Scott Swanson
Terry Simon graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1969 and went off to experience the world.
He did and recently he was back to capture some of his old haunts on video to accompany a memoir he’s written about his life, including his days in Sweet Home.
Simon, 61, was born and grew up in Cascadia, next to Cascadia State Park. After finishing high school, in which he was active in sports and theater, he “set out to become a writer,” studying journalism -at Linn-Benton Community College, Southern Oregon College and the University of Oregon, from which he graduated in 1974.
He joined VISTA and worked as a community organizer in New England, then headed west to San Francisco “to get involved in literary arts there,” he said.
In 1997 he moved to Portland, where he’s worked in restaurants and in construction. He also became the editor of two community newspapers, the Northwest Neighbor and the Northwest Examiner, as well as a literary magazine, Cold Eye, named from a line in a Y.A. Yates poem.
In 2010 he ran into an old friend and they decided to found a publishing house, Round Bend Press.
One of their first books was a compilation of articles from the Northwest Neighbor and Cold Eye. Since then, they’ve published about 10 other books by five different writers.
“We’re having a lot of fun,” Simon said. “It’s going great.”
He and a friend, Terence Connery, a former videographer for PBS, shot scenes in Sweet Home last month, based on selections from Simon’s memoir, titled “A Marvelous Paranoia.”
“The business of making this video is to support that book and the press,” Simon said. “We’re going to shoot the entire book, scenes in Sweet Home relating to when I was growing up.”
Sweet Home High School alumnus Terry Simon, right, talks with current Principal Pat Stineff at the high school as Terence Connery records.
Those included a visit to the family cemetery, shots of Sweet Home, a trip to Cascadia Park, and a trip to the high school. He said he also plans to visit San Francisco and, possibly, New England.
“We’re taking shots around town to give it an overall Sweet Home feel,” Simon said. “Other things include other aspects of my travel.”
He said that while the main purpose of the video was to promote his memoir, it could go further.
“If it turns out to the standards that I’m shooting for, we’ll enter it in a video festival,” he said. “Down the road I suppose we’ll try to get it into bookstores.”
For more on the memoir and the video, visit roundbendpressblogspot.com.