For all our troubles and toil, the world is often a lovely place. It is unfortunate that we are often to harried and busy to stop and notice that. I hope you have a moment today to do so.
Showing posts with label Cool things in North Portland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cool things in North Portland. Show all posts
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Un dimanche après-midi à l'Parc des Donnezsur
Hmmm. I think I wanted to take a moment from all the angst and provide a post with no meaning beyond the sensual;
That, and every so often I take a genuinely good picture; I just love this snapshot of our Overlook Park on a sunny Sunday.
For all our troubles and toil, the world is often a lovely place. It is unfortunate that we are often to harried and busy to stop and notice that. I hope you have a moment today to do so.
For all our troubles and toil, the world is often a lovely place. It is unfortunate that we are often to harried and busy to stop and notice that. I hope you have a moment today to do so.
Friday, January 27, 2012
A look back from overhead
The photo below is of the neighborhood I live in taken from an Army Air Corps aircraft recording the conditions of the Willamette River channel and Swan Island in 1936.
One of the things I get paid for is looking at these old photographs. I'm usually looking for evidence of past landslides, or long-lost grading. But this was pure indulgence, culled from the files of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers files during a long day of researching a nearby site.
Our little house is under the orange circle. Here's the same neighborhood today:
Stop for a moment and compare the two images. That's okay, I'll wait a while.
The modern image is just what you'd expect; little brick (or in our case, wood) houses for you and me, right? That's my University Park neighborhood in a sentence, no different from any other urban Portland neighborhood. The big white-roofed building to the east? That's Astor Elementary, where the kiddos go to school. Go, Astor Eagles!
But look at the top image for a bit. Here; I'll give you a little bigger view of a portion of the southwest corner of the same photo:
Our house (built only about fourteen years before the photo was flown) is still under the orange circle. We understand that the little building at the corner to the west was some sort of mom-and-pop corner store, selling Coke in bottles, and penny soap to the good working-class folks of Depression-era North Portland. And note a couple of other things; the big pale farm fields down a block to the west, with some sort of long white barn or shed along McKenna Street at the southeast corner. And notice all the little footpaths and tracks that meander through the center of the blocks; in a lot of ways this part of NoPo was still pretty rural in '36 - rural enough for folks to follow the old cowpaths rather than stay on the sidewalks.
OK, now here's an enlargement of the next Corps photo flown, from 1940:
One thing I picked out here was the garage - that's inside the orange box. See it? The thing is, Portland City code requires you have a garage. No shit. Seriously. If you park your car on the street more than 48 hours you can be cited for something called "in lieu of garage" and that's a fineable offense.
Really.
So back in the day all Portland houses had garages. Ours did. But at some point prior to the 1960's the thing either burnt or rotted away and fell over. I've found bits of it under the backyard sod. But there it is in 1940, keeping the summer sun off someone's 1938 Ford Twodoor.
Here's the larger 1940 image. One thing - look at the color of the streets. See how dark they are? Now look back at 1936. See the difference?
The thing is that the 1936 sidewalks look about the same color as the streets, and the streets themselves look too regular to be unpaved. See that curvy line above the farm field in both 1936 and 1940? That's N. Yale Street between McKenna and Wall, dirt then and dirt now. But the regular street grid looks paved - just not paved with asphalt. Y'know what I think happened?
I think the streets were paved in the late Teens and Twenties (when this portion of U-Park was first really developed) with concrete.
That's surprisingly common for Portland; in many of the older neighborhoods in the inner East side you can still find some of those old concrete pavements exposed. But they're brittle, and usually end up covered with asphalt before too long. I think by 1940 the City had decided that they weren't going to pay for any more concrete and laid down the macadam on top.
The funny thing is that when I started doing this sort of overhead window-peeping in the early Nineties there really wasn't any other way to do it; the information was either in the files at places like the Corps or proprietary to private aerial photo companies. But Google Earth and similar applications have changed all that dramatically. The image above is a larger-scale view of my home from GE, circa 1952.
Note that you can barely see Astor School, the larger H-shaped dark block east of the circle that marks our house, but the long arc of Mock's (or Waud's) Bluff, the steep cut bank of the old meander of the Willamette River that encloses Swan Island is easily seen.
In the old photo you can see the "island" - the rectangular peninsula that projects up to the northwest. This had been used as Portland's airport in the earlies, and was just then beginning to be developed as the industrial area it is today - here it is in 1925, probably not long after Lindbergh visited.
Note that in the aerial photo the Union Pacific line running towards the long tunnel under North Portland is still an embankment surrounded by wetlands. And here is the same view today;
A little busier, isn't it?
The wetlands are gone, the swans are gone, the concrete streets are gone, the old farm fields, the cowpaths, the garages...all gone but where they remain crystallized forever in silver salts and black.
One of the things I get paid for is looking at these old photographs. I'm usually looking for evidence of past landslides, or long-lost grading. But this was pure indulgence, culled from the files of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers files during a long day of researching a nearby site.Our little house is under the orange circle. Here's the same neighborhood today:
Stop for a moment and compare the two images. That's okay, I'll wait a while.The modern image is just what you'd expect; little brick (or in our case, wood) houses for you and me, right? That's my University Park neighborhood in a sentence, no different from any other urban Portland neighborhood. The big white-roofed building to the east? That's Astor Elementary, where the kiddos go to school. Go, Astor Eagles!
But look at the top image for a bit. Here; I'll give you a little bigger view of a portion of the southwest corner of the same photo:
Our house (built only about fourteen years before the photo was flown) is still under the orange circle. We understand that the little building at the corner to the west was some sort of mom-and-pop corner store, selling Coke in bottles, and penny soap to the good working-class folks of Depression-era North Portland. And note a couple of other things; the big pale farm fields down a block to the west, with some sort of long white barn or shed along McKenna Street at the southeast corner. And notice all the little footpaths and tracks that meander through the center of the blocks; in a lot of ways this part of NoPo was still pretty rural in '36 - rural enough for folks to follow the old cowpaths rather than stay on the sidewalks.OK, now here's an enlargement of the next Corps photo flown, from 1940:
One thing I picked out here was the garage - that's inside the orange box. See it? The thing is, Portland City code requires you have a garage. No shit. Seriously. If you park your car on the street more than 48 hours you can be cited for something called "in lieu of garage" and that's a fineable offense.Really.
