Showing posts with label Mason Mental Health Center. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mason Mental Health Center. Show all posts

December 25, 2022

About Hal Brown, MSW, and the history of the Mason Mental Health Center in Mason, Michigan





About Hal Brown and the history of the Mason Mental Health Center in Mason, Michigan

My name is Hal Brown. I am an 81 year old retired Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW, Massachusetts) - or at least I was 81 when I updated this in April of 2025. I was a psychotherapist in private practice in Michigan and Massachusetts and a community mental health center director in Michigan. I was also a cranberry grower along with my late wife Betty and a member of the Ocean Spray cooperative.

I am currently living in Portland, Oregon. I moved here in 2014, four years after Betty died at the age of 65. 


I used to write a column on Capitol Hill Blue. This is the oldest political website. I posted stories on Daily Kos about "Trumpology: The psychological study and analysis of Donald Trump" and on general political subjects which you can read here. There are over 1,700 of these articles on the website.

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This is me at my home office in Middleboro, Massachusetts about 30  years ago.


Something about me:
I received my Masters in Social Work from Michigan State University in 1971 and was a psychotherapist until my retirement. My main salaried work experience was with one of the best community mental health programs in the country, Clinton-Eaton-Ingham Community Mental Health Board, headquartered in Lansing, Michigan. I always had a private practice along with my salaried job.  

RIP: 

My friend and colleague Mel was one of the original Three Musketeers as we sometimes called ourselves, the first staff therapists who worked together when the Mason Mental Health Center opened, died in 2022. Mel and I worked closely together along with Mary Louis, MSW to literally build Mason Mental Health Center by constructing walls to make offices out of large rooms in our building and of course we put together a program serving the previously poorly served small town and rural areas of the Ingham County where most of Lansing is located. 

As newly credentialed therapists we made up in enthusiasm and caring for our clients what we lacked in experience. We provided clinical supervision to each other and with nobody to tell us not to try new approaches we learned and grew as therapists from our successes and thankfully very few failures.

Much credit is due to the program's supervisor, the late Ben Perri, PhD who didn't have much more clinical experience than we did, for having the wisdom to hire the three of us and allowing us the freedom to learn and grow.

In those early days we didn't have time limits for how long we could see clients and when appropriate could we could see them more than once a week or partner with another therapist and do co-therapy. We weren't held back by the rules of insurance companies or Medicare and of having to use check-lists that pigeon-holed clients into a set of problems and our setting observable goals. We just treated our clients as we'd want to be treated ourselves: as real people with real feelings. 

The rules were relaxed in another important way at that time. I had much more leeway in who I hired and promoted. For example Marilyn Braman was our van driver and Jackie Lawrence was one of our secretaries. Neither had college degrees but both demonstrated such rapport with clients that when I had an opening in the day treatment program I promoted them to be mental health workers, basically aides who did pretty much the same thing the credentialed staff. I hired Jim Mueller as a therapist in day treatment even though his BA was in philosophy. He went on to get his MSW at Smith College which has the best clinical social work program in the country. Notably I hired Linda Ward who had a BSW to design and run the day treatment and aftercare programs. A year or two later that job would have required at least a masters degree. She put together a program that turned out to be a model program emulated by other programs around the state.

We also saw many outpatient clients for a token fee of $2.00.

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The History of Mason Mental Health Center

by Hal Brown 

(click images to enlarge)

The original staff in 1971
Top row: Mel Scherpinesse, MA; Ben Perri, PhD (Director); Hal Brown, MSW
Bottom row: Mary Louis, MSW; Barb Hollenbeck, and Ellen Martinson; our secretaries.






Tom Helma, MA, was the second director

From its inception at the very beginning of the era where public mental health services were generously funded, the Mason Mental Health Center was a barometer of the value government placed on providing high quality outpatient mental health services to people in locations that were easily accessible. 

The Mason program itself was a branch office of a much larger program located in Lansing, Michigan. The town of Mason had a population of 5,500, but the rural area it served had a population of over 35,000. We ran clinics in three outlying towns in the corners of the county (Leslie, Stockbridge, and Williamston), and brought our services to an underserved population.

Why are these Mason Mental Health staff members smiling?

While our work was serious we always found time to relax among ourselves.  



Click to enlarge (that's me in the striped shirt)



During the heyday of publicly funded mental health our program continued to grow. The staff increased and we moved our building to one with twice the space, and then increased our space there two-fold. We were able to provide service on a sliding fee scale and generally could see clients for as long as they needed therapy. Our paperwork requirements were minimal, and there was no such thing as managed care. 


We called these one-day-a-week clinics satellites, and operated three of them.
Mine was in Stockbridge, Mel Scherpinesse ran one in Williamston, and Mary Louis
was in a tiny town called Leslie. These clinics were the first to close as budgets
were cut in the mid-1980's. 

Fashion Comment: I'm glad I wasn't the only one wearing plaid pants in this photo.


From 1971 to the day it closed in 1989, Mason Mental Health increased its
physical size. In the building above, located in downtown Mason, we added
a day treatment program and doubled our size. Then after there was a "sick|
building" scare, when about half the staff began to suffer eye irritations, we were
forced to move to a large building (below) on the outskirts of town.


