Related Friends
Mosier, Oregon 2017
Arlene Burns
Photographer/Kayaker: Mosier Mayor, Oregon
I live in a small town on the Columbia River in Oregon far removed from my past life in Chicago and the East-Coast. The current mayor of Mosier, Oregon was someone I had briefly met several years ago at a party.
When I built a house not far from hers, she befriended me on Facebook and socialized more and more when we discovered our mutual interests in photography and connections with National Geographic magazine.
She invited me to stay at her home to cat-sit while she traveled the world in the winter months of 2008. As I worked in her office one day, I noticed a photograph of a young Arlene Burns that was eerily familiar. It was a 8.5×11 print made on Kodak RC paper and it had a black border that looked very much part of my signature 40 years ago. I studied it. There was a familiarity in the picture, never thinking that it could be mine and then put it out of my mind.
Years go by as our neighborly lives intertwine into good friendship. It was she who introduced me to Walter Ordway who was visiting her and ended up being kicked out because of his irritating dog. Walter and his loud dog came and stayed in my tepee. It was during those 10 days that he spent with me, the countless stories he told me of his travels that inspired my first attempt in writing a movie script.
One day in the summer of 2009, we ran into each other in San Francisco and she hitched a ride back to Oregon with me. During the long drive, we shared some of our life stories and somehow the name Penny NickeI got mentioned. She was a Young Life intern working in High-Schools south of Chicago and befriended me. She, John White and John Howard were all recent graduates of Wheaton College who I had a connection. A year later, I ended up attending this same school. As it turned out, Penny Nickel started teaching at a college in North Carolina where Arlene attended. It was Penny Nickel, said Arlene who encouraged her to pursue her passion in kayaking.
That little nudge transformed Arlene’s life. She would go on to became a world-class kayaker, traveled the globe as a river guide, became a devout naturalist and photographed for companies like Patagonia. Her charisma and expertise with a paddle also landed her as Meryl Streep’s stand-in in the movie The River Wild
Thrilled by our newly discovered connection, we Googled and sadly found her obituary dated one year earlier.
The kicker with all this was that we had actually met in a Wilderness Camp called Honey Rock 45 years ago when Arlene drove a group of students from her Montreat-Anderson College. That picture with the black border, gone missing since she renovated her home, could have been mine after all.
It is a small world!
1990’s DECADE
SINK OR SWIM: The ’90s were filled with risk and perils. A decade of demanding faith and vision. Jumping before knowing where to land. A decade filled with challenges, difficulties and yet breathtaking miracles.
2000’s DECADE
HEAT’S ON: A decade of transformation. The dawning of the age of Aquarius. Water turning to steam. Fruition from the quest was liberating. It was a decade that exchanged ambition for the magic of the unknown.
Mt. EVEREST
NEW WORK: In sixty-five years we have brought Mt.Everest to its knees. Human excrement, garbage, and dead bodies have desecrated this once pristine and delicate ecology. Water running off this mountain has been declared unsafe to drink and feared to be diseased laden.
WADI-RUN, JORDAN
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Archer Mayo
ARTIST/AUCTIONEER
A future blog about Archer Mayowill be added here. Enter now to see photos. Since 2016.
Robby Naish
WINDSURFER
A future blog about World Champion Robby Naishwill be added here. Enter now to see photos. Since 1989.
Kroum Tirilov
PLUMBER
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Peggy Laylor
EVENT ORGANIZER
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Michael Gebhardt
FILM PRODUCER
A future blog page about Olympian Michael Gebhardt will be completed here. Enter now to see photos. Since 1983.
Megan Lucas
ARTIST
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Barry Sweet
PHOTOGRAPHER
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Jode Goudy
CHAIRMAN YAKIMA NATION
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John Jessey
AIRLINE EXECUTIVE
Future blog page about John Jessey will be added here. Enter now to see photos. Since 1998.
Jim Forbes
PHOTOGRAPHER
A future blog about photographer James Forbes will be completed here. Enter now to see photos. Since 2010.
Jim Ealer
PROGRAMER
A future blog about the late Jim Ealer will be completed here. Enter now to see photos. Circa 2004.
David Weiss
FLAT EARTH BELIEVER
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Tom Stevenson
HOTEL MANAGER
Future blog page about Tom Stevenson will be added here. Enter now to see photos. Since 2001.
- 541-380-0907
- sacredridgejc@gmail.com
- P.O. Box 994 Mosier, Oregon 97040
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