So back in the day all Portland houses had garages. Ours did. But at some point prior to the 1960's the thing either burnt or rotted away and fell over. I've found bits of it under the backyard sod. But there it is in 1940, keeping the summer sun off someone's 1938 Ford Twodoor.
Here's the larger 1940 image. One thing - look at the color of the streets. See how dark they are? Now look back at 1936. See the difference?
The thing is that the 1936 sidewalks look about the same color as the streets, and the streets themselves look too regular to be unpaved. See that curvy line above the farm field in both 1936 and 1940? That's N. Yale Street between McKenna and Wall, dirt then and dirt now. But the regular street grid looks paved - just not paved with asphalt. Y'know what I think happened?I think the streets were paved in the late Teens and Twenties (when this portion of U-Park was first really developed) with concrete.
That's surprisingly common for Portland; in many of the older neighborhoods in the inner East side you can still find some of those old concrete pavements exposed. But they're brittle, and usually end up covered with asphalt before too long. I think by 1940 the City had decided that they weren't going to pay for any more concrete and laid down the macadam on top.
The funny thing is that when I started doing this sort of overhead window-peeping in the early Nineties there really wasn't any other way to do it; the information was either in the files at places like the Corps or proprietary to private aerial photo companies. But Google Earth and similar applications have changed all that dramatically. The image above is a larger-scale view of my home from GE, circa 1952.Note that you can barely see Astor School, the larger H-shaped dark block east of the circle that marks our house, but the long arc of Mock's (or Waud's) Bluff, the steep cut bank of the old meander of the Willamette River that encloses Swan Island is easily seen.
In the old photo you can see the "island" - the rectangular peninsula that projects up to the northwest. This had been used as Portland's airport in the earlies, and was just then beginning to be developed as the industrial area it is today - here it is in 1925, probably not long after Lindbergh visited.
Note that in the aerial photo the Union Pacific line running towards the long tunnel under North Portland is still an embankment surrounded by wetlands. And here is the same view today;
A little busier, isn't it?The wetlands are gone, the swans are gone, the concrete streets are gone, the old farm fields, the cowpaths, the garages...all gone but where they remain crystallized forever in silver salts and black.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
The Twelve Beers of Christmas: Days 1 through 4
I'm not humble. We can fucking solid brew up here in the Pacific Northwest.
I don't know about the rest of the country. I've heard some idle talk about the quality of the beers in California, but I put that down to the natural arrogance of the Golden State; they think they do EVERYthing better in California. But they're wrong, oh, so, tragically, criminally wrong.
"California Pizza Kitchen".
I rest my case.
So this year I've tried to get myself into a little more Christmassy mood. And, to me, nothing says "Christmas" like "drinking".
Well, that and sex under the Christmas Tree, but if you think I'm blogging about that you're effing nuts. Beyond the tasteless factor Mojo would toast my organs of generation over the Yule log. I like the magic in my marriage the way it is, thanks.
So this year I've decided to test-drink twelve of our local "seasonal" brews.
Seasonal brew?
Yeah, I forget that a hell of a lot of you live in places where Budweiser is consider a boutique beer.
(Oh, and for the record, I'm not sure what Bud Light (or is it officially "Bud Lite"? Gawd.) being the "favorite beer of NFL fans" says, but I suspect that it slanders either beer, football, or the people who consume both)
Every year's end our local breweries produce some version of a "winter seasonal" beer. The tradition usually extends to spring (when the brewers come up with a märzen-style), summer (which usually means a light, crisp brew - a pilsner or very hoppy ale such as an India Pale Ale) and autumn (which is usually greeted with an "oktoberfest"-style product). But seeing as how I like my beer like I like my women; strong, dark, and a bit of fun effort to wrestle down, the "winter warmers" are my hands-down favorites.
This year I've worked my way through four:
Deschutes Brewing's "Jubelale"
Full Sail's "Wreck The Halls"
Old Lompoc's "C-Sons Greetings", and
Ninkasi's "Sleigh'r"
So let me quickly catch you up to where I am in the Solstice Suds Sampling:
Day 1: Jubelale (Deschutes Brewing Co., Bend, Oregon)
Jubel is an Oregon classic; perhaps the single most thought-of brew when a webfoot thinks of the word "winter seasonal" or "winter warmer".
It's an English "strong ale"; dark in color, malty rather than hoppy, with a powerful ale flavor over a very rounded, crisp finish. It does, in fact, "warm" you. I accompanied mine with a Kansas City-style T-bone, garlic-mashed, and winter vegetables, and it was nearly perfect. Jubel hits the tongue with a rabbit-punch of malt, teases the uvula with a tingle of hops, and swirls through the mouth with little hints of pepper and fruity goodness. It's a hell of a damn fine brew, and though this year's model is a little less...well, "perfect" than I expect - the brewmaster at Deschutes talks about how the formulation was changed back to the early versions this year and I noted a little more "sting"; less smoothness, more pepper than in years past.
But, still, the Jubelale is the King of Winter Beers, and the first day set a tough standard for the rest to follow.
Day 2: "Wreck The Halls" (Full Sail Brewing, Hood River, Oregon)
Last Tuesday I was working all day in the field and didn't really have much time to make a decent meal to accompany this brew. It didn't really need it; even with Stouffer's Lasasgna with Meat Sauce this tidy little IPA was tasty, hoppy, clean, and delicious.