We began by occupying half of the new building, but eventually took over the other half.
The day there was a meeting where my bosses decided to close the center, we actually
had a carpenter converting a small office to a file room.

Read about our dubious distinction (click to enlarge):

We were one of the first offices to herald the epidemic of so-called "sick buildings." While I never got any symptoms, I observed both staff members and visitors have their eyes turn red and swell nearly shut after a short time in the building. Thousands of dollars were spent to see if there were any toxins or irritants present. Specialists were brought in from the state health department, Michigan State University and from two private firms. The Center for Disease Control even reviewed all the findings. All that was ever found was a minute amount of formaldehyde in the air, less than would be expected from any building where people smoked cigarettes.

Regardless of these scientific findings, we were forced to move to the temporary quarters in an old house, pictured below. The new tenants of the building never had any health problems.



Therapists Toni Warley-Mansion, Sue Austin, Rikki Schoenthal, Hal, and Kathy Hill (secretary)

Kathy Hill and therapist Barb White
Above: Barb White and Linda Ward. My office was in the alcove on the right behind the black shelves with a curtain for a door.

Interestingly, we suffered no drop-off in client referrals while we occupied this building.

The rooms upstairs had no doors when we moved in, so we constructed and installed plywood doors ourselves. Day Treatment moved to the basement of the Farm Bureau two blocks away. For privacy we always had the radio blasting. Office space in the area was scarce, so for three months we had no idea when (or if) we would move. Despite the fact that we were working under trying conditions, we always found time
for a break.

In 1982, the Mason Mental Health Center was one of the first programs to receive a grant from the Veterans Administration to operate a program to treat Vietnam veterans suffering from delayed post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, I believe we were one of only two community mental health centers to receive such a grant. Eventually the VA itself opened outreach programs themselves all over the country, and programs like ours were phased out.

Our program began in November of 1981 without any involvement with the VA. Not a veteran myself, I had been working with a few Vietnam combat veterans in therapy. They were involved in a Vietnam veterans' organization and were contacted by the local PBS television station, WKAR in East Lansing, MI, to put together a group to take phone calls at the station after they aired a special on post Vietnam stress syndrome. 

They suggested that I be one of the resource people available, not to take calls, but to assist those vets who were. The phone calls began to pour in after the program and I decided on the spot to offer a group at Mason Mental Health for any vets who wanted to attend. A few nights later 25 showed up for the first of many vets groups, and spin-off groups for spouses of vets. 

That was how we did business in those days. If we saw a need, we tried to met it. We weren't volunteers, one of "the thousand points of light." We were paid for what we did, but we did it because it needed to be done. The real heroes of the Vietnam veterans programs were the clients themselves. They hung together and helped each other through touch times as they dealt with inner demons. 

One man in particular went on to be appointed to the Governor's Agent Orange Commission where he distinguished himself, until he succumbed to a cancer that was probably caused by agent orange. I am certain he would give me permission to publish his name as he made no secret of having been part of the Mason Mental Health program as a client. I still have to maintain his confidentiality, but those who read this will know who he is. 

I would have liked to keep the program independent from the VA, but I knew that I needed to hire a Vietnam veteran who was also a professional psychotherapist, and there weren't many of them around. So when VA funds became available I wrote the grant and we were able to hire the first of several dedicated therapists. 

Unfortunately, the VA took over much of the control of the program and while it continued almost until Mason Mental Health closed, our relationship with the VA was never very good. They insisted on approving clients before we saw them, even for first time emergency sessions that we were willing to do for free. We had to attend regular meetings at a VA center 60 miles away, and our therapists ended up having two supervisors. One hated bureaucracies and the other seemed to thrive in one of the biggest bureaucracies in the government. One knew his therapists could empathize with Vietnam veterans far better than he could and the other... well, I'm sure you get the idea.


Mason Mental Health's Day Treatment program, as befitting a rural  program,
had a large vegetable garden. They not only sold fresh produce to local supermarkets;
but donated vegetable to the local food bank.


The staff pictured are Steve Polzin holding a watermelon, Barb White in the
lavender blouse, and coordinator Linda Ward, seated in front. To protect
confidentiality, client's faces have been covered with cutouts from a magazine.


State State Representative Debbie Stabenow was a big supporter of the program. She is now a United State Senator from Michigan and has just announced she will retire at the end of her current term.

Mason Mental Health had day treatment program began as an experiment, which ultimately failed, and which developed into a model  treatment program under Linda Ward who was hired in 1979. The earlier program included intensive group therapy which was central to its experimental component. Unfortunately this did not succeed. It was run by Michael Teixeira, then a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Michigan State University. He attempted to apply the theories of the late Michigan State University psychology professor Bertram Karon who was a proponent of a very active form of treating schizophrenia using psychoanalytic principles to our chronic clients.

In my own limited experience I had dramatic success applying these methods in my treatment with two clients who I thought were schizophrenic as they had carried that diagnosis for many years and through frequent psychiatric hospitalizations. 

I believed we could do the same thing with our own day treatment clients, most of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Over time, I saw little positive change in the day treatment clients and then realized that the clients I succeeded with had been misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, and their apparent delusions and hallucinations were really manifestations of dissociation caused by childhood trauma. Therefore I changed the methodology of the program and hired new staff.

