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By ADAM LAPIERRE
Hood River News Editorial
July 22, 2006
I do not have much in my wallet.
I’ve never been sentimental, so photos of old friends, favorite
fortune cookie quotes and old identification cards find their way to
storage or the trash long before they hitch a ride in my back pocket.
I haven’t had a girlfriend in years, so you’ll find no chick pix there
either, and my wallet is most definitely not bulging with cash.
I am … a billfold minimalist.
One thing I have carried with me every day for the last 10 years,
however, is a crumpled, laminated old quote a friend’s mother once
gave me.
The quote has been something of a life anthem for me — partially
because I always tried to live the way it suggests and partially
because I now strive to change to live the way it suggests.
I don’t know who wrote this quote or when. To me, it sounds like
something the late Hunter S. Thompson might have jotted down in a
notebook during his Rum Diary days.
My Rum Diaries have not yet been written, but they’re in the process.
This column is my last work for the Hood River News … for now. Next
Saturday morning I will board a plane in Portland, re-route in Los
Angeles, and land 20-something hours later in Tokyo. I’ll be back to
Hood River in no earlier than one year.
Although I love this town, my family, my friends, my dog, the
mountain, the kite beach, Full Sail, Parkdale stars and everything
else that makes life here so much fun, taking the Coordinator of
International Relations job in Tsuruta was a no-brainer.
Every time I think about what I am leaving behind, I recall this
favorite quote of mine and the dull, nervous heartache fades into the
rising excitement of what I’m about to experience.
And this is how I have lived since graduating Hood River Valley High
in 1999.
I’ve moved from Parkdale to Corvallis, to Hood River, to Corvallis, to
Guam, to Bend, to Odell, to Sunriver, to Alaska, to Guam and back to
Hood River. Japan will be the next on my list … I wonder what will
follow that.
With each new town came new friends. I got to know most of them enough
for it to hurt when I moved again. After a while that lifestyle can
harden people, if they let it. For me it has done the opposite.
Life is short, crazy things happen and time passes way too fast to
feel anything but love and compassion for others, and for life in
general.
Reporting sports for the Hood River News was great. Thanks, everyone,
for working with me and for giving me cool stuff to write about and
photograph. Please keep it up and be kind to the new guy.
And remember (this is that favorite quote by the way) … “Life is not a
journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty
and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly
used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming to the universe: Wow
— what a ride!”
*****
Round Table is an ongoing forum for Hood River News staffers, even
those such as Adam who are leaving us. The staff wishes Adam an
exciting — but safe — arrival and experience in Japan. |