I liked that WTH was truly hoppy in the Northwest fashion but avoided the lip-puckering bitterness of some of the "brewmaster's reserve" creations that NW brewers seem to like to challenge their drinkers with. Darkish and full enough to make a mouthful satisfying the Full Sail boys did a nice job keeping their "winter warmer" free of the more commonly encountered sorts of holiday-busyness; no spices, no fruitiness, no citrus, just a lovely, rounded malt with a crispy hops tang and a lingering hit of alcohol - a tallboy had me pleasantly fuzzed. Damn fine.
Day 3: "C-Sons Greetings" (Lompoc Brewing, Portland, Oregon)
This Imperial/Double India Pale Ale went with takeaway; haddock-and-chips from "The Fish And Chip Shop" on N. Killingsworth (one of the hidden treasures of North Portland - no-bullshit Brit workingman's food for a decent price) and was the polar opposite of the simple heartiness of the flaky fish and rich 'taties.
This is one complex brew; spicy, hopped-up, malty, fruity...and at 8% alcohol it hits like Donder's spinning backkick.
I liked C-Sons in a very odd sort of way. One tallboy was outstanding, a truly interesting, challenging beer. But I can imagine that another might have been less welcome. And more then that? Just too much; too busy, too spicy, too...too.
So. I've polished off the fourth of our local winter brews sitting here with Mojo sewing and the two kiddos playing an exciting game with their "hex bugs"; everyone is having a heck of a good evening.
Day 4: "Sleigh'r" (Ninkasi Brewing, Eugene, Oregon)
Let me start by saying that I normally enjoy the product of the Ninkasi stable; they tend to make very classic Northwest beers.
But I found their seasonal to be...well, less than something to celebrate.
It was drinkable, but just that. Supposedly a "dark double alt" it had very little altbier character being, instead, a fairly conventional Northwest dark ale. Surprisingly underhopped for a Ninkasi release, it was rather "flat" and malty, with a "muddled" impression that did little to enhance the ginger-garlic chicken stir-fry I made tonight. Indeed, the combination of our CSA kale with baby bok choy and Chinese sausage from Anzen was more interesting than anything in the bottle.
Not terrible, not even bad, but not particularly memorable or tasty. Not a keeper, in my opinion.
So there we are - another day tomorrow, another treasure from the Pacific Northwest. As good a way to pass the Yuletide season as I can imagine.
I'm almost surprised; at a time of year when I'm usually overwhelmed with curdled loathing for the masturbatory commercial splurgegasm that is the commercial Christmas season I have actually managed to get some pleasure out of this December.
It helps that the kiddos are not overcome with insane greed. They're excited about the upcoming loot but not utterly deranged about it. And we don't have any relatives visiting and infecting us with craziness, and without any real need to tote any out-of-towners around to Portland Christmasness we have managed to miss the most horrific of our local Wenceslausy glurge as well.
Now if my legs would just stop fucking with me. And we could catch and savagely beat the sonsofbitches that jacked Mojo's credit card and bought the airline tickets to Manila.
But those are stories for another day...
I don't know about the rest of the country. I've heard some idle talk about the quality of the beers in California, but I put that down to the natural arrogance of the Golden State; they think they do EVERYthing better in California. But they're wrong, oh, so, tragically, criminally wrong.
"California Pizza Kitchen".
I rest my case.
So this year I've tried to get myself into a little more Christmassy mood. And, to me, nothing says "Christmas" like "drinking".
Well, that and sex under the Christmas Tree, but if you think I'm blogging about that you're effing nuts. Beyond the tasteless factor Mojo would toast my organs of generation over the Yule log. I like the magic in my marriage the way it is, thanks.
So this year I've decided to test-drink twelve of our local "seasonal" brews.
Seasonal brew?
Yeah, I forget that a hell of a lot of you live in places where Budweiser is consider a boutique beer.
(Oh, and for the record, I'm not sure what Bud Light (or is it officially "Bud Lite"? Gawd.) being the "favorite beer of NFL fans" says, but I suspect that it slanders either beer, football, or the people who consume both)
Every year's end our local breweries produce some version of a "winter seasonal" beer. The tradition usually extends to spring (when the brewers come up with a märzen-style), summer (which usually means a light, crisp brew - a pilsner or very hoppy ale such as an India Pale Ale) and autumn (which is usually greeted with an "oktoberfest"-style product). But seeing as how I like my beer like I like my women; strong, dark, and a bit of fun effort to wrestle down, the "winter warmers" are my hands-down favorites.This year I've worked my way through four:
Deschutes Brewing's "Jubelale"
Full Sail's "Wreck The Halls"
Old Lompoc's "C-Sons Greetings", and
Ninkasi's "Sleigh'r"
So let me quickly catch you up to where I am in the Solstice Suds Sampling:
Day 1: Jubelale (Deschutes Brewing Co., Bend, Oregon)
Jubel is an Oregon classic; perhaps the single most thought-of brew when a webfoot thinks of the word "winter seasonal" or "winter warmer".
It's an English "strong ale"; dark in color, malty rather than hoppy, with a powerful ale flavor over a very rounded, crisp finish. It does, in fact, "warm" you. I accompanied mine with a Kansas City-style T-bone, garlic-mashed, and winter vegetables, and it was nearly perfect. Jubel hits the tongue with a rabbit-punch of malt, teases the uvula with a tingle of hops, and swirls through the mouth with little hints of pepper and fruity goodness. It's a hell of a damn fine brew, and though this year's model is a little less...well, "perfect" than I expect - the brewmaster at Deschutes talks about how the formulation was changed back to the early versions this year and I noted a little more "sting"; less smoothness, more pepper than in years past.But, still, the Jubelale is the King of Winter Beers, and the first day set a tough standard for the rest to follow.