Linda Ward came on board and developed a humanistic program where the emphasis was on relating to the clients with empathy and warmth, while working with them to establish mutually acceptable and realistic goals. Staff were always willing to reach out to clients during times of crisis and physically go to where the clients needed them to be, whether it be a group home or the public library where one of them might be having a panic attack. 

Because the town of Mason was uniquely accepting of our clients, many of whom lived in group homes there, a hallmark of the program was its success in involving our clients in community life. Jackie Lawrence deserves much of the credit for this. She began working for the program as a secretary, but before long it became obvious that the clients were drawn to her and vice versa. She had an extraordinary knack for outreach, politics, and community relations. As soon as we had a vacancy, I hired her as a mental health worker and she has been an energetic anchor for the rural aftercare program in Ingham County ever since.

By the end of 1988, the fate of the Mason Mental Health Center, was all but sealed as the
tri-county program faced a $1 million budget cut for the coming year. In 1989 it was closed.

When Mason Mental Health Center was closed in 1989, it was replaced with the smaller Mason Rural Outreach Program (or Mason ROP) with Linda Ward as its coordinator. Along with Jackie Lawrence, Nancy MacKenzie and Lois Duling, the program moved into the downstairs of a small, rundown, house across an alley from the business section of Mason.  The Mason ROP has earned accolades as one of the most innovative programs in the state of Michigan, but that is another story.

While the aftercare population of the rural part of the county receives excellent care, public comprehensive mental health service became a thing of the past when the Mason Mental Health Center was closed. All of its outpatient clients with the exception of a few children, who were still served by a part-time therapist, had to drive into Lansing for service.

I transferred to be the director of a similar program in one of the other three counties that made up the tri-county mental health program. This county was the same size as the area that the Mason Mental Health Center served, but the program there and in the second of the three counties, survive to this day because each is in a different county than Lansing.

I later learned that Mason Mental Health Center was sacrificed in order to save a few jobs at the main outpatient clinic in Lansing.


Staff

Mason Mental Health Center, Mason, Michigan

1971 - 1989 

Supervisors

Ben Perri, PhD
Tom Helma, MA
Hal Brown, MSW

Support Staff

Joy Beights
Lois Duling
Jean Emerick
E. Fuller
Kathy Hill
Barbara Hollenbach
Ellen Martinson
Pat Oakes
Sue Stone
 

Treatment Staff

Susan Austin, MSW
Jane Bell, OTR
Marilyn Braman
Shirley Brown, MA
Cindy Carlson, MSW
Maureen Chaisson, MSN
Keith Dedrich, MSW
Patricia Foreman, MEd
David Fugate, MA
Clark Etterman, MSW
Normand Gilbert, MA
Gail Gingrich, MSW
Molly Gee, MSN
Claudia Gostine, BS
Donald Healey, MA
Beverlee Kagan1, MSW
Barbara Katz, MSW
Jackie Lawrence
Mary Louis, MSW
Nancy MacKenzie, BRT
James Meuller, BA
Joan Penfield, BSW
Michael Pierce, MSW
Steve Polzin, MSW
Toby Powell, MSW
Gwen Reid, BA
Mel Scherpenisse, MA, PhD (died Mar. 24, 2022)
Rikki Schoenthal, MSW
Nancy Spaninga, BA
Michael Teixeira, MA
Barbara Thiebeau, MSW
Becky Thompson, MSW
Linda Ward, BSW
Toni Warley-Mansion, MSW
Penny Wepfer, BA
Barbara White, MSW
Margo Winkler, MSW
Jean Zugger, MSW

(many of the above staff have since earned higher degrees)

Medical Staff

Luther Goldschmidt, MD
Malcolm Johnston, DO
Alex Lebedovych, MD
Gerald Osborne, DO


Footnotes:

1. Beverlee Kagan passed away in Florida in 2002

This is a list compiled from memory. If I left someone off, or spelled a name wrong, I'm sorry. 

I'm always interested in hearing from former staff as well. In fact, I just ran into a Mason Mental Health Center therapist who I hadn't seen in over twenty years at a seminar. With 1,000  attendees, he ended up sitting directly behind me in the first workshop. Neither of us knew we were both living in Massachusetts.

It was my chance encounter, and delightful reminiscing, with him that led me to dig up these old photographs and put together this brief illustrated history of Mason Mental Health.
 

 

More about me:

 

In addition to practicing psychotherapy, I was the supervisor of two rural mental health centers, a clinical supervisor, and a field instructor helping to train clinical social workers from both Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. I've presented workshops at several state and two national conferences on a variety of clinical topics.  I also particpated in research conducted by Dr. Norman Kagan in a training method called Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) and made several training films with a real client.

Due to budget cuts the Mason Mental Health Center was closed and I was moved to a sister satellite center in St. Johns, the Clinton County Counseling Center. This entailed driving nearly an hour to get to work, quite a change when my office was five minutes from home.

 As the new supervisor I was supposed to remedy some major problems about which heads of all the agencies in the county had been complaining. I discovered the problems were worse than described to me and when I tried to address them by jumping in and initiating major changes without getting permission in advance I got into difficulty with the higher-ups at the main office.

