Oregon

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It’s that time of year again.  The leaves are turning, the kiddos are back in school and the Soroptimist International of Gresham, is presenting the 27^th annual Teddy Bear Parade in Historic Downtown Gresham on Saturday, September 26^th, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.  Over 35 groups will be marching in the parade, and nearly 4,000 spectators are expected to attend.

The parade will begin at East Hill Church, 701 N Main Ave, and will wind through downtown Gresham, then back to East Hill Church.

Groups marching in the parade will be holding, displaying, and even dressed as teddy bears.  Hundreds of the furry bears are expected to attend.

The Teddy Bear got its name from President Theodore Roosevelt.  After an unsuccessful bear hunt, a bear cub was captured and brought to him to shoot.  The President declined, dubbing the bear “Teddy’s Bear”, which became one of America’s favorite toys, the Teddy Bear.

For more information, contact the Gresham Chamber of Commerce at 503-665-1131.

October is peeking around the corner, and local haunts and pumpkin patches are ghouling up to get the Halloween season rolling full scream ahead.

Find the best local pumpkin patches and haunts right here.  If you don’t see what you’re looking for, keep checking back.  As events are underway, they will be added to the list.

If you have an event that you want the world to know about, email  SShorrorreview@gmail.com with information or press releases.

Here are 2009’s best Halloween spooks:

Pumpkin Patches:

• Fantasy Trail

Haunted Houses:

• Scream at the Beach
• The Davis Graveyard

Halloween Events:

Peter Facinelli, or better known to ‘Twilight’ fans as Dr. Carlisle Cullen, the charismatic leader of the Cullen family, is going to be at a meet-and-greet Saturday, August 29^th, 2009 in Jantzen Beach.

The time is noon and the place is near the carousel carousel  in the Jantzen Beach Super Center.

Why is Peter coming to Jantzen Beach?  He’s raising money for Dorenbechers Children’s Hospital.  Well, and plugging his new movie, ‘New Moon’, of course.

Jantzen Beach Super Center is hoping to pull in hundreds of hungry fans for the meet-and-greet.  Stef-Anie Wells, who is the marketing director for Jantzen Beach Center states, “It shows the power of movies.”

Fans will have the chance to win passes to the premier of the newest installment in the ‘Twilight’ saga, ‘New Moon’, and will get a chance to get the star’s autograph and picture.

Get there early, because the last time the ‘Twilight’ stars hit the Portland area, fans lined up for hours before the event, and nearly half didn’t get in to see them.

‘New Moon’, the second movie in the ‘Twilight’ series is set to hit the theaters November 20^th, 2009.  ‘New Moon’ promises to step up the heart rate where the former movie left off.

How is he going to raise money for Doernbechers Children’s Hospital?  Well, that’s the catch.  If you want an autograph from Dr. Cullen, you will have to fork out twenty five dollars.  For a photo, the cost is forty.  It may seem out of this world, but think of all the wonderful things that money is going to go towards.  ‘Twilight’ fans fork out way more than that for autographs on Ebay that they don’t even know are real.  This event is the real deal.

Where the heck is the Jantzen Beach Super Center?  It’s located at 1405 Jantzen Beach Center Portland, OR 97217.  Call 503-286-9103 for more information.

You just can’t help but see it everywhere.  Leaves on the trees are changing colors signaling the end of summer.  School supply shopping ads are filling the Sunday Oregonian, and everyone is getting back into the school schedule.  There are some great things you can do with your kiddos as we approach fall that includes all of the senses.

Get out there and get moving, Oregon.  Take your kiddos on a walk and talk about the things that are changing all around us:

Sight:

Have the children look at the trees blowing in the wind, and explain how the wind comes in the fall to help the trees shed their leaves.  Talk about how the trees and leaves blow in the wind.  Are they moving fast or slow?

Touch:

Have children pick up a leaf that has fallen from a tree.  Explain how the trees are starting to “go to sleep” for the winter.  Ask them to explain how the wind feels on their faces.  Is it hot?  Is it Cold?  Is it warm?  Is it blowing hard or soft?  Is the leaf they picked up dry or soft?  How long do they think it’s been on the ground?

Sound:

Ask if they can hear it wind in the leaves.  Have them close their eyes and listen.  See if they can make the sound of the wind.

