I called in the `Redneck Cavalry' to negotiate the `Prius graveyard' and rescue my daughter

This is Portland in a snowstorm. Not pretty.

This was an eventful week in the Sabo house. A lot happened, including Gabe suffering a spiral fracture of his left leg when he tried snowboarding down a snow ramp off our back deck following the dumping of a foot of snow here in Gloucester.

Evie had an exhausting trip out to Oregon by air that began at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday when she left for Richmond. She flew out of Richmond, made it to Newark, N.J., had a brutally long layover and then departed for Portland. Only to have her flight rerouted to Seattle due to heavy snow that socked in PDX. She eventually made it to Portland in the middle of the night but was stranded at the airport.

It's a helpless feeling knowing my daughter is stranded 3,000 miles away after a long night. The roads were nasty, we checked the MAX light rail and it looked like it was running to Clackamas Town Center and we were hoping maybe she could catch a bus to Canby, where Julie's folks live. But the buses weren't running -- everything in Portland was basically shut down amid a snowstorm dropping a foot of white stuff -- and the Tri-Met webpage recommended that after Evie got to Clackamas Town Center she walk the 7.8 remaining miles to Canby. In a blizzard. With her luggage.

Um, no.

I was desperate. I called my good friend in Corvallis, Matt Fields. Back in 2008, in similar conditions in December, Matt had taken me from Corvallis to the airport in Portland with no problem so I could fly back to Gloucester. I wanted to get the lowdown from Matt on how bad it really was in Oregon for this go around. It wasn't good.

Matt described Interstate 5 around Portland quite ominously as a "Prius graveyard." Gulp.

Then he offered to go fetch Evie.

"I've got the Excursion, it's got studs on the tires, I'll throw some chains in the back and head up there," he said. Like it's that easy. Well, it was. For him. Truth be told, it was time to send in the `Redneck Cavalry.'

That would be Matt. He's an Oregonian through and through. Hickory shirts, chainsaws, operates heavy equipment, woodsman, marksman (just ask the deer in western Oregon), farmer, mechanic, you name it. He put the rugged in rugged individual.

He's a solid Christian brother, as solid as they come, a family man and a follower of Christ. He's willing to help out a friend in need and go rescue his daughter in an Oregon blizzard that shut down 2/3 of the state.

Within hours I had a text from Evie saying she was passing through Woodburn on her way to Corvallis. They were southbound on I-5, well clear of the Prius graveyard by then.

I am so thankful for friends like Matt Fields. A true redneck brother. They don't make them any better.

The Faith Race That Goes To The Committed, The Courageous

Back in my college running days. That's me on the right there, the one you wouldn't recognize these days.

My last college cross country race was held on a warm, sunny November day in a big, hilly park in Fresno, Calif. It was 1990. I was 21, married with a little boy and in my senior year at the University of Portland. The race was an NCAA regional meet, my last chance to qualify for the national cross country championships and I was running with the big boys from the West region. All the Pac-10 (back when it was the Pac-10) schools were there along with big schools from other major conferences.

I was ready, if not a bit intimidated to race with the elites. To qualify for the NCAA championships your team has to be in the top three. Or for individuals, you have to be in the top three from non-scoring teams. I had a legitimate shot. A very good shot. The race was 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles. I always felt like we were at a slight disadvantage racing in California at that time of year because in Portland it was 50s and raining sideways, so a warm day in the 70s was a bit taxing for us and not something for which we could prepare. But that's not an excuse. The conditions were the same for everyone.

As the race went on I knew our team was in the running for a shot at the NCAAs and I was as well. I remember distinctly with a half-mile left thinking that this was the last cross country race I would ever run. In high school I had been fortunate enough to be a part of an amazing turnaround. My freshman year of high school, when I started running at Bend High School in Oregon, we were horrible in cross country, finishing somewhere close to last in our district. By the time I was a junior we dominated our district and finished second in state. My senior year we destroyed the competition, winning the state title by 69 points. That state title was by far the highlight of my high school athletics experience.

College was similar. My freshman year we weren't that good, but by the time I was a senior we had a shot -- albeit something of a slim one -- to get to the NCAAs. So with a half-mile left in the race I did something that I never did. I sprinted. I never had much of a kick and usually conserved energy for the very end of the race, maybe the last 100 meters. Not this time.

I don't recall how many runners I passed but it was a lot. Maybe six, possibly eight. Could be more. I absolutely crushed that last half-mile. And paid the price for it. As I stumbled across the finish line in 11th place, two runners who kicked much later burst past me. But I had beaten them to the line and the officials pushed me in front of them in the finish line chute.