This was after I discovered that the program was held in lower regard by the heads of the other agencies in the county than I had been told. 

The steps I took unilaterally without clearing them with my superiors led to a temporary suspension, which I fought with a lawyer and eventually won a pyrrhic victory and was returned to run the program under untenable circumstances. It was so bad I wasn't allow to work in my office even doing clinical supervision with staff with the door closed. If was seeing a client I could have closed the door of course but the entire time I was there the admissions staff refused to refer clients too me.

When the opportunity presented itself I resigned and my wife and I moved to Massachusetts to take over her family cranberry farm. I kept a small private practice with a home office.

Here's how the Lansing paper described what happened at the Clinton County Counseling Center.



All the heads of the country agencies wrote me glowing recommendations when I left.



I was in general adult practice where I worked with patients who were businessmen and women, construction and trade workers, housewives, professors, college students, farmers, techies in the electronics and computer industry and executives.

I also have had considerable experience working with with police officers and correction officers in both individual and couple's therapy. 
Because I spent 20 years as an auxiliary police officer in two cities I learned about police stress, I published the number one website on the subject, Police Stressline.  I began the website by posting articles I originally wrote for a print Massachusetts police magaize called Police Log. Some of the online articles were picked up and published in print police magazines. Read Daily Kos article about my police experience.



 

My Massachsetts office was very private. It was at home with its own waiting room and entrance, overlooking the cranberry bogs which, until the summer of 2006 when they were sold, were owned by my wife and her family. 
My late wife Betty and I were Ocean Spray grower-owners and we published one of the first websites to have a major impact on an entire industry, Cranberry Stressline. Because it brought together growers from across the country when there were problems with the management of Ocean Spray the website was credited with promoting a proxy war which resulted in the election of a new board of directors and the firing of the CEO, Robert Hawthorne.
As a therapist I worked with people with anxiety, depression and relationship problems, with people who are compulsive, irritable, anxious, and those who suffer from self-doubt and self-esteem problems. I also worked with people who were struggling with more existential questions such as who they are and what their life was all about. 
I always believed therapy should be a partnership between client and therapist, and that the basis for good therapy is trust, and that it was my responsibility for seeing to it that clients weren't spinning their wheels fruitlessly while I sat back and wait for them "to get it on their own," while I had a pretty good idea where they had to go to resolve their problems. 
I didn't have any particular "brand" of psychotherapy that I practiced, especially since the type of therapy I provided depended on the client's needs and desires. Generally for symptom reduction alone, therapy that gives a client support and encouragement, and helps them better understand self-defeating behaviors and change them, is the most effective. 
My understanding of personality dynamics comes from being trained in psychodynamic and psychoanalytically oriented therapy in the master's program at Michigan State University in the early 1970's. While I did not have post-graduate training in this area (I am not a psychoanalyst), I had considerable experience in providing therapy that was aimed at helping clients gain insight into themselves and how their family of origin influenced who they are.
I also blended what is known as cognitive-behavior therapy into my approach as needed. Basically this helped the client to recognize and change their self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. Whether focused on behavioral change or not my approach to my clients was always informed by my understanding of psychodynamics.
I have discovered over many years that it's the personality of the therapist, their ability to listen, and the connection he or she makes with the client that dictates success or failure in therapy. I tend to be suspicious of any of the "therapy of the month" flavors of treatment often touted in best selling books and by their authors on talk shows.

My own understanding of the incredible power of the mind to protect a  person from the memories of abuse, especially prolonged childhood sexual abuse, came working intensively with a number of clients who I was the first clinician to recognize were suffering from what was at the time called multiple personality disorders(now called dissociative identity disorder). The hallmark sign of this disorder is that the person experiences amnesia for significant persons of time. This occurs when another personality, or alter, is in control. This would be the subject of another article.

Other online activities:


I was a weekly columnist for the website Capital Hill Blue for several years. I also had an online column called The Eclectic Digest which was publshed in two large daily papers south of Boston, The Brockton Enterprise and The Patriot Ledger.

Here are some more recent photos of me. They are small but you can click to enlarge them, although why you might want to do that is beyond me.





Here's a blog about my late wife Betty and my life growing cranberries.

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December 30, 2021

Hal Brown, the blog, Dec. 2021

 "About Me" is here.  

November edition 

My Daily Kos political stories are here. In November I decided to make this a blog with personal  stories illustrated with my photos from my various trips discovering scenic and interesting areas around the Portland, Oregon suburb where I live. I am always on the lookout for unique restaurants frequented mostly by local residents like the Scream'n Chicken (in Gaston) and Carlton Corners in Carlton. Recently I found The Hitch'n Post in Molalla. (Go to November to see these restaurants and the towns where they are located). 

Click to enlarge map of my trips to the places documented in this mostly pictorial blog:




Dec. 28, 2021

Today I went to the The Tollgate Inn, in Sandy which is a town I've never visited.  You can see Sandy on the map between Clackamas and Mt. Hood Village on the right.


I ordered the large size Yankee pot roast, with mashed potatoes and broccoli. It couldn't have been better but I could only finish half the roast.

