PORTLAND ROAD TO TIGARD

The Portland road out of town comes in four iterations:

Highway 30 to Scappoose, I-84 to Gresham, Highway 26 to Beaverton, and I-5 to Tigard.

Of course the roads extend further, but not today.

If you’re leaving Portland for the suburbs, those are the choices.

I know you’re asking, “Why would anyone leave the beautiful city of Portland?”

People pack up and leave for their own reasons, which are different than why they came here in the first place.

Come for the freedom, the fun, the creative atmosphere of ‘anything is possible.’

Maybe you strongly identify with where you live, and you read about weird Portland and something clicked?

Weird? Those are your people? But you don’t know how weird, what kind of weird, or if they’re weirder than you?

Don’t worry, you’ll fit right in. Until you don’t. Then you start looking at the Portland road out.

But not too far out.

Portland Road Incident

On my own, before I was spoiled by good company, good food, and a good woman, I felt like I could live anywhere and be fine.

Just fine.

But, just fine isn’t everyone’s idea of where to live.

Since this BoomerPdx blogger preaches on being a good listener, I listened to the Portland streets.

I’d heard about street violence before I got punched out on NW 21st.

I came across a man slugging a woman at a bus stop across from Cinema 21 and stopped him.

With my face.

The police arrested the guy with his group.

They wanted me to confirm that he was the hitter.

I identified him in front of his people, the same people I saw sitting on a low wall reading the Oregonian near my place on 20th and Lovejoy, The Lee.

I don’t know if it was my paper, but the one I had delivered came up missing when they started showing interest in The News.

While they dealt out sections and exchanged them on the wall, I walked by and stopped to talk.

They weren’t all that talkative.

Now they’ve seen me pointing out one of their guys, and got a good look.

Portland Road Incident, pt.2

I didn’t move out of NW Portland out of fear, but things changed when I got married.

Shocking, I know.

We were expecting our first baby when we moved to SE 11th and Lincoln.

My wife had grown up in an LA county town, walking to school past strip clubs, prostitutes, and dope fiends.

She was tougher than NW Portland. That’s where she started her practice and opened her first clinic.

But baby was a difference maker.

And, we wanted more room for the money spent on rent.

1980’s rent: $155/mo for a third floor studio; $150/mo for a one bedroom down the block; $240/mo for a three bedroom upstairs flat on SE 11th.

Portland migration.

2

One Sunday night on 11th, a van raced by.

Someone jumped out, fell out, got pushed out.

I heard all about it when I came home to find the street shut down and police tape all around. Fire trucks and ambulances competed with police cars for space.

Something happened, but what?

For the full story I walked around the block, crossed the street, and asked the first guy I saw, “What happened?”

I slinked in like a casual observer, not a concerned neighbor across the street.

“What happened here?”

“I don’t know.”

Then a policeman approached, asked if he was the driver of the van, and walked him away.

But he didn’t know what happened when I asked him?

I milled around while the response group started packing up and heard this exchange:

“She got in the van at the bar down the street, and the driver floored it. She flew out the door just before they passed telephone pole.”

She flew out the door, hit the pole, and died.

And the driver didn’t know what happened.

We started looking for a Portland road out of town.

Road To Tigard

If you move to Gresham, and why the hell not, you’ve got I-84 with every possible exit for every possible jackass to jerk the wheel without a signal.

Words to never hear? Banfield crash.

Just saying it reminds of the Tigard guy who took a speed run with his buddy and flipped his Corvette on the outside curve near 33rd.

The driver died, the pal got a little glass in his mouth and walked away.

2

Hwy 26 is out if you don’t like tunnels.

Drive west on it and you’ll know why it’s called Sunset Highway as you squint yourself nearly blind.

The ride into town was ruined in 1984 by Portland’s version of the Bat Tower called the KOIN Center.

Before then, on the right day, Mt. Hood was framed coming out of the east bound tunnel, and it was beautiful, a Portland original.

One second you’re speeding along in the dark, honking the hell out of the horn and screaming with the windows down.

The next is a pure image of alpine wonder, the most beautiful mountain in the entire Cascade range. Until it blows up.

It is a volcano, after all, and we all know about Mt. St. Helens.

Some say living in a volcano is better than living in Beaverton, but I’m not convinced.

3

Highway 30 is out because the closest town is too far away.

On the plus side, if you like bridges, magnificent bridges, hard to understand why it’s hidden so far out of town kind of bridges, you’ll get to see the St. Johns Bridge twice a day on your Scappoose commute.

Arguably one of the most beautiful bridges in the country, this bridge embodies the pinnacle of bridge aesthetics.

Its beauty is solely derived from creating structural bridge elements that are themselves beautiful rather than adding superficial decorations to an ugly bridge structure.

On The Portland Road To Tigard

Exit 294 is what you’re looking for.

Terwillager Boulevard is still Portland. Keep going.

Multnomah Boulevard takes you to a ‘village.’

It’s cute, but it’s no village.

Without peasants, how can there be a village?

People who can afford to live there are not peasants, but are they even villagers?

Barbur Blvd is Hwy 99, the local road for people seeping out of the backside of the West Hills after Strohecker’s closed.

Strohecker’s, in Portland’s West Hills, opened in 1902. It has never been a typical grocery store. It has a stand-alone liquor store, post office and pharmacy.

“We have an account here,” said Synak. “One of the few stores you can have an account at still.”

“I come here all the time because it’s the only place to get food which is important in a teenage life,” added Ella Synak.

Customers are now trying to decide where to take their business.

“We have to actually drive down the hill,” said Vacheresse.

Conversation inside Barbur Blvd Fred Meyer:

“I heard you bought a new house.”

“We did. Up in the West Hills.

“You must love the city views.”

“We’re on the west side of the West Hills, the southwest side.”

“Oh?”

2

Capitol Hwy drops into shady looking motels and fast food franchises.

It’s got a New Jersey feel, which is great for Jersey people.

If you’re looking for someplace other than where people get their heads bounced off telephone poles, where screen doors have extra armor to keep the pit bulls in, Tigard is just around the corner.

Once you spot the big Fantasy Video sign, you’re there.

You’re in Tigard, a lovely bedroom community where everything is bland and calm.

Buy a house, raise a family, and watch the world burn as if you were in the center of an urban sprawl making new rules every day.

My house has been SWATTed twice when forces staged in my front window before invading the ‘meth friendly’ house down the Private Drive.

The year my oldest graduated, a fellow student was gunned down in a police shooting.

Main Street got a protest after another police shooting.

The cul-du-sac of my first house was a parking lot for hitters getting their hit next block over. They’d hop a backyard fence, get their stash, hit it and toss their syringe on my street.

Or maybe it was for insulin for a fragile diabetic off their schedule?

Your town, no matter where you are, is what you make of it.

I choose to see the beauty and make an effort for loved ones.

It’s not that much, but it’s everything when we’re all on the same page.

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