Smell:

Ask the children to smell the leaves and explain what kind of smell it is.  Does it smell like dirt?  Does it have a smell?  Does the air smell different than normal?  When you get back from your walk, serve a fresh apple and explain that apples are picked in the fall.  Have them smell it, and explain that apples are a fall smell.

Taste:  Talk about the flavors of fall foods.  Ask them to explain how the apple tastes.  Different kinds of apples can be served as well, so you can have the sweet taste of a Red Delicious and the sour taste of a Granny Smith.  Cut an apple in half and show them the seeds, and explain how the apples fall to the ground in the fall, then they are carried by animals, and dropped in the soil to grow new trees.

PROJECT:

Cut an apple in half.  Have the children dip one half in tempera paint and stamp it on a piece of paper.  For more advanced little ones, they can turn their stamp into a drawing after the paint is dry, or use their fingertips to stamp fingerprint arms, legs, and heads on their apple stamp, using it as a body.

The heat wave is here, and it looks like we’ll be battling hot temps for at least the next week.  Many Oregonians don’t have air conditioning because generally, it doesn’t get very hot here, and if it does, it doesn’t stay for long.

How do you find a way to sleep comfortably on hot nights?  Here are some tips that can make all the difference:

1.       Buckwheat pillows and mattresses: they don’t retain your body heat like other mattresses and pillows.

2.       Sleep like an Egyptian: Dampen a sheet or run it through the wash and sleep with it on top of you.  Make sure you have a dry sheet or towel under you.  You can also dampen a T-shirt and ring it out really well and wear it.  Evaporation from the shirt keeps you cooled off.

3.       Ice packs: Either hard packs or soft packs will help keep you cool while you sleep.  If you use soft ones, put them in a pillowcase to keep you from it being too cold.

4.       Chillin’: Place your pillowcase, sheets, pajamas, or whatever you want to be cold in extra large freezer bags and place in the freezer in the morning.  By the time you need them, they’ll be super cool and you’ll fall asleep faster.

5.       Wet feet: Dampen cotton socks and ring them out really well.  Wear them to bed, but make sure there is a dry towel under your feet.

6.       Make a corn sock: Fill a tube sock with feed corn and place it in the freezer.  No feed corn?  Try rice.  No rice?  Try a mixture of flax seed and lavender.

7.       Baking Soda: Sprinkle a very light layer of baking soda on the sheet you sleep on.  People swear by this one.

8.       Go commando: Sleep in the nude.  This is a debatable subject because some think it makes you hotter while others say it makes you cooler.

9.       Take a cold shower: Before you hit the sack, take a cool shower and don’t fully dry off.

10.   Take a plunge: Fill up a pan or bucket with ice water then plunge your feet in it for as long as you can stand it.  You will be cooled off very quickly.

Take steps to stay cool and we’ll make it through this heat wave just fine.  Try to get sleep, because cranky hot people have more accidents, road rage, and make poor choices.  Stay cool, Oregon.

Oaks Park has a long standing tradition of hosting 4^th of July fireworks, and 2009 is no different.  The Pepsi Fireworks Spectacular celebration will be chalked full of cotton candy, thrill rides, and carnival games.

Gates for this event open at noon, and picnic spaces are first come first serve, so get there early.  You can’t bring alcohol or fireworks to this event, but you can bring food, non-alcoholic beverages, and an appetite for adrenalin.

The cost for this event is $4.00 to get in the gate if you’re sixteen or over, and $2.50 for kiddos fifteen and under.

Ride bracelets are $11.75 for limited bracelets, and $14.50 for a Deluxe that gets you on to everything, although height restrictions do apply, so if kiddos aren’t tall enough, they won’t be allowed on the “scary” rides even with a bracelet.

If you don’t want to spend the whole day spinning up-side-down, ride tickets can also be purchased.

Stay safe, and have a great 4^th of July!

Trust me, you’re gonna’ love it!

Every Fourth of July, the best in the business head down to the waterfront to give Portland everything they’ve got.  What do they have that you might want?  The blues.  To be exact, The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival , which is not only one of the biggest annual events for Portland, but the largest blues festival this side of the Mississippi.  This year, the performances promise to be the best yet, so put it on your calendar from July 2-5^th to be at the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in 2009!  