 This is a large family restaurant with two big dining areas, a smaller one with booths, and a separate saloon. The interior is decorated with interesting period items which you can see in some of the photos below.

Below: I didn't see the crow on the sign until I got home.






























 


Above: On the way home from the moving car I took this without seeing what appears to be the shadow of two men, the hands of one on the left and the entire shadow of another, working on an electrical connection.

This is what it looked like yesterday at 11:00 AM after an overnight snow of between 1-3 inches melted around where I live.














Dec. 27, 2021

Bob's Red Mill, Milwaukie, Oregon

Bob's Red Mill (website) is a local institution. I'd never been there but it was on my list for a lunch when I don't venture far afield into the countryside. It is nearby, about a 10 minute drive. 


I went there to buy their amazing popping corn since the big box grocery store I shop at was out of it. When I eat the big lunches featured in this blog I often just have air popped popcorn for dinner. Popcorn, you say, is this good for you? Well, I can tell you that "popcorn is one of the world’s healthiest and most popular snack foods. It is loaded with important nutrients and offers a variety of health benefits." This isn't my opinion. It comes from a registered dietician. She called it a low calorie snack but considering that I add a half a bar of melted butter I suppose we can ignore that, but I mean who eats dry popcorn?

As you can see from the photos (click to enlarge) Bob's has a large balcony dining area and other dining area on the main flour. There is also an outside area. 

Bob's sells items like flour, granola, bread, cookies, and grains for consumers in numerous area grocery stores. Some items are sold in commercial quantities. For the full selection, which is enormous as you can see in the photos, you have to go to the store.





Today's blog is dedicated to Dennis and Marie

Dec. 26, 2021



Part One

I miss the snow from when I lived in Massachusetts. In fact before moving here my entire life was spent is states, New York, Michigan, and Massachusetts, where nobody even considered a snow storm to be significant unless there was a foot on the ground and 10 foot high drifts across the roads in the countryside.

This morning at 4:00 AM even though I was hoping for deeper snow, I was happy to see at least a dusting of snow outside my window and some light wet snow falling. (Click images to enlarge):





Two hours later:





We could have almost 3" through Monday:


I'm hoping to drive into the countryside for lunch today because even with just a little snow on the trees it will be something I've never seen since moving here. 

In this part of Oregon where it is rare to have more than a dusting of snow the majority of drivers are ill-prepared to venture out. I have an all-wheel drive car and hopefully I'm not kidding myself when I say I am very good at driving in the snow. Of course, being wary of drivers who aren't is the most important. They represent the biggest danger of venturing onto the snow covered roads. I am well aware that even with an all wheel or 4-wheel drive vehicle the fact that you can go in the snow doesn't mean that you can safely stop in the snow. Stopping safely in the snow requires chains.

When we lived in Michigan at least once a winter we drove to visit my wife's parents in Massachusetts.

This is their driveway after a big snowstorm.


A few times we drove the 12-14 hour trip during blizzards where we had to drive behind snow plows and navigate through the night by following their tail lights because otherwise we could barely see the highway in front of us.

Here are some photos from 2006 in at home in Massachusetts:





One of our cranberry bogs is in the background.

In Massachusetts we had a cranberry farm so I had two front end loaders and a truck with a snow plow so always plowed our long driveway and our neighbor's driveway (and also end of our street if the city hadn't done it yet). When we sold the bogs and our equipment I got tired of doing it myself with a snowblower and had it plowed out by the man in the photo above.

Part Two

The snow stopped and the roads seemed dry and the sun was breaking through the clouds so I decided to drive to Aurora and eat lunch at an old standby, The Old Colony Pub. Here are the photos.

First, driving there on Oregon's (see Wiki article) Route 99:


There were hardly any cars on Route 99 along the Willamette River both going and returning. I've posted photos of The Old Colony Pub and Aurora before. Here are today's with wet snow on the ground.













Below: Swiss mushroom burger.
Another bathroom photo.

This is the kid friendly dinning room:

















Below: The Oregon Ducks were playing Pepperdine. Our team won 68-59.
By the time I left the sky had mostly cleared and the snow had stopped.











 

Dec. 25, 2021

Merry Christmas from Mac, Duff, and I.

Click images to enlarge



Dec. 23, 2021 (Click images to enlarge)

The Ovation Bistro and Bar in Milwaukie, Oregon

How did I end up eating in a small wonderful French restaurant a few minutes from home? After all, regular readers of this blog know how far afield I travel to find unusual restaurants. Today I was on the road at 6:30 AM on unfamiliar winding roads in a light rain in the pitch dark taking my car for service at a Lexus dealership some distance away. They gave me a loaner so I drove home in a brand new car. (I can see why they are so happy to offer to loan cars as all the new features may tempt some people to trade in their old car, a 2013 in my case.) My car wasn't finished until 1:30 so on the way home I was pretty hungry and decided to go to Ovation in the town of Milwaukie. I'd eaten there before and found the food and service was excellent. I ordered a portobello burger and my friend ordered their Ovation burger on lettuce. Both were excellent. 