Gasping for air I literally stumbled through the line on legs of rubber and I remember the strangest thing happened to me. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I was so exhausted I literally was falling asleep as I walked through the chute. I found a picnic table and promptly crashed onto the bench to go to sleep, or possibly die. My teammates probably thought I was dead, maybe just nearly dead at best, and kept trying to help me up to walk me around and keep me alive. I would have none of it. I told them to leave me alone. I just wanted to sleep. Or maybe die.

My effort was seemingly noble, yet all for naught. Our team finished 4th and I was the 4th individual. My cross country season, really my cross country career, was over. Since then I've looked back on that race and comforted myself knowing how hard I fought that last mile. I've even used it in messages I've preached at Calvary Chapel Gloucester about finishing the race well. To push yourself to the limit.

Yet that's not the truth. I've thought about that race a lot over the past 25 years. (Wow. Has it been that long? Mercy sakes.) And while it's a nice narrative I've told over the years it's not quite right. I've been wrong to talk about that race in the manner I have. It's long past time to come clean. I'll explain.

Here's why I've been thinking about this. I see too many Christians practice their faith exactly the way I ran that race. We all gather at the starting line -- that moment when you come to faith in Jesus Christ and make Him your Lord and Savior -- and from that point there are some who really go for it and are all out for the Lord. They are passionate, unwavering and zealous and the love of Jesus shines in them and through them. They are lights in a dark world, continually pointing people to Jesus, being compassionate, loving and radiating His grace. I admire them greatly.

Others run comfortably, more or less lukewarm. This is your typical Christian and a group I would characterize as the vast majority. Some flat out dawdle and others, sadly, drop out. But for pretty much everyone who sticks in the race there's a sprint at the end as the realization hits them that the end of their life is near and they want to "do something for the Lord."

So what really happened in that race of mine 25 years ago? In every cross country race there comes a point fairly early when you have to decide your level of commitment. The great runners push themselves to the limit from the start. For me, the moment of truth in that 10k in Fresno came around two miles into the race. At that point I backed off a bit and didn't fully go for it, opting to conserve my energy until the end. I played it safe. I ran comfortably, easily within my limits. It proved to be a decision I would regret. And still regret. Why not just go for it? It was my last cross country race! Ever!

Here's why I made the decision I did. I simply lacked the courage. And commitment. The race doesn't always go to the fastest or strongest. It's often to the most committed. The most courageous. That wasn't me on that day.

Which brings me to my Christian life. And yours, if you're a believer. What's your level of commitment? What's the courage meter of your faith? Are you coasting? Have you settled?

I've settled in my faith far too often. I've coasted in my faith far too often. It's too easy to just back off -- daily Bible reading, prayer, sharing my faith, pressing into the Lord, missions and other elements of the Christian faith can all take a back seat to "life" and its distractions and enticements. It really comes down to who Jesus is in my life. And yours. Is Jesus worth living for? Worth dying for? Didn't Jesus lay down His life for you and me?

I say all of this because I'm wrestling hard with some major decisions. It has everything to do with my level of commitment and the essence of my faith. I'm guessing you have these decisions to wrestle with as well.

It's the two-mile mark and time to make a decision. What's my level of commitment? What's yours?

My Best Worst Diaper Story: The Portland `Diapercicle'

Judah gives `no more diapers' a thumbs up

A very triumphant moment: The donning of the underwear

I took the kids swimming twice today at our Hilton Head Island resort's indoor pool and was thinking how nice it was not to have to hassle with a swim diaper. One thought led to another and I was reminiscing back to that fateful day in Portland, Ore., in 1990 when we transitioned from cloth diapers to plastic diapers. For some reason, I had this desire to share my story. This story originally appeared on my 12 Kids and ... Counting? blog back in 2009. I've edited it and updated the blog post but if you like a good diaper story, er maybe it's more if you like a 'bad diaper story,' then you're in business. Enjoy!


Jan. 16, 2009 -- 12 Kids and ... Counting?

We've been changing diapers for 19 years.* That's 19 years straight. Surely that puts us up in some sort of record category. A lot of that time we've had two cute little rumps in diapers. I tried to do the math on it and by my calculations (Warning: I'm a journalist whose last dalliance with upper level math was as a high school sophomore, so any mathematical undertakings are subject to ready suspicion.) we've changed in excess of 60,000 diapers.**

I'm going to let that marinate for a minute. Ruminate on it even. Sixty-thousand. Diapers. Probably more.

I work at home so I've changed diapers in a pinch while writing articles on deadline, interviewing sources, even while telling my editor why I might have gotten something wrong in a story I just filed ("Dude, I was changing a diaper. Cut me some slack, eh?") I'm not sure what size of dumpster 60,000 diapers would fill, but I'm sure it would be an extraordinary sight. In a disgusting sort of way, I reckon. With a 9-month-old and an un-pottytrained 2-year-old in the house, we're still going strong diaper-wise. I've got plenty of bad diaper stories. What parent doesn't?

