A Drive into the Soft Heart of Portland

Served up comfort and joy.

Crossing over the mountains was a surprise.

I had left my home mid morning. For three days frozen fog had been drifting through. Three days made for extensive rime, fierce-looking but delicate white spikes studding branches and fences. Overnight, they had grown from daggers to broadswords.

I took Axle for a run before we got in the car. By the time we got back to the warm house, frost had climbed aboard my beard as well.

If you know Oregon, you know about the rain shadow. All my life growing up on the east side of the mountains I knew of quips on T Shirts that Oregon is rain-drenched. That was not what we experienced; we lived in a desert that gets nine inches of water a year. There are two Oregons, and the weather marks the boundary.

The fog was all along the drive even as we started climbing in earnest to the passes that divide Oregon.

The surprise was that climate is not weather. Coming over the pass I crested into blue, fog-free skies. Even in December, The rainy side of the rain shadow will have sunny days.

Getting back into cell reception, I started getting more texts about the evening. I and a bunch of Portland friends had tickets for a very Portland Affair. While a local band performed The Beatles White Album, a group of circus performers play out a ridiculous script as excused to juggle, swing on acrobats, and do rope tricks. An annual quasi-Christmas event: the White Album Christmas.

But first I had lunch with the boys. We always go to the same place, a local brewery that is a certified B-Corp. They partner with organizations so that somehow their beer helps salmon and regenerative farming. I am not sure of the details, but they are darn nice people and the Abominable winter ale is delicious.

My life in Portland has a tradition of gathering. I spend a lot of money eating and drinking out when I visit. Erik and Karl and I dined on our usual inside jokes, political observations (lots of sighing here) and plans for the future.

I parked at my friend's place and walked about a mile down Alberta Street to the show. Alberta is a lively place. I had watched it gentrify over the two decades I lived in Portland. Some organization has now put up thoughtful markers recalling members of the Black community that was displaced. I walked by new shops and familiar ones. The shoe store that I have bought the same model of shoes for a dozen years was just closing down for the day. The sun was disappearing and cold was coming along the street.

We met at the Irish pub before the show. Our group spanned about 25 years from youngest to oldest. Whiskeys and beers were consumed. Friends burst in the door to hoots and hoorays. We chit chatted in the warmth of the bar until it was time for the show.

Where you are, where you make community, you are at home.

The show was blissful. The band nailed the graceful, eclectic songs. The performers gave me that blend of silliness and tension when the man on stilts jumps rope while an acrobat juggles on his shoulders.

The simple story wrapped around all the juggling and acrobatics was topical as can be; an evil interstellar property developer wanted to pave over earth for a gentrification project. Earth people had to show that they were worth saving by being lively and interesting, it seemed.

Earth managed to pass the test, though it was a close call.

After the last track (“dreams, sweet dreams, for all”) and much applause, We spilled out of the event. Flyers for upcoming shows were pressed into our hands.

The next day I read yet another article about the disaster that is Portland, and that its “progressive” politics are the cause of that. ¹

I know enough about the politics in Portland to say that is both correct and dead wrong. I also know that regardless, there is a Portland that makes beautiful days and strong bonds and laughs deep and hard.

Political entertainers with no accountability tell a simple story that the policy of soft-hearted liberal elites destroy their cities. That is extremely simplistic.

They also make towns that are a refuge for people from all over the state and the nation who are weird, who may not feel safe where they came from, who need community. These people make bands, and circuses, and weird shops. They write code and books. They build things.

And they make community. The mockery of Portlandia is dead-on sometimes. We do wave each other through intersections regardless of the right of way. But what are the intentions behind those odd acts of geniality? I see it as people and community that take the risk of caring for strangers.

I just listened back to the first Old Truck Good Coffee podcast, our conversation with Todd Johnson. I enjoyed him and look forward to our follow up conversation. I hope you do as well. I was struck by how much he hates performative "virtue signaling."

I want to talk more with him about that. I certainly see that act sometimes in Portland, but I see the ideal of sweetness that drives it.

The articles aplenty and short clips of ugliness played all over the internet are (sometimes) a truth of Portland. But it is not a complete picture. When you stroll down Alberta, or struggle to determine who really gets to go next at a four way stop, you are in the same town. Portland is the results of the sum of the people’s efforts to make a good life.

1. Ireland, Jonathon “The Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the Corruption of the American City.” American Affairs. “ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/05/the-nonprofit-industrial-complex-and-the-corruption-of-the-american-city/