Day 2: "Wreck The Halls" (Full Sail Brewing, Hood River, Oregon)
Last Tuesday I was working all day in the field and didn't really have much time to make a decent meal to accompany this brew. It didn't really need it; even with Stouffer's Lasasgna with Meat Sauce this tidy little IPA was tasty, hoppy, clean, and delicious.
I liked that WTH was truly hoppy in the Northwest fashion but avoided the lip-puckering bitterness of some of the "brewmaster's reserve" creations that NW brewers seem to like to challenge their drinkers with. Darkish and full enough to make a mouthful satisfying the Full Sail boys did a nice job keeping their "winter warmer" free of the more commonly encountered sorts of holiday-busyness; no spices, no fruitiness, no citrus, just a lovely, rounded malt with a crispy hops tang and a lingering hit of alcohol - a tallboy had me pleasantly fuzzed. Damn fine.Day 3: "C-Sons Greetings" (Lompoc Brewing, Portland, Oregon)
This Imperial/Double India Pale Ale went with takeaway; haddock-and-chips from "The Fish And Chip Shop" on N. Killingsworth (one of the hidden treasures of North Portland - no-bullshit Brit workingman's food for a decent price) and was the polar opposite of the simple heartiness of the flaky fish and rich 'taties.
This is one complex brew; spicy, hopped-up, malty, fruity...and at 8% alcohol it hits like Donder's spinning backkick.I liked C-Sons in a very odd sort of way. One tallboy was outstanding, a truly interesting, challenging beer. But I can imagine that another might have been less welcome. And more then that? Just too much; too busy, too spicy, too...too.
So. I've polished off the fourth of our local winter brews sitting here with Mojo sewing and the two kiddos playing an exciting game with their "hex bugs"; everyone is having a heck of a good evening.
Day 4: "Sleigh'r" (Ninkasi Brewing, Eugene, Oregon)
Let me start by saying that I normally enjoy the product of the Ninkasi stable; they tend to make very classic Northwest beers.
But I found their seasonal to be...well, less than something to celebrate.
It was drinkable, but just that. Supposedly a "dark double alt" it had very little altbier character being, instead, a fairly conventional Northwest dark ale. Surprisingly underhopped for a Ninkasi release, it was rather "flat" and malty, with a "muddled" impression that did little to enhance the ginger-garlic chicken stir-fry I made tonight. Indeed, the combination of our CSA kale with baby bok choy and Chinese sausage from Anzen was more interesting than anything in the bottle. Not terrible, not even bad, but not particularly memorable or tasty. Not a keeper, in my opinion.
So there we are - another day tomorrow, another treasure from the Pacific Northwest. As good a way to pass the Yuletide season as I can imagine.
I'm almost surprised; at a time of year when I'm usually overwhelmed with curdled loathing for the masturbatory commercial splurgegasm that is the commercial Christmas season I have actually managed to get some pleasure out of this December.
It helps that the kiddos are not overcome with insane greed. They're excited about the upcoming loot but not utterly deranged about it. And we don't have any relatives visiting and infecting us with craziness, and without any real need to tote any out-of-towners around to Portland Christmasness we have managed to miss the most horrific of our local Wenceslausy glurge as well.
Now if my legs would just stop fucking with me. And we could catch and savagely beat the sonsofbitches that jacked Mojo's credit card and bought the airline tickets to Manila.
But those are stories for another day...
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Candy
For the third year in a row my children worked the University of Portland dorms for Halloween.
First, let me say that I'm not sure why, as much as I get more surly and less festive every December as my kiddos rocket about in an advertising-fueled orgy of greedy anticipation, I get more happiness over watching them get equally greedy for sweets and all things spooky every October. But by Thanksgiving I'm already snarling at the latest repetition of "I hope Santa brings me that Mega-thruster Barbie with the Bolt-on Wings!" whilst I practically melted when my daughter cuddled up to me Sunday mornings and sighed "I can't WAIT for Halloween!"
I'm not consistent, okay? But there's something about the Night Before The Day of The Dead that works for me. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.
One part of it, I think, is that the kids are active participants in the holiday at the end of October. Christmas is all about passive greed; Halloween is all about doing things; making the house "scary", choosing and re-choosing the right costume.
This year in keeping with his obsession with All Things Warlike the little man was a soldier. I didn't have the heart to tell him he looked like a post-Mission-Accomplished Iraqi child-conscript in his little five-color desert cammies and coverless Kevlar. He felt himself very martial, and raced about with his toy M-4 (minus the muzzle-end of the barrel, which somehow our friend's son had managed to snap off before he lent it to us...) blazing away at the Enemy Hordes.
Little Miss went with the traditional; a fairy princess. The delightful thing about these small people is that unlike us putative grown-ups they are unwilling to endure the ridiculous to keep up appearances. So when the little silver slippers hurt her feet I suggested that sometimes fairies went for comfort over style and she changed over to her little tennie-runners without demur.
Sadly, however, the cruel predation of childhood has not changed, either. She left her garish fairy wings at home after "some big kids laughed at me". It's probably fortunate for our conceit of childhood that as adults we tend to forget the deliberate hurts that we inflict on each other as children.
So it was with sparkly crowns and small arms we went over to the University to hunt for loot; Daddy (limping on his bad hip, which was playing up abominably), Sergeant Stryker and his companion, the Ammunition Fairy.
The dorm halls brought back assorted memories of my own college residence halls, although many of the young men and women of the Catholic college on the Bluff had gone to far greater lengths than I and my contemporaries would have to entertain the minor children of townie neighbors. Many of the girls were in costume as well, although here Missy is thoroughly unimpressed at getting a photo-op with Ariel the Little Mermaid herself; I was impressed that the co-ed Ariel's attention to detail that extended to matching-mermaid-tail-aquamarine toenail polish. Either a future attorney general or the first female archbishop of Portland.
We passed through the crowded halls following the Boy's nose for sugar. He was like a human sugar-hound, and we seldom missed a rich vein of loot. The students were very patient with all this hoo-raw, and, of course, the young women all cooed over the little girls.
