold (without spindling and mutilating) a string of cranes to "decorate" our Hillsdale bus stop's "Army Strong" recruiting sign. The goal is to make one paper crane for each of the 80 Oregonians who have died in the Iraq War.

It may take a while.

Tomorrow in the Farmers Market, while patrons savor chocolate-dipped strawberries, I'm hoping some patient soul will drop by my peace table and show this hardened visual learner a fool-proof way to turn a square piece of paper into a peace crane.

I know it can be done.

Kim Osgood wins a TV-B-Gone at Hillsdale Farmers Market

In the run-up to TV Turnoff Week, (April 23-29) I staged a contest in today's Hillsdale Farmers Market. It took the form of an eight-question, multiple-choice quiz. The contestant with the best score won a much-prized TV-B-Gone.

The winner was Kim Osgood, co-owner of Paloma Clothing and well-known Portland artist.

There was some good news and bad news about the other results. I'll get to that after I share the quiz with you. Try your hand at it.

Here it is:

Test your Media Literacy knowledge

1. How much TV does the average American watch each day?

2 hours 3.5 hours 4.5 hours 6 hours

2. What percentage of Americans eat their dinners with the TV on?

30 percent 40 percent 50 percent 60 percent

3. The average child under the age of 3 watches how much TV a day?

1 hour 2 hours 3 hours 4 hours

4. The American Academy of Pediatrics says its OK for a child under the age of two to watch how many hours of TV each day?

0 hours 1 hour 2 hours 3 hours

5. A child’s chance of being overweight increases 6 percent for every….

1 hour increase of average daily TV consumption 2 hours… 3 hours…

6. For every hour increase of average TV watched daily, a child’s chances of developing attention-related problems later increase by….

1 percent 4 percent 5 percent 1 0 percent

7. The average child spends more time watching screens than

being in school sleeping playing outdoors each one of these


8. Assuming that an American’s life expectancy is 80 years how many full years will he or she spend watching TV in a lifetime?

5 years 10 years 12 years 15 years 20 years


OK, now for the good news and that bad news. Perhaps the most important question on the quiz is #4, about the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation for kids under two. The good news is that slightly over two/thirds of the 34 test takers got the answer right: the AAP recommends ZERO screen time for the very little ones.

The bad news, of course, is that 11 quiz takers got it wrong.

The real shocker for a lot of testtakers was that the average American spends 15 FULL years in front of a TV. One young quiz taker, who happened to be 15 years old, was astonished. "That means every moment I've been alive!"

Exactly.

The other answers are: 1. 4.5 hours, 2. 40 percent, 3. 2 hours 5. 1 hour, 6. 10 percent, 7. each one of these (note that it says "screen time," which includes text messaging and video games).

Community abates global warming

INK, the information-packed little newsletter Powell's Books publishes each month, has a commendable essay by Bill McKibben in the April issue.

McKibben suggests that the bottom line on fighting global warming is forging strong communities.

In other words, in the face of this global crisis, we are doing a lot of the right things here in Hillsdale—and in Portland.

We need locally-owned community businesses, farmers markets, strong community schools, excellent mass transit and community plazas, paths and parks to keep people close to home. We need to support those institutions and not sell out to large multi-national corporations.

(By the way, Wednesday's parks naming rights debate before the City Council may touch on this very issue.)

Mass media and mega-corporations pull our attentions and resources away from where we live. Worse, they promote rampant commercialism and consumerism that isolate us and are destroying the planet.

"The endless parade of screens," McKibben writes, "keep us occupied by ourselves. As a result, Americans have far fewer close friends than they did a generation ago. We spend far less time with friends and neighbors and relatives."

We are also far less creative and resourceful.

Another result is that, by world standards, Americans, for all their relative wealth, are not particularly happy. Many are stressed.

But as we build our communities, we are rediscovering the joy experienced by those who live more modestly.

Those of us who have traveled abroad and visited farmers markets know they provide staples not only for their customers but for civic life. We have felt the joy of congregation swirling around the busy market kiosks and booths. Here in the Hillsdale Farmers Market, and in others around the city, we experience the same joy.

I have often joked with some truth that Hillsdale does far more civic business on Sundays in the market than it does at sparsely attended neighborhood meetings with long agendas.

Here's another thought about community and global warming. Often communities grow stronger in crisis. The Rieke School parents will tell you that their community is much stronger today because the school district threatened to shut down the school. Many of us in Southwest Portland got involved in our neighborhoods when city planners threatened to impose rough-shod rezoning here.

I'll venture to guess that global warming, for all its troubling consequences, will create challenges that will draw us together and ultimately make us stronger. The crisis will force us to weigh and choose what is truly important: our own selfish, dispiriting needs or those of the planet and its future.