Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday Jukebox: End of the World Edition
Well, I know for damn sure I've got no travel plans for tomorrow - God and I still aren't speaking after the whole "You killed my little girl, you omnipotent, omniscient deity fuckpole bastard!" thing - so here's my contribution to the discussion of the coming Rapture:I dunno much about rapture other than what the Mojo does for me when she does her "Dance of the Seductive Herdbeast", but I know this: damn, but these women rocked.
A Nation of Men
Noted in passing: today is the "60th day" since the formal announcement that U.S. armed forces were involved in the civil war in Libya. Other than a handful of GOP senators neither the Congress nor the White House appears to be concerned about missing the deadline for a Congressional approval of the escapade required under 50 U.S.C. 1541-1548.
The U.S. right has always scorned the "War Powers Resolution". Now the circle is complete, and the U.S. "left" (whatever there is of it represented in the corridors of power) shows its disregard that the People in Congress have any business interfering in foreign military policy.
What was that? A nation of laws?
Whereever did you hear THAT nonsense..?
The U.S. right has always scorned the "War Powers Resolution". Now the circle is complete, and the U.S. "left" (whatever there is of it represented in the corridors of power) shows its disregard that the People in Congress have any business interfering in foreign military policy.
What was that? A nation of laws?
Whereever did you hear THAT nonsense..?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Podgarić
This is the monument in Podgarić, in the Bjelovarsko-bilogorska district of central Croatia.
The photograph is from a book by the Dutch artist Jan Kempenaers entitled "Spomeniks, apparently the Serbian for "Monuments".
These things - and there are several more good reproductions of the Kempenaers photos here - were constructed by the Yugoslav government in the Sixties and Seventies to commemorate various events in the partisan campaigns of WW2, as well as the usual sort of "Monument to the Revolution" sort of thing. They are all very abstract, and, as you can see in the collection pictures in the blog "Crack Two" here, range from fairly well maintained to utterly destroyed.
I don't think there's a deeper meaning here. I was just fascinated by the images; these vast, contextless, desolate things, a sort of abstract Ozymandias in the Balkan hills. You wonder what a passerby will think a hundred years from now, if there is anything left of them. Will they be pointed out to the tourist, their provenance described and meaning explained? Or will they be forgotten, to be chanced upon by the adventurous journeyer standing mute and incomprehensible as Linear A?
The photograph is from a book by the Dutch artist Jan Kempenaers entitled "Spomeniks, apparently the Serbian for "Monuments".These things - and there are several more good reproductions of the Kempenaers photos here - were constructed by the Yugoslav government in the Sixties and Seventies to commemorate various events in the partisan campaigns of WW2, as well as the usual sort of "Monument to the Revolution" sort of thing. They are all very abstract, and, as you can see in the collection pictures in the blog "Crack Two" here, range from fairly well maintained to utterly destroyed.
I don't think there's a deeper meaning here. I was just fascinated by the images; these vast, contextless, desolate things, a sort of abstract Ozymandias in the Balkan hills. You wonder what a passerby will think a hundred years from now, if there is anything left of them. Will they be pointed out to the tourist, their provenance described and meaning explained? Or will they be forgotten, to be chanced upon by the adventurous journeyer standing mute and incomprehensible as Linear A?
Wag of the Finger, Shake of the Head
What is it about this spring?
It seems to me like if you look around you see a tremendous amount of business; all sorts of alarms and excursions, wars, rumors of wars, lechery (of course, lechery - nothing else holds fashion), dirty deeds done...well, not cheaply, that's certain. And the wages of wealth seem to be exploding like the flowering spring, as in the stained glass of the megachurch a camel leaps effortlessly through the eye of a needle.
We seem to be busier and more worried than ever. And yet...all of our busyness and worry doesn't seem to be really changing anything, or helping us in any way.
And - I ask this in the spirit of mildest reproof, I swear, - why the FUCK does fucking Blogger insist on inserting this FUCKING "http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" little html code in my posts? Can you FUCKING tell me that, Blogger? Well?
Fuck me sideways.
