The Oregon Shanghaiers: Columbia River Crimping From Astoria to Portland
Coming April 15th From History PressAvailable at these booksellers.Powell's City of BooksAmazonBarnes and Nobleand many more Hauntings and HorsefeathersOver the past two decades there has been an...
View ArticleHow Deep is My River? Part 4
During my days of working on the docks it slowly dawned on me that a city 113 miles from the sea is an odd place for a major seaport. When I began researching the subject, and discovered how these...
View ArticleUpdate on an Update
My "static, HTML5" website, (as it would be called by a geek), is Portland's Lost Waterfront at: www.portlandwaterfront.org. Today it received a bit of an overhaul looking toward the appearance in...
View ArticleThe First Girl "Mysterious" Billy Smith Ever Loved
To cover discoveries not directly connected to the old waterfront I have started a new blog, Oregon Ozone. I stole the name from an Oregonian column from the 1890s.The first girl “Mysterious” Billy...
View ArticleAsthmatic Weakling Writes Book on Prizefighting in Portland
It is true, an asthmatic weakling, who used to regularly give up his lunch money as tribute to bullies, has written a book on prizefighting. Not only this, History Press has just published it! Oregon...
View ArticleThe End of Summer—and a new book in time for the Holidays
As the sky takes on more red color, causing the little green plants to spurt forth buds, and the year turns toward Indian Summer I find it necessary (at least for my own conscience sake) to give some...
View ArticlePowell’s City of Books Experience
I want to thank everyone who came for helping to make last night wonderful thing (to paraphrase a Steely Dan lyric). I would say that it was "awesome," but I am no longer a teenager.From the young man...
View ArticleTime Traveler On TV
The big announcement/reminder is this:Tomorrow I will be interviewed on KATU Channel 2 AM Northwest at 9 AMThen that evening I will be speaking atPowell's City of Books downtown at 7:30I will be so...
View ArticleFragment: Malachi not Mikola
I have noticed how mistakes will sometimes be picked up and repeated in history books and articles. One mistake that is repeated in a number of books and articles on Oregon’s shanghaiers is L.M....
View ArticleAnnouncement
Kick Ass InterviewFor you who missed the broadcast here is the interview I did with Doug Kinck-Crispin dispelling some myths of old Portland. Give it a listen!Coming up!Thursday July 10thIn the...
View ArticleA Most Barbarous and Disgraceful Proceeding
While looking into the previously mentioned invasion of “Sydney Ducks” into San Francisco, and the subsequent rise of lynchings and other forms of vigilantism, I stumbled on the following brief article...
View ArticleCan Any Good Thing Come From San Francisco?
The title to the first chapter of my book, The Oregon Shanghaiers, is: “Can Any Good Thing Come From San Francisco.” Some readers may have found this either somewhat insulting, or confusing, so I hope...
View ArticleA Bit of an Update
--This just in -- It looks like July 10th is a big day for me. --This just in -- It looks like July 10th is a big day for me. I will be giving a talk at Powell's in the evening, and that morning I will...
View ArticleShanghaied in Portland, Oregon
Some of you may be familiar with this story of a young logger named Scrumpy who visits the big city for a good time and ends up becoming a sailor. Either Youtube or my video had technical problems--it...
View ArticleWhy I Wrote "The Oregon Shanghaiers"
After I finished my first book on Portland, Portland’s Lost Waterfront, I had no intention of taking the story of the shanghaiers any further. I had touched on them briefly in the book, but still, it...
View ArticleThe Oregon Shanghaiers: Columbia River Crimping From Astoria to Portland
Coming April 15th From History PressAvailable at these booksellers.Powell's City of BooksAmazonBarnes and Nobleand many more Hauntings and HorsefeathersOver the past two decades there has been an...
View ArticleThe Riversdale Incident
The full-rigged ship, RiversdaleBack in the palmy days of the Portland sailor’s boarding masters the occasional landlubber that was shipped was small fry compared to the steady trade in deserting...
View ArticleBunko Kelly's Music Video
I needed to get this done so I could spend more time on my newest book (due in March). I still don't feel like publicizing the topic, since it is a little weird for me to show interest in such goings...
View ArticleEmbracing Fakelore
Having seeing the old Stewart Holbrook chestnut, “How the Flying Prince Got its Crew” treated like authentic history by people who should know better, I decided to get into this “fakelore” business...
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