Throwback night started in Smart Park on SW 3rd and Yamhill.
After my wife and I thought hard about going to the Portland Winter Light Festival, even if it’s raining, we launched the White Cloud Toyota down the highway.
Since the festival shined brightest in the dark, as light does, it was dark pulling up Hwy 99 in Tigard.
Any idea of a dull night in the streets left when we saw packed parking lots of restaurant after restaurant.
Wife: People are out on a Saturday night.
Me: I’ve never seen so many people out.
Wife: Probably a carry over from Valentine’s Day.
Me: Are you saying people are coming to Tigard for the food? It’s a food destination?
Wife: We’ve never been in any of these places.
This was driving north on 99 between the 217 ramps and the I-5 exit by Fantasy Video.
Some places were packed while their neighboring restaurants were empty.
Wife: Have you ever been in there?
Me: Where?
Wife: Fantasy Video. Don’t we still have a VCR in the garage?
Me: Yes on the VCR, no on the porn house.
Wife: Why not?
Me: I don’t like the parking.
Wife: They probably have backing in the back like some of the weed stores for people like you.
Me: People like me? Liquor in the front, poker in the back.
Wife: Sounds like your favorite bar.
Me: I don’t have a favorite bar.
Wife: Oh? Okay then.
On Guard In Portland From The Start
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Don’t wait long for the elevator. Take the stairs.
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Walk down the stairs first to greet anyone interested in meeting new people and asking for their shit.
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Walk on the inside of the sidewalk the building side, to meet the fucker jumping out of the shadows first.
Going downtown, any town, is about meeting new people, and avoiding new people.
Those are the safety precautions for Saturday Night Date Night on the last day of the festival, and the streets were packed.
It felt like Bourbon Street in New Orleans on a slow night, but for Portland a very busy night.
All the Christmas lights were still up and twinkling in between the big light sites at Pioneer Square, World Trade, and the Dragon Fountain across Front Street.
Cute dragon?
Still a cute dragon, or run for it?
On the way up to Pioneer Square:
The Worlds Trade Center had good lights.
A food cart was cooking up something that smelled like it still had the plastic on it.
Other than that, the air was clean.
Pioneer Courthouse For The Ninth District
There’s something encouraging about an old courthouse still standing in the middle of the city, any city, especially Portland.
It adds to the throwback night vibe of civic cooperation and congeniality.
I like the symbolism of law and order in brick, stone, and wood.
The courthouse, which is a National Historic Landmark, is the single most important 19th-century government building in the Pacific Northwest to survive into the 21st century.
Imagine the traffic in the area when the Portland Hotel was across the street.
After 1913, the Portland Hotel was outstripped in elegance by the new Multnomah and Benson Hotels. By the mid 1940s, the fading doyen fell on hard times. Meier & Frank bought the building in late 1944, and it was demolished in 1951 for parking space.
Meier & Frank was bought by Macy’s to close the circle.
And yet, the Pioneer Courthouse is still here.
Click here for more Portland History.
Throwback Night Results
How many Portland baby boomers, or any baby boomer anywhere, share the same goals?
However many, last night they failed because people of all ages came out.
Families, kids, old people older than me, if I had to guess, and I do.
Couples, singles, people dressed up in costumes and makeup, and some just looking glad for a reason to mingle in the big town.
How many bloggers share the throwback night possibilities, how many writers fill in the blank spots of their lonely, isolated, lives.
All of them?
They should.
In 2015, The Willamette Light Brigade founded the Portland Winter Light Festival in an effort to propel forward its mission of connecting community and enriching the public realm through artful lighting.
The light-based art and technology event continues to be a beloved annual winter event that is presented for free to the public each February, and provides significant economic and cultural stimulation to Portland during the darkest time of year.
Ten years in and I’m right on time.
Now I know.
So do you.
Put it on the calendar.
Bring your light.
About David Gillaspie