In my travels unto rural areas I've found myself in very conservative Trump country. There's no mistaking that this restaurant is welcoming and inclusive for anybody considering the Pride flag next to the French flag being flown outside:


From 

What all the different LGBTQ+ flags actually mean

I generally keep politics out of my blog, leaving my opinions on this subject for my Daily Kos articles (here), but the proud flying of this Pride flag led me to look up Milwaukie:

Politics & Voting in Milwaukie, Oregon

The Political Climate in Milwaukie, OR is Leaning liberal.

Clackamas County, OR (where I live) is Somewhat liberal. In Clackamas County, OR 54.0% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 42.9% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 3.2% voted Independent.

In the last Presidential election, Clackamas county remained strongly Democratic, 54.0% to 42.9%. 

Clackamas county voted Democratic in the four most recent Presidential elections, after 2000 and 2004 went Republican

I've been to one or two restaurants in my travels into rural Oregon where the vibe led me to feel that my liberal views wouldn't exactly be appreciated. In one restaurant, The Hitch'n Post, in Molalla for example, I could overhear a group of men whose conversation was all about the features of firearms they liked. 

In Ovation I had a conversation with a couple at the next table about truffles which led to my asking if they saw the Nicolas Cage movie "Pig" (a 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes) which was set in Oregon and about a man who had his truffle hunting pig stolen. They said they had seen it and in fact were just talking about it. They told me that it was one of President Obama's favorite movies of the year (read story).

The restaurant only has about eight table and a few chairs at the small bar, plus outside tables used when the weather permits. It is on the corner of a street that runs parallel to the city's Main Street where there are several other restaurants. 





The view from our table wasn't exactly scenic:


Our personable waiter, Romano, was dressed for the season:



Our waiter was wearing a face mask with the Pride stripes on it.


Portobello Burger
 Marinated portobello cap with provolone cheese, heirloom tomato, and our pesto famous spread

OVATION BURGER

15

 Painted Hills grass fed organic beef, thick slices of brie cheese, caramelized onions, Ovation’s signature burger sauce. 


Art in hallway to bathrooms








Driving my 2013 Lexus for service in the dark with the road wet and a light drizzle wasn't really fun.



Dec. 21, 2021

You should be able to click most of the photos to enlarge them.

What an amazing find this was! It is in the town of Hubbard (pop about 3000) south of Aurora on Route 99 (aka Pacific Highway). 


The Burger Hut Cafe had excellent Yelp reviews so I decided to check it out. It did not disappoint.



Unassuming from the outside the inside was decorated with numerous Betty Boop memorabilia, photos of 1957 Chevy's, other items provoking nostalgia in those like me who remember the fifties very well. There was a working vintage juke box with 50's hits which the waitresses kept playing.


















The 8 oz. New York strip steak at $13.25 came with soup or salad and a choice of several kinds of potatoes or onion rings. I had the vegetable soup which came in a large bowl and was delicious. But it was the steak that surprised. It was far better than the same steak meals costing $29 at other restaurants. It was juicy, tender, and flavorful without any grizzle. You didn't even need a sharp steak knife to cut it.

 

The restaurant staff was very friendly. I was told that before the pandemic the restaurant had become so popular with out-of-towners that there was often a line waiting to be seated. Today only a few tables were occupied. 

As I was leaving I met an interesting couple who had also just finished eating. They were from the nearby hamlet of  Mulino. We got to talking about 1950's cars and the man said he grew up in L.A. and he and his friends didn't have cars. Instead he told me they stole them and took them for joy rides leaving them a few blocks from where they took them. He said he'd estimate that they stolen between 60-70 cars. I asked what the fastest he ever drove was and he said 180 mph. I told him I'd never driven more than 140 mph and even then the scenery was going by so quickly it was just a blur. The woman said that she had a 1964 GTO that was so fast she once got stopped by a cop for speeding who didn't give her a ticket saying he just wanted to see what was under the hood of her car.

 
After eating I checked out the "downtown" section of Hubbard and then drove back to Aurora and Rt.99 a new way, as it happens mostly on Boones Ferry Rd. which I come across all the time and which seems to go everywhere as it is a Main Street in Lake Oswego. The drive on this particular route goes though lovely orchard country with vast fields of fruit trees.






The old VW and the isolated bare tree somehow seem to go together.



Dec. 20, 2021

Don't bury your burger

Pogo book by Walt Kelly
When I first read this when I was a kid I never knew the tag line above would stick with me for the next 65 or so years.

If you follow this blog you know I am always on a quest to find the best burgers around. I have found some delicious burgers in out of the way independent restaurants (reported on in pictorial stories for your culinary edification particularly if you live in the Portland area). I usually order burgers topped with embellishments like chili, mushrooms, and onions. I've even had burgers made with a mixture of beef, venison, elk, and wild boar. Sometimes they are so loaded one can't even see the burger itself (see photo of completely buried burger from Dean's). Last night instead of broiling a Fred Myers pub burger from their meat counter and making a cheeseburger (like I did the other night)  I made a simple burger with  Montreal steak seasoning  rubbed in on the outsides. 

Call it a naked or unadulterated hamburger. There's a good case to be made that the only fair way to rate a burger is to have it unembellished, even eschewing adding condiments.  This simple burger was delectable.