I wondered as I listened to the happy glurge; is this feminine sentiment (the young men seemed as immune to sentiment in general as young men usually pretend to be) a fond memory of girlhood passing, or an eager anticipation of motherhood yet to come?
Whatever the reason, Missy's amour-propre was restored by the number of compliments she received for her little costume. She WAS adorable, and even the callow youth of North Portland could see that.
Eventually she tired of her pilgrimage - her brother, tireless Diogenes of Candy that he is, continued on with his friends - and I led her home. She went up to one doorway ("I don't want to go to any more houses where I don't know anyone", she declared after that) and then handed me her treat-bag and skipped alongside my uneven stride, chattering artlessly as all around us little groups of spectres, heroes, athletes, and household appliances scrambled shouting through the darkened streets.
Portland Halloween is often a sodden business, but Monday was clear and chill. The drifts of yellow and orange stirred in the night wind whose cold kiss promised the end of autumn and the coming of winter. But the lights of our house were warm, and the scampering footsteps of my daughter's homecoming were in perfect time with the contentment in my heart.
First, let me say that I'm not sure why, as much as I get more surly and less festive every December as my kiddos rocket about in an advertising-fueled orgy of greedy anticipation, I get more happiness over watching them get equally greedy for sweets and all things spooky every October. But by Thanksgiving I'm already snarling at the latest repetition of "I hope Santa brings me that Mega-thruster Barbie with the Bolt-on Wings!" whilst I practically melted when my daughter cuddled up to me Sunday mornings and sighed "I can't WAIT for Halloween!"
I'm not consistent, okay? But there's something about the Night Before The Day of The Dead that works for me. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.
One part of it, I think, is that the kids are active participants in the holiday at the end of October. Christmas is all about passive greed; Halloween is all about doing things; making the house "scary", choosing and re-choosing the right costume.
This year in keeping with his obsession with All Things Warlike the little man was a soldier. I didn't have the heart to tell him he looked like a post-Mission-Accomplished Iraqi child-conscript in his little five-color desert cammies and coverless Kevlar. He felt himself very martial, and raced about with his toy M-4 (minus the muzzle-end of the barrel, which somehow our friend's son had managed to snap off before he lent it to us...) blazing away at the Enemy Hordes.
Little Miss went with the traditional; a fairy princess. The delightful thing about these small people is that unlike us putative grown-ups they are unwilling to endure the ridiculous to keep up appearances. So when the little silver slippers hurt her feet I suggested that sometimes fairies went for comfort over style and she changed over to her little tennie-runners without demur.Sadly, however, the cruel predation of childhood has not changed, either. She left her garish fairy wings at home after "some big kids laughed at me". It's probably fortunate for our conceit of childhood that as adults we tend to forget the deliberate hurts that we inflict on each other as children.
So it was with sparkly crowns and small arms we went over to the University to hunt for loot; Daddy (limping on his bad hip, which was playing up abominably), Sergeant Stryker and his companion, the Ammunition Fairy.
The dorm halls brought back assorted memories of my own college residence halls, although many of the young men and women of the Catholic college on the Bluff had gone to far greater lengths than I and my contemporaries would have to entertain the minor children of townie neighbors. Many of the girls were in costume as well, although here Missy is thoroughly unimpressed at getting a photo-op with Ariel the Little Mermaid herself; I was impressed that the co-ed Ariel's attention to detail that extended to matching-mermaid-tail-aquamarine toenail polish. Either a future attorney general or the first female archbishop of Portland.
We passed through the crowded halls following the Boy's nose for sugar. He was like a human sugar-hound, and we seldom missed a rich vein of loot. The students were very patient with all this hoo-raw, and, of course, the young women all cooed over the little girls. I wondered as I listened to the happy glurge; is this feminine sentiment (the young men seemed as immune to sentiment in general as young men usually pretend to be) a fond memory of girlhood passing, or an eager anticipation of motherhood yet to come?
Whatever the reason, Missy's amour-propre was restored by the number of compliments she received for her little costume. She WAS adorable, and even the callow youth of North Portland could see that.
Eventually she tired of her pilgrimage - her brother, tireless Diogenes of Candy that he is, continued on with his friends - and I led her home. She went up to one doorway ("I don't want to go to any more houses where I don't know anyone", she declared after that) and then handed me her treat-bag and skipped alongside my uneven stride, chattering artlessly as all around us little groups of spectres, heroes, athletes, and household appliances scrambled shouting through the darkened streets.
Portland Halloween is often a sodden business, but Monday was clear and chill. The drifts of yellow and orange stirred in the night wind whose cold kiss promised the end of autumn and the coming of winter. But the lights of our house were warm, and the scampering footsteps of my daughter's homecoming were in perfect time with the contentment in my heart.
Monday, July 4, 2011
235th
Funny sort of a feeling today.
I enjoyed a VERY lazy day - my bride gathered in the small ones and let me enjoy an entire afternoon out back in the hammock enjoying the lovely, sunny quiet, alternately dozing and re-reading Carroll's "Son of the Morning Star".
In the evening, our friends Christine and her two sons came by and we had a very pyrotechnical time blowing shit up, and then walked down to Astor playground to watch the entire neighborhood display.
Projectile and explosive fireworks are illegal in Oregon. But not in Washington, so with that deep and abiding respect for the law in all its majesty that forbids rich and poor alike to steal bread and fire off a "Dragon Fountain" in the public street every Oregonian who can drives across the river and loads up the truck with a couple of hundred dollars of overpriced Chinese pyro. The entire city of Portland does it, so there's little chance of being cited unless you REALLY push your luck. But I like to think that up here in North Portland we light up the night sky with a certain villainous panache beyond what the rest of the city achieves.