Just yesterday the voters in Portland rejected a construction bond for our public schools while in Clackamas County they spurned a measure that would have helped pay to reconstruct the bridge that many residents of the County use to cross the Willamette.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
See? SEE? There the fucker is again! Rrrrrrrrr!
Sorry.
Anyway, pretty much everyone in the region agrees that many of our schools are old - not just old but old. I've taught in some of them; the boiler room at my son's elementary school looks like something out of "Titanic", while the school where I did my student teaching, Benson Polytech, is 95 years old and looks it. The entire district is housed in buildings no younger than the last round of major building in the Seventies, while many of the elementary schools date back to the 1920s and 1930s. These schools are OLD.
And so is the Sellwood Bridge.
This graybeard is only 86 years old, a slip of a bridge compared to the Hawthorne but in much worse condition. It was recently downrated to 10 tons maximum capacity, and is consistently among the worst of our Oregon bridges for physical inspection rating. Multnomah County, which owns it, has us residents kicking in about $19 a year to help fix it. Our southern neighbor, Clackamas, generates about 70% of the traffic, but because of another of these fucking "tax revolt" groundswells had to refer a $5-a-year car tag fee to the voters.
They rejected it.
The spokesgomer for these people is some poor unemployed bastard out of Molalla. He is quoted as saying:
All of this frustration was set off by a visit I paid recently to a periodic pullout on my internet highway, "Clueless in Carolina", where Lorrie, the mom who blogs there, had a post up about the final plunge of Osama entitled "Osama Is Dead And I’m Celebrating. Why Are You Shaking Your Finger At Me?" in which she not only says that Dead Osama = VJ-Day but roundly vituperates anyone who DOESN'T agree that Dead Osama = VJ-Day.
And I guess that sort of brought everything home for me.
Here is this woman, an attorney, a former professor, smart, well-informed, the sort of funny, cynical skeptic who could subtitle her blog "detachment parenting" and make you understand where she was coming from. And she's getting all skibbley about the World's Tallest Saudi getting his wet nap. Comparing it to VJ-Day. Rocket's Red Glare. That sort of thing, like she took an entire of bottle of diet pills and chugged a liter of Red Bull. Over one more fucking dead guy in Asia. I mean, are my brothers back home with their families? Are we through spending the rent money keeping the Karzai family in blow and hookers? Are we done trying to figure out why the Muslims we keep bombing don't thank us so much anymore? Anybody? Osama's dead - whoopie! - can we declare victory now? It's VJ-Day!
Right?
And I thought; if this bright, well-educated, fiercely independent woman, if she can go utterly completely gonzo over the 2011 equivalent of Operation Vengeance, then who the hell's to say what's black and what's white.
I just sort of ended up conflating her ecstasy over the latest release in the line of Franklin Mint SignatureTM Dead Guys In Central Asia Commemorative Plate Series like it was the end of WW2 with all the other the ridiculous crap this spring - the looney arabesques in DC over the debt ceiling, Donald Trump, the endless pointless wars in central Asia and the Middle East, the freaking Clackamas County voters cutting off their bridge to spite their face, and with the sorry reality of a nation where a working wage is ever harder to come by, where my Army brothers walk the high plateaus of Asia in pursuit of a policy that never comes, where every day more of us seem poorer, and smaller, and yet work harder and longer to get there.
And where is the wag of a finger for all of this?
Why the hell isn't someone wagging a finger at this nonsense?
Or is it just that useless? Is there nothing to do but the sad, slow, shake of the head that is the rueful acceptance of the endless, limitless, evergreen folly of humankind, the world's only truly free resource, as it propels us ass-first into a pitiless tomorrow?
It seems to me like if you look around you see a tremendous amount of business; all sorts of alarms and excursions, wars, rumors of wars, lechery (of course, lechery - nothing else holds fashion), dirty deeds done...well, not cheaply, that's certain. And the wages of wealth seem to be exploding like the flowering spring, as in the stained glass of the megachurch a camel leaps effortlessly through the eye of a needle.
We seem to be busier and more worried than ever. And yet...all of our busyness and worry doesn't seem to be really changing anything, or helping us in any way.
And - I ask this in the spirit of mildest reproof, I swear, - why the FUCK does fucking Blogger insist on inserting this FUCKING "http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" little html code in my posts? Can you FUCKING tell me that, Blogger? Well?
