If I had the knack of a John O’Hara I would write a short story titled “My Mother’s Mail.”

It would be about the mountain of mail I have received in my late mother’s name from catalogs, nonprofit organizations, politicians and public interest organizations.

They quickly re-addressed her mail to my post office box.

On certain days, more mail comes in her name than mine or my wife’s. I had some success in using a Web site called catalogchoice.org to cut down that portion of the traffic.

I don’t know that this is common to all of us, but I suspect that for some months or years after a parent dies, sons and daughters go through a period of retrospection or recapitulation in which they replay their relationship with mom or dad and with the spousal relationship those two had. In that way, I suppose, we are like historians who, every decade, reconsider eras, presidents and generals.

Anyone who knew my mother understood that her political persuasion was decidedly Democratic. Her father’s heroes were Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. What I did not recognize until this campaign season was the extent of her giving to political campaigns.

As the weeks passed, I received urgent pleas from Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.The Rio Cafe glows on a rainy winter night. I’ve toyed with writing some of these direct-mail factories to say that the addressee is deceased, but I know that would have little effect.

In the family business and the household, my mother paid the bills. Based on my father’s occasional musings, I had long assumed that he would have liked them to give more to charity. But now I’ve learned otherwise. She was much more generous than he thought.

With its orange to yellow walls, the interior of Rio Cafe glows on a dark and rainy night. From my seat at Rio Friday night I could see the lights of the Transit Center and the shops on 10th Street. It was an altogether cheery sight in this dark season. The oysters special I ordered was tasty. The Rio’s sautéed bananas a la mode is an effective antidote to a rainy night. The restaurant’s proprietor, Julie Foster, was long renowned as the best waitress in town. She has inspired that in her employees. The service is punctilious.

It was a big weekend for performing arts in Astoria with back-to-back entertainment at the Liberty Theater. On Saturday night the world-class concert pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi offered a program of Debussy, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff. Hearing Pompa-Baldi on the Liberty’s Steinway was a reminder this is something of a Golden Age of piano recitalists.

On Sunday afternoon, the Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce and the Liberty Theater offered the Big Band Broadcast, in which the 13-piece Mark Ferguson Orchestra produced a high octane sound akin to that of the Stan Kenton bands. Singer Holly Larocque has a great voice and vibrant stage presence.

Some 35 years ago Kenton brought his band to Portland State University for a jazz workshop. I heard the band’s monumental sound echoing through the corridors and across a skyway into an adjoining building. The music led me to the balcony of the Lincoln Hall performance hall. I was entranced as the Kenton band blew the roof off the place.

– S.A.F.