When I was thinking about the coming barrage this afternoon, though, all I could think of was how much like the rest of American life this evening suggested. I don't know of anyone who goes outside after dark in any particular patriotic fervor, or with the intent of honoring the ideals of the nation, whatever they have become. It is, rather, an expression of pure entertainment, a mild diversion, and that facilitated with cheap products imported from sweatshop-labor manufactories overseas.
My children delighted in the display, and I found a certain cynical amusement in my little daughter's rapture in the lovely night-lights constructed for pennies probably within a handful of miles of her birthplace and imported, as was she, all the way to the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia to entertain a people whose primary accomplishment now seems to be the invention of new ways to package financial folderol and make money out of legitimized confidence games.
But they did enjoy it, and at this point, perhaps that's enough.
I wish I could append some inspiring quote from our nation's founders, some precious reference to the hazard to which they put their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. But I'm afraid I can't. The contrast between the men and women who took that risk, and the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of our times shrinking in fear and fortifying our nation, already bristling with arms, against the terror of a handful of ragged fanatics in the global hustings while casually eliding the poverty and joblessness of their fellow citizens here in our own republic would be too bitter for me to taste.
Let me merely hope that you and yours had a happy and peaceful day, and extend my wishes for a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I enjoyed a VERY lazy day - my bride gathered in the small ones and let me enjoy an entire afternoon out back in the hammock enjoying the lovely, sunny quiet, alternately dozing and re-reading Carroll's "Son of the Morning Star".In the evening, our friends Christine and her two sons came by and we had a very pyrotechnical time blowing shit up, and then walked down to Astor playground to watch the entire neighborhood display.
Projectile and explosive fireworks are illegal in Oregon. But not in Washington, so with that deep and abiding respect for the law in all its majesty that forbids rich and poor alike to steal bread and fire off a "Dragon Fountain" in the public street every Oregonian who can drives across the river and loads up the truck with a couple of hundred dollars of overpriced Chinese pyro. The entire city of Portland does it, so there's little chance of being cited unless you REALLY push your luck. But I like to think that up here in North Portland we light up the night sky with a certain villainous panache beyond what the rest of the city achieves.
When I was thinking about the coming barrage this afternoon, though, all I could think of was how much like the rest of American life this evening suggested. I don't know of anyone who goes outside after dark in any particular patriotic fervor, or with the intent of honoring the ideals of the nation, whatever they have become. It is, rather, an expression of pure entertainment, a mild diversion, and that facilitated with cheap products imported from sweatshop-labor manufactories overseas.My children delighted in the display, and I found a certain cynical amusement in my little daughter's rapture in the lovely night-lights constructed for pennies probably within a handful of miles of her birthplace and imported, as was she, all the way to the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia to entertain a people whose primary accomplishment now seems to be the invention of new ways to package financial folderol and make money out of legitimized confidence games.
But they did enjoy it, and at this point, perhaps that's enough.I wish I could append some inspiring quote from our nation's founders, some precious reference to the hazard to which they put their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. But I'm afraid I can't. The contrast between the men and women who took that risk, and the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of our times shrinking in fear and fortifying our nation, already bristling with arms, against the terror of a handful of ragged fanatics in the global hustings while casually eliding the poverty and joblessness of their fellow citizens here in our own republic would be too bitter for me to taste.
Let me merely hope that you and yours had a happy and peaceful day, and extend my wishes for a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Cool Things in North Portland; Marching
Busy weekend.
I won't bother you with the playtime at the pool, or the lawnmowing (although the new electric mower kicks ass like a crazy monkey) or the terrific Saturday evening I spent with my friends Brent and Julie - and about 400 other Timbers Army supporters - down at the Thirsty Lion to sing for our Boys in Green (who came away from Qwest field with a hard-earned point thanks to Futty Danso and his brilliant header).
There's just too much there, and it's mostly home and kiddo stuff, anyway.
Nope, the highlight of the weekend was the 49th edition of the St. Johns Parade.
First, if I may, a bit of local history.
The only source I could find for the history of the Parade was the May issue of the "St. John's Review", a ridiculous local fishwrap news and advertiser that serves primarily as the ego-polisher of one Gayla Patton, who is the notional editor of the birdcage liner. Whenever I glace at it it seems composed largely of advertisements for local businesses and whatever oddball local news Gayla and her friends can drag in.
A fellow named Speirs writes local history, including the piece from which I siphoned most of the following information.
Jim Speirs has never met anything made, born, or thought of after 1971 that he's enjoyed or approved of, and most of his writing is a slavering paean to the wonders of living in North Portland when men were men, women wore pumps and pearls, cars ran on real gas, and all these damn dirty hippies, ungrateful college punks, noisy negros, and scary wetbacks lived somewhere else.
But aside from that the man knows his North Portland history.
According to Brother Speirs, three residents of the North Portland area, led by the manager of the local Savings and Loan, got the idea of a "a parade and neighborhood cleanup" some time in the late fall of 1962 or early winter of 1963. Apparently the notion was connected with removing "mounds of trash" which, again according to the redoubtable Mr. Speirs, "...was spewed throughout the neighborhood with careless abandon by private citizens and public municipalities..." (which is a pretty good sample of the guy's prose. I said the man knows his North Portland history - he just doesn't write it worth shit...).
You see, since early in the 20th Century, St. Johns had the only landfill in Portland city and there seem to have been a lot more people who had trash to dump than had the buck to pay to put it in the landfill. So the northern end of the St. Johns peninsula, including what are today Chimney and Pier Parks, and several now-vanished locations such as the old Kaiser shipyard housing areas near Marine Terminal 4, had become, again in Jim Spiers words, "a huge mound of stinking trash".
These North Portland civic boosters managed to get the then-Mayor Strunk (who lived up here, perhaps the last Mayor to do so) involved in the project, "Operation Cleanup", which consisted of a week in which the dump was free to all, and a concerted local effort to clean the illegal dump areas around St. Johns.