Fuck me sideways.
Just yesterday the voters in Portland rejected a construction bond for our public schools while in Clackamas County they spurned a measure that would have helped pay to reconstruct the bridge that many residents of the County use to cross the Willamette.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
See? SEE? There the fucker is again! Rrrrrrrrr!
Sorry.
Anyway, pretty much everyone in the region agrees that many of our schools are old - not just old but old. I've taught in some of them; the boiler room at my son's elementary school looks like something out of "Titanic", while the school where I did my student teaching, Benson Polytech, is 95 years old and looks it. The entire district is housed in buildings no younger than the last round of major building in the Seventies, while many of the elementary schools date back to the 1920s and 1930s. These schools are OLD.
And so is the Sellwood Bridge.
This graybeard is only 86 years old, a slip of a bridge compared to the Hawthorne but in much worse condition. It was recently downrated to 10 tons maximum capacity, and is consistently among the worst of our Oregon bridges for physical inspection rating. Multnomah County, which owns it, has us residents kicking in about $19 a year to help fix it. Our southern neighbor, Clackamas, generates about 70% of the traffic, but because of another of these fucking "tax revolt" groundswells had to refer a $5-a-year car tag fee to the voters.
They rejected it.
The spokesgomer for these people is some poor unemployed bastard out of Molalla. He is quoted as saying:
“I want the bridge to be repaired, but I want to have a voice in choosing whether I pay this or not,” he said. “Clackamas County money should go to fix our own infrastructure. Are the Multnomah County voters going to pay to help us?”Well, we're ALL screwed now, dummy, because you won't see further than the wallet on your ass.
All of this frustration was set off by a visit I paid recently to a periodic pullout on my internet highway, "Clueless in Carolina", where Lorrie, the mom who blogs there, had a post up about the final plunge of Osama entitled "Osama Is Dead And I’m Celebrating. Why Are You Shaking Your Finger At Me?" in which she not only says that Dead Osama = VJ-Day but roundly vituperates anyone who DOESN'T agree that Dead Osama = VJ-Day.
And I guess that sort of brought everything home for me.
Here is this woman, an attorney, a former professor, smart, well-informed, the sort of funny, cynical skeptic who could subtitle her blog "detachment parenting" and make you understand where she was coming from. And she's getting all skibbley about the World's Tallest Saudi getting his wet nap. Comparing it to VJ-Day. Rocket's Red Glare. That sort of thing, like she took an entire of bottle of diet pills and chugged a liter of Red Bull. Over one more fucking dead guy in Asia. I mean, are my brothers back home with their families? Are we through spending the rent money keeping the Karzai family in blow and hookers? Are we done trying to figure out why the Muslims we keep bombing don't thank us so much anymore? Anybody? Osama's dead - whoopie! - can we declare victory now? It's VJ-Day!
Right?
And I thought; if this bright, well-educated, fiercely independent woman, if she can go utterly completely gonzo over the 2011 equivalent of Operation Vengeance, then who the hell's to say what's black and what's white.
I just sort of ended up conflating her ecstasy over the latest release in the line of Franklin Mint SignatureTM Dead Guys In Central Asia Commemorative Plate Series like it was the end of WW2 with all the other the ridiculous crap this spring - the looney arabesques in DC over the debt ceiling, Donald Trump, the endless pointless wars in central Asia and the Middle East, the freaking Clackamas County voters cutting off their bridge to spite their face, and with the sorry reality of a nation where a working wage is ever harder to come by, where my Army brothers walk the high plateaus of Asia in pursuit of a policy that never comes, where every day more of us seem poorer, and smaller, and yet work harder and longer to get there.
And where is the wag of a finger for all of this?
Why the hell isn't someone wagging a finger at this nonsense?
Or is it just that useless? Is there nothing to do but the sad, slow, shake of the head that is the rueful acceptance of the endless, limitless, evergreen folly of humankind, the world's only truly free resource, as it propels us ass-first into a pitiless tomorrow?
Kevin, the INTERNET is for porn...
