December 12

Top on the list of this date is Jeff's birthday. He joined us when I was still in the navy and made his entrance via the now defunct U. S. Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, Pa. That earmarks this day forever in my mind.

Yesterday we went to Washington Square Mall. It is big by mall standards, but not huge. It is about 15 miles from hear near Beaverton (Nike's hometown) which is on the south west hill area outside of Portland. I usually don't like malls, and this one has no special features...Macy's, Nordstrom's, Penney's plus all the shops that go with it, but yesterday was different. I enjoyed myself.

I usually plunk down on a bench while Aleene looks at baby/children's clothes. So I found a nice bench outside Victoria Secret (or is it Victoria's Secrets?) anyway, I was sitting there drinking my Starbucks when a guy with a walker showed up and in very broken English asked if he could join me. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Pete .....occous and he had on a ball cap that said, "I am Greek." So I asked him how Greek he was? Well, what ensued was a fifteen minute conversation about why and how he was in Beaverton, OR and I told him all my old Greek stories (Pirious, Athens, Corfu, Rhodes, Crete) and he told me he was from Salonika...north of all my spots and that he was a tailor. "De vunted, Greek tailor, so here I am," he said. My visits to Greece were so fast and so touristy that I couldn't be too educated about the country, but I do know that the best place to buy a suit in the Med was in Greece and a lot of us did that.

Pete was refreshing to talk to, but due to the nature of the conversation I did not get to let my mind wonder much outside VS. Aleene said she would let me buy her a VS Santa Suit like was in the window, if I would let her keep it on. "You'd see me in that thing and you'd want me to take it off," I think is what she said. Yep. I resemble that remark as our old buddy Garfield would say.

Happy Birthday, Jeff.