According to Speirs, the entire business woke the rest of Portlanders up to the mess that was happening in St. Johns (he claims that garbage trucks came from as far as Kalama, Washington, to creep into the side-streets like North Taft to illegally dump their loads) and the resulting furor eventually resulted in closing the landfill.
It's now a nature trail.
Seriously.
Anyway, the first one of these parades kicked off on May 25, 1963. I have no idea what it looked like or who marched in it. I suspect that it wasn't that different from this years, with various politicians, bands, civic organizations, car clubs, and rodeo queens.
It was preceded by a "Talent Show.
And a "Cowboy Breakfast" served in the parking lot of the local Safeway.
I swear I am not making this up.
What the fuck this public feed had to do with cowboys I have no idea; there couldn't have been an actual cowboy within the municipal limits of St. Johns, and I doubt if the meal consisted of cowboy, either. I've been to that old Safeway, and other than smelling vaguely like a very old cow it wasn't remotely Westerny or cowboyish. Not so much as a cowgirl or cowkid. I don't get it.
We'll just have to chalk that one up to the Sixties' fascination with all things wild and woolly but they did serve a pantsload of hotcakes and sausage that morning.
Thinking on the entire business I find it funny as hell that the entire idea of the Parade has absolutely nothing to do with...well, anything, really, other than cleaning up great heaping mounds of nasty shit. It neither commemorates nor celebrates anything, has no historical regional or local basis. Although it's sparsely advertised as the "first event of the Portland Rose Festival" I don't know of anyone who really knows this, or really cares much if they do. There's supposed to be a "theme", although nobody lining the street could tell you what it is or gives a shit about it.
Come to think of it, tho, it's perfectly North Portland that the entire Parade is the brainchild of a freaking St. Johns Rotarian bankster who specialized in home loans for St. Johns. I especially love that he had a weekly radio show called, ingeniously, the "The Bob Hazen Show" (the man was a fucking marketing genius), which, according to our scribe Mr. Speirs "...broadcasted weekly programs extolling the desire and benefit of North Portland properties." I know the feeling; I've felt the desire of North Portland properties myself.
The whole early Sixties Parade farrago and the stalwart worthies who ramrodded it sends our boy Spiers into an orgasmic paroxysm of suckupitude. I can't reproduce it; you have to hear it from the man himself; 
Now in all seriousness, Hazen, Dunn, Benshoof, the Levetons, and the other organizers of the original Parade did do a hell of a good thing; it sounds like North Portland really WAS a hell of a nasty mess back in the day, and they got up and helped make things better. Whether they used all those words seldom used in today's world...well, I guess we'll have to take our man's word on that. Home loans might just possibly have been involved.
We may never know.
But last Saturday's St. Johns Parade would probably have appalled them. The marching bands were all from local middle schools or even elementary schools, and their "uniforms" were matching T-shirts, at best. The Boy Scouts straggled along in a gaggling clump that would have had them and old Baden-Powell weeping bitter, bitter tears at the state of the former sons of Empire.
The straw skimmers and ice-cream suits of the Royal Rosarians, our very own Kiwanis-Lions-Rotary Club would have reassured them.
But what they would have thought about the marching pregnant mommies from the Children's Relief Nursery
or the yoga float, or the pirates
or the steampunks..?
Well, the reassuring thing to me was the very slack, chaotic, unmilitary lassitude of it. There was no danger of being energized to go invade something or fight someone; this was as far from massed troop units and the regimented splendor of a military parade as can be imagined. Even the leading color guard was a packet of shambling sheriff's deputies who seemed consciously out of step, like children deliberately defying their father's attempts to make them walk like grownups.
There may be many things about today that trouble and discourage us. We may have wars abroad and unemployment at home. We may be a society as divided by wealth, and ideals, as any time in our history.
But, for me, to sit on the lopsided trash can savoring the fine greasiness of the Signal Station Pizza's bounty and to watch the richly odd, untameable, freakishly unique, foolishly serious little parade pass by was to feel myself sink deeply into my community, into the workaday hours that are St. Johns, that is the North End, that is Portland, that is my home.
And was to realize that this is my home. That for all the many lands and many seas I have passed over, all the places I have lived and the people I have lived them with, it is here that I have come home to; here is my heart of rest.
I won't bother you with the playtime at the pool, or the lawnmowing (although the new electric mower kicks ass like a crazy monkey) or the terrific Saturday evening I spent with my friends Brent and Julie - and about 400 other Timbers Army supporters - down at the Thirsty Lion to sing for our Boys in Green (who came away from Qwest field with a hard-earned point thanks to Futty Danso and his brilliant header).
There's just too much there, and it's mostly home and kiddo stuff, anyway.
Nope, the highlight of the weekend was the 49th edition of the St. Johns Parade.
First, if I may, a bit of local history.
The only source I could find for the history of the Parade was the May issue of the "St. John's Review", a ridiculous local fishwrap news and advertiser that serves primarily as the ego-polisher of one Gayla Patton, who is the notional editor of the birdcage liner. Whenever I glace at it it seems composed largely of advertisements for local businesses and whatever oddball local news Gayla and her friends can drag in.
A fellow named Speirs writes local history, including the piece from which I siphoned most of the following information. Jim Speirs has never met anything made, born, or thought of after 1971 that he's enjoyed or approved of, and most of his writing is a slavering paean to the wonders of living in North Portland when men were men, women wore pumps and pearls, cars ran on real gas, and all these damn dirty hippies, ungrateful college punks, noisy negros, and scary wetbacks lived somewhere else.
But aside from that the man knows his North Portland history.
According to Brother Speirs, three residents of the North Portland area, led by the manager of the local Savings and Loan, got the idea of a "a parade and neighborhood cleanup" some time in the late fall of 1962 or early winter of 1963. Apparently the notion was connected with removing "mounds of trash" which, again according to the redoubtable Mr. Speirs, "...was spewed throughout the neighborhood with careless abandon by private citizens and public municipalities..." (which is a pretty good sample of the guy's prose. I said the man knows his North Portland history - he just doesn't write it worth shit...).
