VANISHING POINT: HOW TO REMEMBER PORTLAND

The vanishing point definition:

The center spot on a horizon line where parallel lines in the foreground converge. Like a triangle?

Maybe. Check a drawing book.

The vanishing point for Portland takes another view, and it’s nothing to do with weird or keeping Portland weird.

Shocking, don’t you think?

Oregonlive published a letter to the editor with the title: Goodbye, Portland; We’re leaving a tattered Rose City.

Why is it getting so much attention? Here’s why:

After the Homeless Industrial Complex took over the city government’s social services, after the developers corrupted zoning in various ways (such as no requirements for off-street parking or decent setbacks), after the city council abdicated respect for homeowners and their neighborhoods, after the council’s thoughtless disdain for law enforcement, it became too much.

Living in Portland became ‘too much.’

Are they right? Is it too much to live in a city that turned its back on its residents?

Or, are people aging out, looking for a downsized condo, and blaming the city?

We said goodbye to my wife’s beautiful garden, our wonderful neighbors and friends, the intrepid restaurateurs, bakers and shopkeepers and the things we loved about our adopted Rose City. 

I found the letter from a link on newsbreak.com.

Along with comments.

The Portland Problem? It Isn’t Paris

People flood to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum and Mona, and ride around on bikes.

People flood to Portland for ? ? ?

I’m thinking.

Compared to:

People flock to Portland for Powell’s and OMSI? That’s the overlap on what’s famous in Portland and what people come to see.

Does that sound inviting enough to plan a trip and stay a week like a good tourist digging into a new place?

Maybe Paris is a poor comparison to Portland, but I spent ten days there and felt like I’d barely just begun.

I’ve lived in and around Portland since 1980, from SE 72nd and Rural (hi B), to NW Lovejoy, to SE 11th and Lincoln.

Except for the tram, I’ve been everywhere and done everything on both lists.

I didn’t leave town in a cloud of butt-hurt acrimony. With kids to raise, and a wife with a strong opinion on where to live, “I grew up in LA, so no where that looks like that,” we moved to the suburbs six miles away.

Out here people complain about traffic on Hwy 99W more than degraded lifestyle expectations due to drugs and homeless camps.

In the land of Big Box stores and strip malls, no one mistakes it for Portland.

Or Paris.

Vanishing Point In Reverse

Where I come from it’s easy to disappear.

You can disappear on endless forest trails, disappear on beaches that stretch out to a vanishing point, disappear digging clams, trolling the bay, dropping a line in the ocean.

Except we don’t call it disappearing, we call it living a good life.

My Dad chose North Bend over Coos Bay to raise a family after finishing college and getting a job in 1960.

I still believe it’s because the high school mascot was a bulldog, the same animal the U.S. Marines have as their mascot.

My old man was a Marine’s Marine. He wasn’t alone. Today’s his birthday.

He’s never disappeared since his death in 1996.

He was raised up the road in small town Washington and moved his family to small town Oregon so we’d grow up the right way.

So far, so good. Thank’s Dad. You haven’t faded away from us.

Leaving Portland Memories For Seattle?

If you’re leaving small city Portland for a big one, there’s only one way to go:

North to Seattle, not south to San Francisco.

Be sure and take your memories with you on your way out the door:

Remember Portland:

Realistically the homeless situations only going to get worse and worse and worse. you cannot continue to give away free housing, free electricity free water free air conditioning free food free needles and expect it to get better.

Sad but it is true but Portland is a SLUM… Portland Oregon was an area you used to let your children out and run free it was an area where you could raise your children…

My family did the same thing last March. We now live in a little southern town, where the people take pride in their environment, what is being taught to their children and live in peace. I will never return to Portland, so so sad because it used to be one of the cleanest cities and safest cities in the US.

Portland still looks clean and safe on paper, on a screen.

Wish me luck when I go downtown this week and park my car.

I’ll be on the look-out for people and places to write about.

Do you know who I won’t find? The Portland quitters.