Outside Magazine listed the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival as one of the 15 Greatest Outdoor Music Festivals in June, 2009.  You don’t want to miss over 100 performances

This year, the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is promising to help in the fight to stamp out hunger.  Acts such as Etta James and the Roots Band, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Ryan Shaw, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Johnny Winter, Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Sonny Landreth, Robben Ford, Rick Estrin and the Nightcats, and more will be filling the air with the most prominent blues performances this genre has to offer.

What, it’s not enough to see the blues from the park?  Well, then a Delta Music Experience Blues Cruise might be in your future. 

Festival passes are available now, so don’t delay.

How can you help stamp out hunger?  Every admission to the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is a donation to the Oregon Food Bank to help them in their fight against hunger.  In the past, the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival has raised over 1.35 million pounds of food.  Not only that, they’ve raised about 4 million dollars in just over 20 years. 

Admission to the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is a $10.00 donation AND 2 cans of food per person per day that you come.  Please help stamp out hunger.  No one deserves to be hungry.  You don’t have to limit yourself to 2 cans either.  Bring as much as you want.  You know they need it.

According to the Oregon Food Bank , these are the foods they need the most:

• Canned meat such as tuna, chicken, and salmon
• Canned and boxed meals such as stew, macaroni and cheese, and soup
• Cooking oil
• Canned or dried peas or beans
• Pastas, rices, and cereals
• Canned fruit
• 100% juice either in cans, plastic, or boxes

There is also a list of foods not to bring:

• Rusty or unlabeled cans
• Perishable items
• Homemade items
• Noncommercial canned or packaged items
• Alcohol, alcoholic mixes, soda
• Open or used items

The Oregon Food Bank wants you to know that the food donations are the most important part of any food drives, but without the cash donations as well, they couldn’t fill the trucks with gas to get the food where it needs to be, the lights on in the food bands, and the freezers needed to keep food longer wouldn’t work. 

As well as the direct cost of running the food bank programs, they sponsor other programs at the root of the problem, providing advocacy, education, and tools to people who would otherwise rely on food banks forever.

Remember, if you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day.  If you teach a man to fish, and you not only feed him for a lifetime, but he can feed his family, and help his village (or in our case, the economy).

Your $10 donation fills an emergency food box well enough to support an entire family for 3-5 days. 

Don’t forget the FIREWORKS over the river on the 4^th at 10:00 p.m.  When the barges roll in and the sun goes down, you’re sure to see a show worthy of remembrance. 

Rachel Daggett, who had just turned 18 and was a senior at Sam Barlow High School, was found dead in a Gresham home in December when paramedics were called.

Everyone who knows Rachel says that she was always happy, upbeat, and not usually the one who would be drinking and using drugs at parties.  Rachel loved her family, her hair, and her cat, Lily.  She loved cars, playing in the water, and her friends.  One of her favorite things was going to the beach.   Rachel loved her family, and had big plans for the future.  She wasn’t the kind of girl who just sits around lazy, she was a girl on the move.

Rachel’s was helping her friends move.  Reports initially stated that there was a wild party the night of Rachel’s death, but friends close to her that were there before she died say that there was no party, that Rachel was staying the night and helping the young men clean before they moved out of their house.

What killed Rachel Daggett?  An overdose of Oxycodone that she smoked with her friends.  Three men are in custody accused of selling the pills that killed Rachel.  33-year-old Ronald Zaloznik had the prescription and used his little brother and his brother’s friend to sell the pills.

Oxycodone is fast becoming the top drug abused by teens.  Gresham-Barlow School District and Police will be holding a meeting on March 2^nd at Sam Barlow High School’s auditorium to address the issue of drug use in teens.

In December, Rachel Daggett, who had just turned 18, was a senior at Sam Barlow High School.  In a series of unfortunate events, Rachel made some unhealthy choices and was found dead in a Gresham home.  That morning, her family lost a shining star, and students at Sam Barlow High School lost a true friend.

Although reports were sketchy at first, I did some more investigation on who really was Rachel Daggett.

Everyone who knows Rachel says that she was always happy, upbeat, and not the kind of girl who would use drugs or drink at parties.  Rachel loved her family very much.  She also loved her beautiful long blond hair.  Rachel loved her cat, Lily, who surly misses her human.  She loved cars, playing in the water, and her friends.  One of her favorite things to do was to go to the beach.   As a senior on the brink of graduation, Rachel had big plans for the future.  She wasn’t the kind of girl who just sits around lazy and let the world pass her by, she was a girl on the move.

