Erik Dolson: Writer

By Erik Dolson

I’ve had a number of wonderful dogs in my life, going back to childhood. I’ve loved them, played with them, walked with them, taken them to the vet, buried them with tears flowing down my cheeks.

Consequently, I’m a little mystified by my response to all the dogs I’m now seeing everywhere, especially on the docks, coming off boats, in dinghies, on sidewalks. Not just small or medium-sized “boat dogs.” Full-sized, sometimes really large dogs. Today a St. Bernard.

And often now, more than one: today a pair of some kind of large “doodle” dogs were leashed … Read more… →

by Erik Dolson

It’s odd to me that after one and one third minutes of racing against cars pounding down a straight at 160 mph to a sharp right-then-left-then-right set of turns, followed by nine more corners over two miles of track, the difference in lap times between drivers can be measured in hundredths of a second.

But in racing, little things add up. Advantages compound, mistakes multiply. A long time ago I learned something … Read more… →

By Erik Dolson

Over coffee, The Editor introduced me to a new word: presentism.

We were trying to make sense of current debates about the teaching of racism, and revisions to American history. History is an arena of The Editor’s expertise. He pointed out that “presentism,” the evaluation of “past events in terms of modern values and concepts,” is recognized by historians as fallacy.

I’d not encountered the word before, and think it’s an important one.

Presentism is a filter through which one interprets the world. Like other biases, including racism itself or anti-semitism or sexism or a number of … Read more… →

By Erik Dolson

Recursion may be the most unrecognized force in the universe.

Oh, it’s not a force, in that it can move objects or kill men. It’s a process, or a description of process, that we fail to appreciate. Possibly because it makes things impossibly complicated in short order.

It’s the same reason we talk about things, instead of waves. Things are an abstraction that makes it possible to communicate. Waves are so many things at the same time, depending on where speaker and listener stand. Change location of one or both, different moments are seen by each, … Read more… →

by Erik Dolson

Four years after he died, I scattered the last of Jimmie’s ashes in a small cove along the Oregon coast of the Pacific Ocean on a rare sunny and warm April day. Four years after he died, and again I cried.

They lied, those who said time heals all wounds. Late in life one realizes that’s just not true. We each carry wounds, mostly as scars perhaps but some still raw … Read more… →

Dear Governor Brown;

My name is Erik Dolson, and I live in Sisters, Oregon. I’m writing to suggest an alternative to current COVID restrictions.

First, however, I need to declare my interests. I own a building in Bend that houses a popular restaurant, currently closed. I am also an avid “gym rat,” a member of the shuttered Sisters Athletic Club and, until last week, the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland where I was a member for more than 65 years until degradation of that city made my return very unlikely.

I also have background that may or may not carry … Read more… →