...and the passing lane is for passing. And - this is just advice, mind you - you're supposed to pass a crime scene, not drive into it.
"When officers found the driver, identified as Kevin Signalness, they said he had his pants unzipped and a pornographic magazine laying on the passenger seat."
IMO this guy gets convicted on the mug shot alone. One thing I love about my hometown; even our criminals are weird.
Stay classy, Portland.
"When officers found the driver, identified as Kevin Signalness, they said he had his pants unzipped and a pornographic magazine laying on the passenger seat."
IMO this guy gets convicted on the mug shot alone. One thing I love about my hometown; even our criminals are weird.
Stay classy, Portland.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Keep Calm and Carry On
Just a bit of the brilliance from "Diskin's Timbers Propaganda"
Lovely work, but, then, I've always been a sucker for classic propaganda and advertising images
Don't know where he found the magnificent canned beans ad, but who the hell thought you'd want to eat beans that Damien the Antichrist Kid recommended?
Makes you proud to be Portland...and to take us out, here's his version of the iconic poster that gives this post its title:
"We'll sing for you, Timbers...'til you finish the fight..."
Lovely work, but, then, I've always been a sucker for classic propaganda and advertising images
Don't know where he found the magnificent canned beans ad, but who the hell thought you'd want to eat beans that Damien the Antichrist Kid recommended?
Makes you proud to be Portland...and to take us out, here's his version of the iconic poster that gives this post its title:
"We'll sing for you, Timbers...'til you finish the fight..."
Monday, May 16, 2011
Cool Things in North Portland; Marching
Busy weekend.
I won't bother you with the playtime at the pool, or the lawnmowing (although the new electric mower kicks ass like a crazy monkey) or the terrific Saturday evening I spent with my friends Brent and Julie - and about 400 other Timbers Army supporters - down at the Thirsty Lion to sing for our Boys in Green (who came away from Qwest field with a hard-earned point thanks to Futty Danso and his brilliant header).
There's just too much there, and it's mostly home and kiddo stuff, anyway.
Nope, the highlight of the weekend was the 49th edition of the St. Johns Parade.
First, if I may, a bit of local history.
The only source I could find for the history of the Parade was the May issue of the "St. John's Review", a ridiculous local fishwrap news and advertiser that serves primarily as the ego-polisher of one Gayla Patton, who is the notional editor of the birdcage liner. Whenever I glace at it it seems composed largely of advertisements for local businesses and whatever oddball local news Gayla and her friends can drag in.
A fellow named Speirs writes local history, including the piece from which I siphoned most of the following information.
Jim Speirs has never met anything made, born, or thought of after 1971 that he's enjoyed or approved of, and most of his writing is a slavering paean to the wonders of living in North Portland when men were men, women wore pumps and pearls, cars ran on real gas, and all these damn dirty hippies, ungrateful college punks, noisy negros, and scary wetbacks lived somewhere else.
But aside from that the man knows his North Portland history.
According to Brother Speirs, three residents of the North Portland area, led by the manager of the local Savings and Loan, got the idea of a "a parade and neighborhood cleanup" some time in the late fall of 1962 or early winter of 1963. Apparently the notion was connected with removing "mounds of trash" which, again according to the redoubtable Mr. Speirs, "...was spewed throughout the neighborhood with careless abandon by private citizens and public municipalities..." (which is a pretty good sample of the guy's prose. I said the man knows his North Portland history - he just doesn't write it worth shit...).
You see, since early in the 20th Century, St. Johns had the only landfill in Portland city and there seem to have been a lot more people who had trash to dump than had the buck to pay to put it in the landfill. So the northern end of the St. Johns peninsula, including what are today Chimney and Pier Parks, and several now-vanished locations such as the old Kaiser shipyard housing areas near Marine Terminal 4, had become, again in Jim Spiers words, "a huge mound of stinking trash".
These North Portland civic boosters managed to get the then-Mayor Strunk (who lived up here, perhaps the last Mayor to do so) involved in the project, "Operation Cleanup", which consisted of a week in which the dump was free to all, and a concerted local effort to clean the illegal dump areas around St. Johns.