I had prepackaged potatoes and made a stir fry.
I made the burger with pre-packaged ground beef.


Coming for Christmas, a Filet Mignon from, of all places, Fred Meyer.

Fortunately the strike is over at the store I usually food-shop at, Fred Meyers, so I am able to shop there again. The big meat news is that they have upped their game. In the prepackaged meat section they now have a variety of prime cut (not merely choice) streaks with the top end being a 7 oz. Filet Mignon (sometimes dubbed tenderloin) at $21.00. I'd made a Filet Mignon a few weeks ago which I bought at the expensive Zupan's Market. I cooked it in the recommended way by searing it in a cast iron skillet on the stove top and then baked it while still in the skillet. Here's one recipe. 
Considering that a meal at a restaurant that even has Filet Mignon on the menu which I go to don't, will cost about $38 (at The Verdict in Oregon City for example) $21 is a good deal. At most places I go to eat the best steak available is a 12 oz. New York cut for $29 like they have at Ranee's on Main also in Oregon City. They are usually tasty but chewy and not cut it with a fork melt in your mouth like a Filet. 

Dec. 17, 2021

Watch Willamette Falls video here:

Read about the Willamette Falls Legacy Project here


Dec. 14, 2021 Click to enlarge photos.

I was going to Clackamas Town Center which is located in Happy Valley (a real nearby city) to look at hiking shoes at REI and decided to see what the best independent restaurants there were. I found Dean's Home Style Cafe on Yelp. It is in a converted old farmhouse. Once upon a time it was on a farm but now the area is built up and it is surrounded by warehouses and stores. Add this to my list of recommended unique restaurants which are frequented mostly by local residents.




The interior is modified to make it into a restaurant of course but the three small dining areas are mostly unchanged.





The serving staff is very welcoming.  I talked to a man and woman who come there all the time and they had nothing but compliments for the place.

Here are a couple of patrons:



Here's my chili burger with a side of tasty onion rings. It was excellent but I could only manage to eat half.


There's a half pound burger and a bun under the mound of chili, onions, and cheese.

 

Dec. 11, 2021

My quest for the perfect Portland burger ends at Fred Meyer and my kitchen. You can spend more than $15 if you eat in a restaurant but my burger costs $3.00.

Related article: 

What Oregon’s $15 pub burger teaches us about inflation

Fred Meyer burger cooked under my broiler adding a thick slice of cheddar just before it is finished.

I've managed to find some really tasty burgers in my journeys around the Portland, Oregon suburb where I live. From Gaston and both Scream'n Chick and One Horse Tavern out in wine country to the Westwood part of Portland and Dick's Primal Burger to The Hitch'n Post in Molalla there are lots of delicious burgers you can enjoy.


Above: The Hitch'n Post


One Horse Tavern


Above: The Hitch'n Post

Scream'n Chicken



Dick's Primal Burger


None of them are better than the pub burger I can make at home. It costs a mere $3.00. Because they plump up in the broiler it is best to put an indentation in the middle.




Dec. 10, 2021

Nothing planned for the weekend, unless you count folding the laundry.



Dec. 9, 2020

Yesterday I posted a photo essay with pictures of clouds on Daily Kos and hardly anybody looked at it. All of the photos were from this blog. Later in the day I was driving to Clackamas Mall (formally called Clackamas Town Center) to see if XFinity would replace my falling off iPhone screen protector for free (they wouldn't). It had been raining all day. The sky was bleak with dark grey to black clouds and not a hint of blue breaking through. Then the rain stopped and the dark clouds broke up and the sky looked like this:



Dec. 8, 2021

Lunch at Coasters Crossing in Oregon City



This restaurant, unlike the others I've eaten at there, isn't on Main Street. It is across the street from The Oregon Trail Museum. The restaurant is in the old train station. This is an alternative where passengers can get on Amtrak instead of in Downtown Portland.

It is a fairly small restaurant. The service was excellent. I've had cod and halibut fish and chips in other Oregon restaurants but the fish have never come close to the succulent batter fried fish we used to get at next to the water The Narrows Crossing in Wareham, Massachusetts. Photo from their website:

I'd never seen mahi-mahi fish and chips on a menu so I ordered it was amazed at how good it was. The fish was moist, succulent, and melt in your mouth. The fries were also excellent. I didn't touch the tartar sauce or even put lemon on the fish.

There is outside seating both in the front facing the street and back of the restaurant where you can watch the trains. It was too cold to sit outside. The inside has a bar and two small dining sections.



While I was there the Cascade Amtrak train came through (their website). It runs from Vancouver, British Columbia (not the Vancouver in Washington where I go to eat) to Eugene, Oregon.









These are the pictures from outside the restaurant.





Dec. 6, 2021

The journey for supper wasn't exactly a scenic trip where my quest is to find great food in unsual restaurants. I had a craving for Popeye's chicken. The restaurant is a mere five minute drive. I always accepted that their tasty fried chicken was probably loaded with hormones and antibiotics and cooked in the worst oil possible.  If you can believe their website it turns out that I'd been jumping to a hasty conclusion.

