PORTLAND URBAN LIFE REVERSE HISTORY: FROM 2-17-19 TO 2-13-17

The ultimate joy of aging gracefully is the grace part. I don’t feel a need to lash out at every wrong I’ve ever felt.

At the same time I can’t listen very well to others working their own lash.

I mean, who really knows what brings people to act the way they do?

Well, I’ve got an idea, and so do you, but we keep them to ourselves.

At least that’s the original intention, but not for a blogger, a writer, a historian, a worker in the word pit. We look for the motivating factor to create an inciting incident.

Call it a way of looking at life, connecting dots, understanding my fellow man.

2-17-19

Sunday was a free day at the Oregon Historical Society, the state history museum located on Portland’s Park Blocks between Portland State University and the Aero Club. It’s across the street from Portland Art Museum.

You can’t miss it, especially on a free day for the grand opening of the new permanent exhibit introducing visitors to Oregon.

I stress ‘Free Day’ because these days bring out the history babblers, the know-it-alls, relatives of the people the streets NW Portland are named for. Museum kooks are a breed unto themselves, and I found one who knew everything about everything.

Since I’m a museum kook too, I tried to one-up him. He talked so fast I thought he might be on the clock. It’s hard to interrupt someone on a history museum roll. Finally I jumped when he took a break.

“Okay, hold on, my turn,” I said.

It was the wrong thing to say. He wasn’t used to the idea of taking turns and discovered he was late for something.

The crowd, yes crowd, in the new exhibit was wonderful. It seemed like a particular group, a segment of the population, was waiting for the right time to show up. Noon on Sunday was the time.

My museum day started with a history drive down Front Ave Portland all the way to Industial NW, with the river on the right and apartment buildings on the left, then apartments on both side, then train yards and huge oil storage tanks and heavy industry.

Get down that way and it’s easy to forget about The Portland so many come for. That neighborhood is more about hard work, grit, and stink, not food carts, IPAs, and sunsets behind the Tillicum Crossing.

2-16-19

Museum Sunday followed a Portland Saturday night show at the Mission Theater on NW 16th featuring Whole Lotta Love Burlesque.

You’ve been to a burlesque show? It was an intrigue from the start. These weren’t young women saving money for medical school, or supporting a meth addicted boyfriend. Instead, they were professional women dedicated to their craft.

Saturday night they worked their craft with a Led Zeppelin cover band playing behind them. The singer was a Robert Plant howler woman dressed in classic burlesque.

Is it a lifestyle? From the looks of the stage and the crowd, I think lifestyle comes into play. I was just passing through for the experience of authentic burlesque.

The feather boa didn’t call my name, but it did for the last act of the night: Burlesque Dancer Man. You read it right, a dude dancer. And he killed it.

From my read on history the show felt like something from a more innocent time.

2-15-19

Friday night the Oregon State Beavers hosted Stanford in Corvallis for a PAC12 wrestling match. My favorite wrestling dad and I had talked about seeing a match and he was in town. We planned on going to the Mission Theater the next night with our wives the next night, so I thought I might hit the Stanford match.

I was motivated by a Facebook post from a high school wrestler a few years younger than me from the same team. He put out an open invitation for a wrestlers gathering and dinner afterward.

We connected and I planned on going. Like a normal courtesy I asked if anyone needed a ride, or had an extra seat. No sense rolling out with empty seats. My last question about the night before leaving home was, “which section are you sitting in. Let me know and I’ll find you.”

Reasonable thing to ask, right? Didn’t hear anything back. No problem, I’m a big boy and I know how to find people in a crowd. But still, does it seem odd to answer an invite, then the invite goes cold?

This is why it matters: Over the years I’ve narrowed my social obligations and don’t jump up as often to do things I didn’t think about. I was surprised my wife agreed to Museum Sunday. I was surprised to double date Saturday night.

I wouldn’t have thought to travel from Portland to Corvallis on a Friday night, or afternoon as it turned out, but the Facebook post about the match had an edge to it. I could be wrong, but it felt like it came from other places than a simple get together, a meet up.