But here's my best `Worst Diaper Story.' We got married at the onset of my senior year of college, circa 1990, and lived in this drafty little 3-bedroom shack, er house, in North Portland. It was a tough neighborhood. A few houses down was what I called a “24-hour pharmacy.” The cops and others knew it as a “drug house.”

Being young and idealistic and in a perpetually tight spot financially, we found ourselves in a cloth diaper phase. It’s admirable to be young and concerned about the environment. But we got over it.*** 

In the aforementioned cloth diaper phase, we stored the soiled diapers on the back porch in a plastic 10-gallon pail with a lid on it. It worked out just fine until February, when an Arctic Blast hit Portland. We're talking sub-zero wind chills, ice everywhere and the city at a virtual standstill because Portland is wholly unprepared to deal with snow.

Inevitably, we ran out of cloth diapers during the height of the Arctic Blast. In a heroic deed, I bundled up, trundled out to the porch and grabbed the pail and headed down to the basement to the washer and dryer, risking frozen digits, limbs and certain frostbite.**** The washer was a top-loader and when I went to dump the diapers in the wash, out came a ... frozen solid brick of diapers. A full-blown diapercicle. "Clunk," it went on the washer.

When the initial shock and horror wore off, several thoughts went through my head. "Do I get a blow dryer and thaw it out?” That seemed rather unappealing, for some reason. Not to mention it was a completely misguided use of a blow dryer.

“Do I grab a hose?" was another, thinking maybe I could squirt some water on it and thaw it out. Of course, the hose was frozen solid so that was pretty pointless. 

I was at a loss. This wasn't in my “Parent Handbook.” I couldn't Google “frozen solid brick of diapers" and "how to thaw out" because Al Gore hadn't even invented the Internet yet way back in 1990. Let alone that the guys who invented Google probably weren’t even born yet.

I looked around the basement. Hmmmm. There's a hammer over there. I grabbed the hammer and went to work, taking apart that brick one whack at a time. The worst part about it? The frozen slivers of, well, you can imagine what sort of projectiles came flying at my face. After the first whack or two I was shielding my face with my left arm and swinging away with my right. 

I conquered that diapercicle and wrestled those frozen solid butt hugging pieces of cloth into the washer. I remember feeling triumphant. Against all odds I had overcome the ravages of the dreaded Arctic Blast. Perhaps — hopefully? — the only guy in Portland who had to attack a diapercicle with a hammer to survive the unforeseen effects of winter’s icy tendrils. 

Needless to say, it wasn't long after my battle with the cloth diapercicle o’ doom that we changed to plastic diapers.

*Since this article was published, we went six more years in diapers. Which makes it 25 years straight. 

** Since this article was published, we revised the estimated diaperage total upward with the additional 6 years of diapering to somewhere between 75,000 and 90,000. Give or take a few … thousand.

***Before and since this article was published, we remain/remained environmentally concerned.

We recycle. We don’t fertilize our yard with harmful chemicals. We prefer paper over plastic. 

****Since this article was published, I realize I am prone to exaggeration. It’s called “literary license.” Deal with it.

A Tasty Sabo Christmas Tradition: Amazing Seafood Chowder

The finished product: So bon appetit!

It happens every year. Christmas rolls around and we open presents and the kids start playing with the toys, or reading books they got, or doing a puzzle, or eating voluminous amounts of candy -- this year we took all the candy we got and loaded into a large mixing bowl for a "candy stew" to pick from -- and then the real tradition gets underway.

I start preparing our beloved "Portland Seafood Chowder" that I fished out of a story from The Oregonian recipe in the early 2000s. It takes a couple of hours but it is oh so worth it. If you like seafood, if you like chowder, if you like food, if you like to eat and if you have any taste buds at all you will devour this chowder.

Do you like bacon? It's in there. Here's photographic proof:

Bacon is in the chowder. That means it's good.

Do you like smoked salmon? How about Chesapeake Bay jumbo lump blue crab? Do you like seafood in general? You'll like this chowder. Here's proof:

Key ingredients: Things of the salty saltwater.

The recipe doesn't call for everything I throw into my version of Portland Seafood Chowder. I admit, I get really aggressive with my ingredients. My philosophy with this chowder is that more is better. That plays out in two ways. First off, I figure that if it had saltwater coursing through its veins at one point -- er, whatever saltwater courses through when it comes to shrimp, oysters, crab and the like -- then it's good enough for my chowder. More is also better when it comes to servings. I figure New Year's Day is right around the corner and I can start cutting back and "exercising" and "dieting" at that point. Until then it is "bottoms up baby" when it comes to my chowder.