Our chicken is free of added hormones and steroids*

We’re working to improve broiler chicken health by supporting the use of integrated animal welfare programs to promote practices that support and address the globally-recognized five freedoms of animal welfare.

It’s also our goal that by 2021, our chicken in the US will be raised with no antibiotics important to human medicine, as defined by the World Health Organization. Learn more about our approach to animal welfare here

*Federal regulations prohibit the use of added hormones or steroids in poultry

The trip to the restaurant and back in the rain was uneventful:




Before getting to the takeout window there's
an overflowing trash container. I wonder who
uses it since presumably those driving haven't
eaten yet. Perhaps they are just emptying out their cars.



The trip when I got home was a different story. It led to this:


Once I threw a couple of towels on the mess to sop up the soda (I used my carpet cleaner later) I enjoyed the still hot meal (I'd brought it home in an insulated bag). 

I ate while watching an episode (Season 1, Number 15) of Picket Fences (Series reviews in Rotten Tomatos). This is the one where Kimberly's 16 year old best friend gets pregnant by her father and gets off in court on the grounds of religious freedom since the family was Mormon. I had the four piece chicken meal but couldn't finish it so will have a leftover piece to eat some other time.

Dec. 5, 2021

Just lunch at the tried and true always friendly and tasty Ranee's in Oregon City where Tim, a server there, remembers all the regulars. It was very busy.


I am impressed by the bathroom artwork:











Outside



Dec. 1, 2021

There are more than 72 pictures today! (I took most of them but some are from a variety of websites.) 


Unless otherwise indicated photos and text by Hal Brown

from Website, here
 

To Vancouver, then to the Bridge of the Gods and back home.

Vancouver is only about a half hour drive from where I live (map above)
Upriver on 14 on the Washington side, across the bridge, and downriver home on 84

I ate lunch in Vancouver, a growing and thriving Washington city just across the Columbia River from Oregon. I followed this with a scenic drive on Washington Route 14, across the Bridge of the Gods, and then drove back on I-84 which runs next to the Columbia River to Portland.

Vancouver is about a half hour drive from where I live.
In Vancouver I had lunch at Twigs. Twigs (below are three photos from their website, here) 



The above photos are from the Twigs website.
I took the photos below.







My lemon caper halibut. Delicious.



The Vancouver Columbia River waterfront is being developed with new construction of condos. The already impressive walkway along the river is being extended as well. Click each of the images below for websites about the waterfront project.

Vancouver’s historic waterfront is welcoming jobs, restaurants, shops, housing, a hotel and a park as new development reconnects 35 acres along the Columbia River to the city’s historic core.

By creating a vibrant new community, the City and its economic development partners are building the foundation to grow jobs, businesses, tourism, recreation and transportation. 

The focal point of this new urban community is the waterfront park, designed with a cable-stayed pier and magnificent water feature. A talented team of designers have created a truly one-of-a-kind interactive, educational park. To understand the Columbia River is to understand its parts, names, places and pathways. Experiencing the Headwaters Water Feature – the centerpiece for the half-mile long park – happens on many levels. Some are drawn to the feature for playtime, families with young children, or a playful adult choosing to kick off their shoes for a dip in the fountain.

On the waterfront I'd eaten at WildFin, another excellent seafood restaurant (see their website), and a burger and whiskey bar called Stack 51 (website) before. 

There is ample fee parking a block from the waterfront. 



From the waterfront you can see planes low in the sky over the river headed towards Portland International Airport (PDX) which is a few miles upriver on the Oregon side. I couldn't get a good photo from Rt. 14 so this is one someone else posted:





Watch a video about the bridge from Portland to Vancouver (above). Replacing the bridge is a high priority for both states as it is in disrepair and wouldn't survive a major earthquake. This is the I-5 Bridge replacement website:
Below: From the website














Instead of driving back directly via expressway I took the long meandering scenic route which is along highway 14 on the southern Washington border. Here are the photos I took on the entire trip.















This is a photo I took of myself in the mirror at home. I removed
the background and superimposed myself on the photo I took of Beacon Rock.

Beacon Rock State Park (Wikipedia) is a geologic preserve and public recreation area on Route 14 in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area in Skamania CountyWashingtonUnited States. The park takes its name from Beacon Rock, an 848-foot (258 m) basalt volcanic plug on the north shore of the Columbia River 32 miles (51 km) east of Vancouver. On October 31, 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived here and first measured tides on the river, indicating that they were nearing the ocean. Read more on link below.
The stair trail to the top is on the river side and isn't visible from Rt. 14. Below is another photo from a website:
You need a $30 Washington park pass to be able to try the climb.





Bonneville Dam


To return to Oregon you take The Bridge of the Gods ($2.00 toll).






The fast way home is on Rt. 84. It runs a mere 50-100 feet from the river which is on your right. Just on the left is the windy scenic road where the waterfalls are, including the well known Multnomah Falls (website).


Below are photos I took on drive home, including some of a striking cloud formation the likes of which I have never seen.






















Traffic moved quickly for most of the drive with numerous cars and trucks passing me driving well over the speed limit. About six miles from downtown Portland traffic slowed to a crawl for a few miles but then opened up again. 







Photos here for my Dec. 16 Daily Kos story








For use in Daily Kos



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