Was it some sort of announcement? Part of a new counseling therapy? I tried to recall which step in the AA program included college wrestling? Not making a joke here, but there seemed like something else going on besides guys going to a wrestling match. Then the communication breakdown? Still, I wanted to show up for whatever was going on since it was for a good guy with history.

So I hit the road, on ramped to freeway speed, then joined a three hour traffic jam. I might have moved ten miles, maybe fifteen. I didn’t make it to Woodburn.

While I sat in jammed traffic I watched fire engines, police cars, and ambulances race past on the shoulder. Miles long lines waited to exit off I-5 on the right. A few cars broke the law and risked driving over the median separating north and south bound lanes.

I passed on the chance to get off on either side. I was going to a wrestling match to support a family friend who reached out, a grown man I’ve known since he was in grade school, someone who would have been best man material at a wedding. I wanted to ‘be there’ for someone else. It felt important, even more so when he failed to respond. Did he have an accident? A stroke? I was worried.

After three hours and counting, I saw another chance to skirt the dividing strip, turn around, and head home. I checked for cops and eased out of the fast lane. I was perpendicular to traffic coming the other way like I’d just pull out into seventy mile an hour cars flying past. Not a good idea, so I turned onto the shoulder and floored it.

Fifteen minutes later I was where I’d started three hours before. No contact with my at-risk pal meant I had some time. Since my wife was having friends over in my absence, always a good thing to be gone for true ‘girl time,’ I wasn’t going home. But where?

Lucky for me I have a favorite place that sells my favorite beer only sold in two places in the world. Talk about exclusive. It’s better than beer I’ve paid ten bucks a pint for. The special at Tapphoria charges three dollars for a twenty ounce mug if you belong to the Mug Club. And it’s happy hour.

However you define ‘state of bliss’ you’d have to agree I was somewhere in the neighborhood. After I got punked, then got stuck in the worst traffic jam in my life, I gave my caring wife time with her caring friends while she thought I was on a care mission myself.

In other words I was talking a load of crap at the local bar about some whiner luring me out of my routine for success the day before their birthday. Yeah, I checked. Surprise. I still wished a happy facebook birthday when I don’t wish anyone happy facebook birthdays so they wouldn’t feel so all alone.

Valentine’s Day, 2019

Huber’s was great.

I love my Portland Valentine and she loves me.

Small miracles.

2-13-2019, Daisy Day

Open heart surgery seems pretty straight forward: make the cut, saw the bones, replace and repair, sew it up.

An open heart for a dog is more complicated. Not open heart dog surgery, but opening your heart to a dog the way dogs do for us with the right match.

The first time I held my miniature dachshund puppy in one hand I felt the cut and the saw and this little creature replaced and repaired any notion I had that I wasn’t a dog person. Dr. Dog?

Maybe I’m not a dog person, but I turned into a Daisy person. It really wasn’t my dog, but it was. It had the same coloring as Rottweilers and dobermans, which was close enough. I joked that I bought it as a Rottweiler and it didn’t grow.

Have you ever seen a dog that turned high school and college boys, men, or at least on the way to manly, into little boys again? That was Daisy’s super power, turning back the clock. Everyone who knew her turned back to the age they were when Daisy came home. She was the baby to protect, the puppy to play with, the tiny fur ball that grew into a fierce and proud protector.

Daisy had a bad Tuesday night so we took her to the vet Wednesday morning. She was weak and listless and I carried her in her bed while momma drove. I waited in the car while Elaine went in to explain the situation. By the time they came to my door, about two minutes, Daisy had died.

Not to be stopped, the staff took her in and started CPR and oxygen in a treatment room. After we got the first update we said let her go. They proceeded to euthanize my dog for a hundred dollars, offer a private cremation for three fifty, a general cremation for one fifty, or take her home where she belongs for no added cost.

Our Daisy. Priceless.