There's also one really key point I want to make when you are fixing this chowder. It's something I've had to learn over the years. When you break out the smoked salmon to add to the chowder, try really hard not to scarf it all down before it gets into the heavy bottom stock pot. It takes an extraordinary amount of discipline, but you can resist eating every last flaky bit of smoked salmon before it goes into the pot. I believe in you!

My kids absolutely love this chowder and it's a tradition my family looks forward to every year. It's an investment for sure -- the ingredients aren't exactly as cheap as canned tuna, if you know what I mean -- but well worth it. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

Portland Seafood Chowder
12 oz. diced raw bacon
1 1/3 C finely diced onion
1 1/3 C finely diced carrot
1 1/3 C finely diced celery
1/2 C diced roasted red bell peppers
1 1/2 t dried dill weed
1 1/2 t dried basil
1 1/2 t dried marjoram
1 1/2 t cajun spice mix
3 T all-purpose flour
1/2 C lightly hopped ale
1 10-oz. can baby clams
2 8-oz. bottles clam juice
4 C diced raw potatoes
6 to 8 fresh mussels, scrubbed & debearded
1/4 lb. cubed firm white fish such as snapper or cod
1/4 lb. smoked salmon, flaked
1 C whipping cream
salt & pepper to taste

* Among the seafood items I add with liberality (one of the few times in my life I'm a liberal):
crab meat
oysters
baby shrimp

In a heavy-bottomed stock pot, cook the bacon over medium-low until it is brown. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook over medium-low heat until the carrots are almost tender. Add red peppers.

Stir in the dill weed, basil, marjoram and cajun spice mix. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes. Add the ale, the juice from the clams (reserve the drained clams for later), and the bottled clam juice. Stir until smooth and then add the potatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the mussels, white fish, smoked salmon, reserved clams and any other additional seafood, cover and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mussels are opened and the white fish is done. Discard any mussels that do not open. Stir in the whipping cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

The BEST Seafood Chowder Is My Christmas Present To You

We have a favorite Sabo family Christmas tradition that dates back to when the number of our kids was in the single digits, which is approximately the 2002 or 2003 time frame. It's soup. But not just any soup. This is a seafood chowder that the family looks forward to waaaaaayyyyy more than opening Christmas presents. Sort of. Maybe. Ish? Okay, so my seafood chowder takes a close second to the whole opening Christmas presents thing. But don't let that dissuade you from breaking out the heavy-bottomed stock pot and giving this seafood chowder a whirl in your kitchen. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

I found this recipe in The Oregonian and it's called "Portland Seafood Chowder." It makes 10 cups, which means I automatically double it. Or so. And I've modified it by adding more seafood to the point that basically if it swims, or crawls, or scampers, or filters in saltwater, it goes in this chowder. As a disclaimer, due to the nature of the ingredients it's an expensive soup to make. Which is why we only make it once a year. Which is also why I'm seriously considering launching separate Kickstarter and Gofundme campaigns to support our seafood chowder habit so that we can enjoy it more than once a year.

Without further ado, we give you the "Portland Seafood Chowder" recipe in all its gastronomical glory. Go forth and be a Pacific Northwest foodie aficionado.

12 oz. diced raw bacon
1 1/3 C finely diced onion
1 1/3 C finely diced carrot
1 1/3 C finely diced celery
1/2 C diced roasted red bell peppers
1 1/2 t dried dill weed
1 1/2 t dried basil
1 1/2 t dried marjoram
1 1/2 t cajun spice mix
3 T all-purpose flour
1/2 C lightly hopped ale
1 10-oz. can baby clams
2 8-oz. bottles clam juice
4 C diced raw potatoes
6 to 8 fresh mussels, scrubbed & debearded
1/4 lb. cubed firm white fish such as snapper or cod
1/4 lb. smoked salmon, flaked
1 C whipping cream
salt & pepper to taste

* Among the seafoody items I add with liberality (one of the few times in my life I'm a liberal):
crab meat
oysters
baby shrimp

In a heavy-bottomed stock pot, cook the bacon over medium-low until it is brown. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook over medium-low heat until the carrots are almost tender. Add red peppers.

Stir in the dill weed, basil, marjoram and cajun spice mix. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes. Add the ale, the juice from the clams (reserve the drained clams for later), and the bottled clam juice. Stir until smooth and then add the potatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the mussels, white fish, smoked salmon, reserved clams and any other additional seafood, cover and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mussels are opened and the white fish is done. Discard any mussels that do not open. Stir in the whipping cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

Merry Christmas!