THE OTHER PORTLAND OREGON

The other Portland once had a reputation as a place for rich hippies to retire young and send their kids to Reed College.

If that was the 70’s those kids might be fifty or sixty years old; thirty or forty if they started a family late, or decided to have more than one family.

Since they were rich and retired, why not?

The same Portland had a pipeline from high school, to PCC, to Portland State for a bachelor’s degree without ever leaving home.

The pipeline to a history degree worked for this seventies’ dropout before everything was ruined beyond recognition, before gentrification, and consolidation.

Before the wise city fathers uprooted South Portland for urban renewal the city was a hot mess.

 

In 1955, a Mayor’s Advisory Committee identified the blocks at the southeast end of downtown Portland—bounded by Market, Front, Arthur, and Fourth—as suitable for a land clearance and redevelopment project.

The federal government agreed to designate the 84-acre area for urban redevelopment because the city certified that it was a blighted area.

 

Did anyone call for an intervention? Would any normal commander in chief call in a strike, an occupation?

President Eisenhower had been the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during WWII.

He had organized and executed D-Day.

As the President of the United States he sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas when school integration faced local threats.

Why didn’t he send in the troops to rescue Portland from a blighted area?

I want to know, you want to know, and if you don’t you should.

 

Help When Help Was Needed

From wiki:

At the turn of the 20th century, the city had a reputation as one of the most dangerous port cities in the world, and was a hub for organized crime and racketeering.

 

Who didn’t send in the cavalry then? Teddy Roosevelt.

But he could have, the same way he threatened to use federal troops during a coal strike.

He could have targeted old Portland, the other Portland, for special attention.

The difference between the turn of the 20th century Portland, mid-century Portland, and current leadership today amounts to one characteristic shared by the first two.

TR and Ike had walked the walk, the American walk, in the dirt and the mud along with their fellow countrymen.

Who enjoys the thought of an American president camping out in Yosemite? I do.

Who likes the notion of an American president mingling with the people like Ike? Me.

 

“I come from the very heart of America.”

“Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”

“For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

“Some politician some years ago said that bad officials are elected by good voters who do not vote.

“But finally, there is one other quality I would mention among these that I believe will fit you for difficult and important posts. This is a healthy and lively sense of humor.”

“Learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.”

 

Were Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower admirable guys? They’ve been gone so long it’s hard to say, unless you read about them.

If you read about TR and Ike, you are reading history, the history of a couple of historical figures.

Reading takes you to their times, and depending on the writer, you’ll come away with a balanced point of view.

My last history classes made it a point of being balanced on their reading lists that included books written by one author called a monograph, a series of historical views called a compilation, and novels from the era being studied.

We history folk were exposed to far more than the winning side of affairs which makes for better decisions.

 

We The People, Not We The Pee-Pole

From President Lyndon B. Johnson:

 

It’s probably better to have the son-of-a-bitch inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

 

The third option: Inside the tent and cutting loose, letting it fly.

We’ve all been in a tent?

 

In a tent with drunk people looking for the zipper front to go out and puke?

In a tent where you wake up with animal noises near your head at night?

In a tent on a night so cold you hear, “It’s too cold to pee outside.”

 

A good camper helps the drunk find their way out or take the chance of getting puked on.

A good camper makes noise on the other side of the tent to draw the animal away.

A good camper always goes outside.

However, if you’ve never camped out in a tent with others, everything is a challenge that goes beyond your experience.

These are often people too embarrassed to show their lack of common sense in the campground, so they do stupid things, tenderfoot mistakes, while declaring their prowess.

If you’ve ever had a dog, and walked your dog in public, you’ll find Fido doesn’t always stop at the same sign pole, telephone pole, or the same light pole.

They might pause to check the status, but they want their own pee-pole.

When it comes to We The People, our status is established in papers like The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights.

What every camper and dog owner knows is that there’s a standard we live by, one of which is picking up our dog’s poop.

 

PS: Portland Oregon is so far out west that regular people can barely fathom its existence. National sports shows with a reason to know where Oregon is because of Oregon Duck Football even have trouble. If a decision maker calls Portland a hellhole of crime and civil unrest so out of control it needs federal troops, regular people who don’t need no map, who can’t find their ass with both hands, can agree.

PSS: The top picture shows the sort of effective federal law officers Oregon already has, and they’re doing a great job.

The second picture is C.E.S. Wood.

The third is from the No Kings march earlier this year.