SMILE AND FIGHT Improv star Parker stares down cancer — SEE LIFELIFE,, BB11 PortlandTHURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2014 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BESTT NNONDAILYONDAILY PAPERTribune • PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COMPORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHEDPUBLISHED TUESDAYTUESD AND THURSDAY O, Death City takes swing at spare reviving golf game me till Offi cials look to Colwood acquisition to get sport out of hole we talk By J ENNIFER ANDERSON The Tribune Three months after the city’s aquisition of the Colwood National Golf Club about it in Northeast Portland, the city is looking “The game to use it to at- needs a ■ tract a young- Death Cafes er, more di- boost. verse popula- We need tion of golfers tackle the taboo topic to save the fu- a way to ture of the bring other game. people — to help folks make “Most golf- ers are like me more — the majority gender most of their lives of us are gray- haired and diversity, amie always thought she’d like to be male,” says more buried under an oak tree in her rural John Zoller, di- cultural Clackamas County backyard. Nearing rector of the Jdeath after a long bout with cancer Portland Pub- diversity, last fall, she had Eric, her partner, contact lic Golf pro- especially Elizabeth Fournier, who specializes in do-it- gram for more yourself funerals through Cornerstone than 25 years. the young Funeral Services. “The game kids.” Fournier came out for a visit. She told the needs a boost. — J ohn Z oller, couple that over the coming weeks they would We need a way Portland Public talk about what type of to bring other Golf program funeral Jamie wanted, people — more director STORY BY and that there were gender diversi- questions and details ty, more cul- PETER KORN almost nobody consid- tural diversity, ers ahead of time. especially the young kids,” he Fournier would start by making arrange- says. ments with the county planning commission. Located in the heart of the Jamie showed Fournier the site she had Cully neighborhood, Colwood chosen. Eric said a carpenter buddy of his will be the city’s testing ground would make a special casket and he would dig to try new incentives and make the grave. For the funeral he would have their golf accessible for underrepre- house painted lavender, Jamie’s favorite color. sented demographics, Zoller Jamie died unexpectedly the next morning says. before sunrise. Eric was inconsolable, Fourni- The plan is to offer a par- TRIBUNE PHOTO: J AIME VALDEZ er says. He had come to terms with Jamie’s Nurse midwife Nancy Ward, here at Fairview Cemetery in Scappoose, helps people plan their deaths. On the ground are three, nine-hole course, which death, but not with his inability to follow will require less skill and less objects that people can choose to be buried with — a q uilt that can serve as a shroud and a variety of traditional death through with the plans for the funeral — the time, both barriers to getting in symbols and items. farewell — his partner had wished. the game. Fournier set about doing what often can be They’ll hold family days, clin- three months of work in three hours. She ics for kids, special programs called a friend of Jamie’s to contact family and for Cully neighborhood resi- friends and have them meet at the house, and dents, and put used and donat- to help Eric decide on a blanket or quilt for ed golf clubs in the hands of Jamie’s burial shroud in lieu of a coffi n. She people who need them. had a friend of hers use Eric’s tractor to dig The parks bureau will bring the grave. kids from nearby Rigler and By sundown, Jamie had been washed in her Scott schools to the site to intro- own home by the women in her family using duce them to the sport, and con- lavender-scented sponges. She was shrouded in a lilac, hand-loomed tapestry which had See GOLF / Page 11 hung on the wall of her bedroom, and gently placed in a cart for a short procession to the COURTESY OF HOLLY PRUETT oak tree. Organizer Holly Pruett was shocked when over 70 people appeared at After a few words and a half-hour of group the fi rst Portland Death Cafe, held at the downtown Bijou Cafe ( above) . singing, a sapling, a new tree supplied by Symbolic coffees and cakes can often be found at Death Cafes. This cup Jamie’s brother, was set in place to mark ( below) appeared at a Death Cafe in Edinburgh, Scotland. Jamie’s resting place. Today, Fournier wishes there had been See DEATH / Page 2 “Funerals are a bad brand now. Many COURTESY OF ANGELA HENNESSY Holly Pruett ( above) , a funeral and life-cycle people will go to them and say, ‘ I don’ t celebrant, takes her turn lying in a coffi n during training in DIY funerals at Final Passages in TRIBUNE PHOTO: J ONATHAN HOUSE want anything like that for me.’ ” Sebastopol, Calif. Pruett says the role play While the course is closed, the encourages trainees to “make friends with their driving range at Colwood National — Holly Pruett, Portland Death Cafes organizer COURTESY OF LOVECRUMBS own mortality.” Golf Course is still open. Mystery shrouds Padgett’ s turn to violence the clues that this seemingly ordi- olds High School. Part of that investi- Family of student nary 15-year-old would turn into a gation will undoubtedly examine killer? Jared Padgett’s life at home. Michael Padgett, who fi red fatal shots How could this boy — armed to the The Padgett family, headed by fa- father of Reynolds teeth, dressed in a fl ak jacket and ther Michael Padgett, lives in a tidy High School shooter looking for answers helmet and carrying hundreds of house in the Rockwood neighbor- J ared Padgett, has rounds of ammunition — kill a fellow hood on Couch Street, a quiet block been arrested twice By BEVERLY CORBELL student, wound a teacher and then surrounded by single-story, single- for DUII, the fi rst time Pamplin Media Group turn his own gun on himself when family homes. The only thing slight- in December 2001 and cornered by police? ly out of the ordinary is a sign on the the second in J une How could it happen? That’s what These are questions being asked left side of the house that reads, 2012. friends, neighbors and family of Jared as police continue their investigation COURTESY OF MULTNOMAH Padgett are asking. Where were into the June 10 shooting at Reyn- See PADGETT / Page 5 COUNTY SHERIFF’ S OFFICE “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune deliver balanced news that refl ects the LACROSSE’S BAUM stories of our communities. Thank you — SEE SPORTS, PAGE B10 for reading our newspapers.” Inside — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, June 19, 2014 Death: O regon doesn’ t req u ire f u neral h ome ■ From page 1 time to talk with Jamie and Eric about countless aspects of death — not only funerals and burials, but the meaning be- hind the rituals they could have selected or discarded. She wishes, in fact, that Jamie and Eric could have had the oppor- tunity to attend one of the Port- land area’s increasingly popu- lar Death Cafes. “They didn’t really know how to go about doing it,” Fournier says. “Having conver- sations and having that open- ness and having other people to bounce ideas off and give them emotional support would have helped.” Portlanders embrace movement Death Cafes have become an- other one of those phenomena that didn’t start in Portland but fl ourish here unlike just about anywhere else. Every few weeks a Death Cafe is held somewhere in the Portland ar- COURTESY OF ELIZ ABETH FOURNIER ea for people to sit around and Friends and family take part in a DIY burial by carrying Ray to a grave dug by his grandson on Ray’ s rural Clackamas County property. discuss a subject most consider taboo — from funerals they’ve attended and envisioned to inti- as Jamie’s also are gaining in tions. “It’s as though they have mate anecdotes about loved popularity in Oregon. A DIY funeral been given permission to ask ones who have died. Most start And, Pruett says, Orego- can include and discuss this subject that with an open-ended question: nians are notoriously cheap. A transporting a everyone is secretly interested “Why are you here?” traditional funeral and burial body to the grave in,” she says. “Sometimes they get off and can cost $5,000 to $10,000, al- site. Here, But Ward feels the cafes are running with that and 90 min- most all of which can be saved musician Mark only a start. “In order for this utes later they’re still talking,” if family and friends perform Pettey, in the back to become truly meaningful says Holly Pruett, who orga- the necessary tasks them- of a friend’ s 196 2 and benefi cial it has to go deep- nized Portland’s first Death selves. Unlike some states that Chevy Suburban er,” she says. In her view, sit- Cafe at the downtown Bijou require the use of a funeral with guitars, ting around talking about Restaurant a year ago. home, Oregon law allows fami- awaits transport death needs to give way to In most cities a handful of lies to act as their own funeral from the Portland more visceral discussions. She people, or maybe as many as 25 directors.