You see, since early in the 20th Century, St. Johns had the only landfill in Portland city and there seem to have been a lot more people who had trash to dump than had the buck to pay to put it in the landfill. So the northern end of the St. Johns peninsula, including what are today Chimney and Pier Parks, and several now-vanished locations such as the old Kaiser shipyard housing areas near Marine Terminal 4, had become, again in Jim Spiers words, "a huge mound of stinking trash".
These North Portland civic boosters managed to get the then-Mayor Strunk (who lived up here, perhaps the last Mayor to do so) involved in the project, "Operation Cleanup", which consisted of a week in which the dump was free to all, and a concerted local effort to clean the illegal dump areas around St. Johns.
According to Speirs, the entire business woke the rest of Portlanders up to the mess that was happening in St. Johns (he claims that garbage trucks came from as far as Kalama, Washington, to creep into the side-streets like North Taft to illegally dump their loads) and the resulting furor eventually resulted in closing the landfill. It's now a nature trail.
Seriously.Anyway, the first one of these parades kicked off on May 25, 1963. I have no idea what it looked like or who marched in it. I suspect that it wasn't that different from this years, with various politicians, bands, civic organizations, car clubs, and rodeo queens.
It was preceded by a "Talent Show.And a "Cowboy Breakfast" served in the parking lot of the local Safeway.
I swear I am not making this up.
What the fuck this public feed had to do with cowboys I have no idea; there couldn't have been an actual cowboy within the municipal limits of St. Johns, and I doubt if the meal consisted of cowboy, either. I've been to that old Safeway, and other than smelling vaguely like a very old cow it wasn't remotely Westerny or cowboyish. Not so much as a cowgirl or cowkid. I don't get it.
We'll just have to chalk that one up to the Sixties' fascination with all things wild and woolly but they did serve a pantsload of hotcakes and sausage that morning.
Thinking on the entire business I find it funny as hell that the entire idea of the Parade has absolutely nothing to do with...well, anything, really, other than cleaning up great heaping mounds of nasty shit. It neither commemorates nor celebrates anything, has no historical regional or local basis. Although it's sparsely advertised as the "first event of the Portland Rose Festival" I don't know of anyone who really knows this, or really cares much if they do. There's supposed to be a "theme", although nobody lining the street could tell you what it is or gives a shit about it.
Come to think of it, tho, it's perfectly North Portland that the entire Parade is the brainchild of a freaking St. Johns Rotarian bankster who specialized in home loans for St. Johns. I especially love that he had a weekly radio show called, ingeniously, the "The Bob Hazen Show" (the man was a fucking marketing genius), which, according to our scribe Mr. Speirs "...broadcasted weekly programs extolling the desire and benefit of North Portland properties." I know the feeling; I've felt the desire of North Portland properties myself.
The whole early Sixties Parade farrago and the stalwart worthies who ramrodded it sends our boy Spiers into an orgasmic paroxysm of suckupitude. I can't reproduce it; you have to hear it from the man himself; "What these heroes of North Portland couldn’t have known is what an incredible gift they were giving to St. Johns. They couldn’t have dreamed that their efforts would forever change their community; that they were at the cutting edge of history and would help give residents a new sense of pride.
They never thought in terms of getting credit, nor did they think they were in any way special. They were giving to the point of exhaustion, selfless in their efforts, and unaware that the hours and days that they toiled over would forever and permanently change the face of St. Johns. Like so many heroes from other situations, these people simply shrugged their shoulders when you expressed disbelief at their efforts. They responded with words that are seldom used in today’s world...words like “it was the right thing to do,” or “North Portland needed our help,”...or something so jaw dropping and amazing as “anyone could have done it”...and they never failed to give praise and credit to others!"Well, okay then.
Now in all seriousness, Hazen, Dunn, Benshoof, the Levetons, and the other organizers of the original Parade did do a hell of a good thing; it sounds like North Portland really WAS a hell of a nasty mess back in the day, and they got up and helped make things better. Whether they used all those words seldom used in today's world...well, I guess we'll have to take our man's word on that. Home loans might just possibly have been involved.
We may never know.
But last Saturday's St. Johns Parade would probably have appalled them. The marching bands were all from local middle schools or even elementary schools, and their "uniforms" were matching T-shirts, at best. The Boy Scouts straggled along in a gaggling clump that would have had them and old Baden-Powell weeping bitter, bitter tears at the state of the former sons of Empire.The straw skimmers and ice-cream suits of the Royal Rosarians, our very own Kiwanis-Lions-Rotary Club would have reassured them.
But what they would have thought about the marching pregnant mommies from the Children's Relief Nursery
or the yoga float, or the pirates
or the steampunks..?
Well, the reassuring thing to me was the very slack, chaotic, unmilitary lassitude of it. There was no danger of being energized to go invade something or fight someone; this was as far from massed troop units and the regimented splendor of a military parade as can be imagined. Even the leading color guard was a packet of shambling sheriff's deputies who seemed consciously out of step, like children deliberately defying their father's attempts to make them walk like grownups.
There may be many things about today that trouble and discourage us. We may have wars abroad and unemployment at home. We may be a society as divided by wealth, and ideals, as any time in our history.
But, for me, to sit on the lopsided trash can savoring the fine greasiness of the Signal Station Pizza's bounty and to watch the richly odd, untameable, freakishly unique, foolishly serious little parade pass by was to feel myself sink deeply into my community, into the workaday hours that are St. Johns, that is the North End, that is Portland, that is my home.
And was to realize that this is my home. That for all the many lands and many seas I have passed over, all the places I have lived and the people I have lived them with, it is here that I have come home to; here is my heart of rest.
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