Initial reports made about the night Rachel died said that she was at a 21-year-old male’s home who had just been evicted and was throwing a huge party on the last night in their home.  No one spoke about what had happened at the party, and friends close to her and the boys who were moving from the home say that there was no party.

Sources say that Rachel was helping the two young boys who lived in the home move, and that the boys were both 18 and hadn’t been evicted.  Friends believe that she stayed over night to help them clean up the home and finish moving because that’s what kind of friend she was.

What killed Rachel Daggett?  Toxicology reports show that Rachel died from an  overdose of Oxycodone that she smoked with her friends.  Three men are now in custody, accused of selling the pills that killed Rachel.  33-year-old Ronald Zaloznik had the prescription and used his little brother and his brother’s friend to sell the pills.

How could such a bright and beautiful young lady be led down the path that caused her death?  Only people closest to Rachel would know why she made the fatal choice of smoking a prescription drug.  She’s not alone. Prescription drug use is a huge and largely fatal problem in teens.

Oxycodone is fast becoming the top drug abused by teens.  Gresham-Barlow School District and Police will be holding a meeting on March 2^nd at Sam Barlow High School’s auditorium to address the issue of drug use in teens. 

Every year on February 2^nd thousands of people flock to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for festivities and the prediction of the most famous groundhog in the world, Punxsutawney Phil.  Also, every year on February 2^nd, when the rest of the world gets the news, the debate begins on what it means if the groundhog saw or didn’t see its shadow.  Just tonight, a news anchor who was trying to explain the logistics of the shadow confused herself.  If he sees his shadow, what does it mean?  Why a groundhog?  Here is a brief history and explanation that’s sure to answer all of your Punxsutawney questions.

Groundhog Day originated in the 1700’s by the people who settled Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, believed in the legend of Candlemans Day.  If the sun shone on Candlemans Day, so far the snow will swirl in May,” or so the legend goes.  Candlemans Day fell in the middle of Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.  Clergymen would bless candles to be placed in everyone’s windows.

The earliest recorded reference to Groundhog Day in America is displayed at the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center, and is dated February 4^th, 1841.  It explains that German settlers believe that if the Groundhog peeps out of his winter home and sees his shadow, he naps for six more weeks, but if it’s cloudy, he stays up.

Originally, the Germans were watching a badger for its shadow, but in Pennsylvania, it was replaced by the Groundhog.  In 1886, a newspaper editor named Clymer Freas printed in The Punxsutawney Spirit, “Today is Groundhog Day and up to the time of going to press the beast has not seen its shadow.”

Then, the groundhog was given the name “Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary”.  Suddenly, Punxsutawney was named the “Weather Capital of the World.”

On his first appearance, there was no shadow, which meant there would be an early spring.  The next year, the tradition of going to Gobbler’s Knob began.

Today, Punxsutawney is still a fairly small town of under ten thousand people, but on February 2^nd every year, thousands flock to Gobbler’s Knob to see the famous groundhog predict the coming of spring.

In 1993, a movie starring Bill Murray called ‘Groundhog Day’ created an even bigger buzz for the annual ritual visit to Gobbler’s Knob.  Suddenly thousands of people became tens of thousands of people.

Just how often does Punxsutawney Phil get it right?  According to http://www.groundhog.org/about/ he gets it right 100 percent of the time and is 120 years old.  In reality, the guessing groundhog only gets it right 39% of the time.  Since the first official trip to Gobbler’s Knob, he’s seen his shadow 97 times, no shadow 15 times, and there is no record for 9 years of the festivities.

February 2^nd, 2009 marks the 123^rd trip to Gobbler’s Knob for Punxsutawney Phil’s official prognostication.  Among the festivities in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania will be fireworks, fun, and the official prediction at about 7:25 a.m. Eastern Time.

Most Oregonians won’t be awake when the groundhog shows himself, which will be at about 4:25 our time, but every morning news show will be doing a report on the famous fur ball.

Want to celebrate with a movie and your favorite brew?  Alberta Street Pub will be showing the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ at 9 p.m.  Alberta Street Pub is located at 1036 NE Alberta Street.