PORTLAND HOLIDAY HURLING SEASON

via krisssoden.org

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas you’ll find Portland Holiday Hurling Season.

(Overheard at Portland Saturday Market.)

I love this time of year. That’s right, as corny as it sounds, I love it.

Family and friends and toasts and food. What’s not to love.

Even the one time I took an early out on an evening’s celebration, I loved it.

We all got together at the old Virginia Cafe on SW Park. Since then it moved. Now it’s across from the main branch of the Multnomah Country Library.

The old VC had a bar on the right side going in the door, room for food on the floor, and stairs up to the loft.

The bathroom was around behind the stairs.

That’s an important part, the bathroom.

My party was there for Happy Hour Spanish coffees to celebrate Portland Holiday Hurling Season. That’s how it turned out, we just didn’t know at the beginning.

Have you ever had a Spanish Coffee? Rum and coffee and Kahlua set on fire?

Four of us were upstairs when we got the Happy Hour last call. We hurried up, chugged what was in front of us and ordered two more each.

After all the math we had eight drinks on the table.

Halfway through the next one I left for the bathroom, the one behind the stairway.

Something about the architectural design of the building left the Men’s Room door lower than usual. I found out the first time I went in and jammed my head into my neck and nearly dropped right there.

Stunned but still on my feet I joined my group. They said we finished the drinks and walked up the street to Portland State. At the time I worked downtown and attended classes at PSU.

The Spanish Armada hit my shores just outside Lincoln Hall where people were lining up to see a play.

I told my friends I needed to take a knee and found a bench. They walked onto the grass and sat around a tree waiting for me.

Once I sat down I lost all my strength and flopped over on my side with my head on the low end of the bench.

The people on the grass said it looked like the the ice age floods that formed the Columbia Gorge when I cut loose. I could see, I was awake. I just couldn’t move to see my new river.

Was it projectile vomiting, I asked? More than that, they said. More like water released from a dam to protect it from breaking, they said. You would have popped otherwise.

Needless to say a very large volume of Spanish Coffee hit the air, enough to fill the Rio Grande up to its banks.

Portland Holiday Hurling Season started with a brown tsunami headed straight for the people lined up for their play.

They never saw it coming.

The first people jumped and kept hopping. Others tried stepping over and ended stepping in.

The panic was so great no one looked my direction. But I wasn’t finished. By the time I was done all eyes looked upstream.

That’s when my group came to the rescue.

As far as new celebrations, I can’t recommend Portland Holiday Hurl Season for you, but keep an eye on others.

And your shoes.