Just A Field

When teacher Steve Brand died at Christmas time last year, he left behind his wonderful family, including some great young daughters and he also left a void at Chapman Elementary school where he taught. Now, that Chapman community is honoring him, and his love of soccer, by raising money to pay for a turf field to be installed at the school. As a friend of Steve and his family, I photographed kids playing soccer in the rain and mud today to highlight the awful conditions at Chapman and at most Portland schools in spring. Good luck to the effort. I hope to see the field next year!

Serendipity!

Almost exactly 2 years ago, on a road trip thru California, I stopped at a homeless encampment in Sacramento that had just hit the news with a visit from Oprah and other national media. I met some wonderful people who had lived there for many years. One of the residents, Robert Burgins, and I spent some time talking about his life in the past and how the media had changed the view of his current "home" The encampment was closed by the city several days later and all of the folks moved on. Last week while photographing the Portland cityscape, I ran into Robert! He was still homeless but was using services to find work and was in good spirits. Nice.