According to Speirs, the entire business woke the rest of Portlanders up to the mess that was happening in St. Johns (he claims that garbage trucks came from as far as Kalama, Washington, to creep into the side-streets like North Taft to illegally dump their loads) and the resulting furor eventually resulted in closing the landfill.
It's now a nature trail.
Seriously.
Anyway, the first one of these parades kicked off on May 25, 1963. I have no idea what it looked like or who marched in it. I suspect that it wasn't that different from this years, with various politicians, bands, civic organizations, car clubs, and rodeo queens.
It was preceded by a "Talent Show.
And a "Cowboy Breakfast" served in the parking lot of the local Safeway.
I swear I am not making this up.
What the fuck this public feed had to do with cowboys I have no idea; there couldn't have been an actual cowboy within the municipal limits of St. Johns, and I doubt if the meal consisted of cowboy, either. I've been to that old Safeway, and other than smelling vaguely like a very old cow it wasn't remotely Westerny or cowboyish. Not so much as a cowgirl or cowkid. I don't get it.
We'll just have to chalk that one up to the Sixties' fascination with all things wild and woolly but they did serve a pantsload of hotcakes and sausage that morning.
Thinking on the entire business I find it funny as hell that the entire idea of the Parade has absolutely nothing to do with...well, anything, really, other than cleaning up great heaping mounds of nasty shit. It neither commemorates nor celebrates anything, has no historical regional or local basis. Although it's sparsely advertised as the "first event of the Portland Rose Festival" I don't know of anyone who really knows this, or really cares much if they do. There's supposed to be a "theme", although nobody lining the street could tell you what it is or gives a shit about it.
Come to think of it, tho, it's perfectly North Portland that the entire Parade is the brainchild of a freaking St. Johns Rotarian bankster who specialized in home loans for St. Johns. I especially love that he had a weekly radio show called, ingeniously, the "The Bob Hazen Show" (the man was a fucking marketing genius), which, according to our scribe Mr. Speirs "...broadcasted weekly programs extolling the desire and benefit of North Portland properties." I know the feeling; I've felt the desire of North Portland properties myself.
The whole early Sixties Parade farrago and the stalwart worthies who ramrodded it sends our boy Spiers into an orgasmic paroxysm of suckupitude. I can't reproduce it; you have to hear it from the man himself; 
Now in all seriousness, Hazen, Dunn, Benshoof, the Levetons, and the other organizers of the original Parade did do a hell of a good thing; it sounds like North Portland really WAS a hell of a nasty mess back in the day, and they got up and helped make things better. Whether they used all those words seldom used in today's world...well, I guess we'll have to take our man's word on that. Home loans might just possibly have been involved.
We may never know.
But last Saturday's St. Johns Parade would probably have appalled them. The marching bands were all from local middle schools or even elementary schools, and their "uniforms" were matching T-shirts, at best. The Boy Scouts straggled along in a gaggling clump that would have had them and old Baden-Powell weeping bitter, bitter tears at the state of the former sons of Empire.
The straw skimmers and ice-cream suits of the Royal Rosarians, our very own Kiwanis-Lions-Rotary Club would have reassured them.
But what they would have thought about the marching pregnant mommies from the Children's Relief Nursery
or the yoga float, or the pirates
or the steampunks..?
Well, the reassuring thing to me was the very slack, chaotic, unmilitary lassitude of it. There was no danger of being energized to go invade something or fight someone; this was as far from massed troop units and the regimented splendor of a military parade as can be imagined. Even the leading color guard was a packet of shambling sheriff's deputies who seemed consciously out of step, like children deliberately defying their father's attempts to make them walk like grownups.
There may be many things about today that trouble and discourage us. We may have wars abroad and unemployment at home. We may be a society as divided by wealth, and ideals, as any time in our history.
But, for me, to sit on the lopsided trash can savoring the fine greasiness of the Signal Station Pizza's bounty and to watch the richly odd, untameable, freakishly unique, foolishly serious little parade pass by was to feel myself sink deeply into my community, into the workaday hours that are St. Johns, that is the North End, that is Portland, that is my home.
And was to realize that this is my home. That for all the many lands and many seas I have passed over, all the places I have lived and the people I have lived them with, it is here that I have come home to; here is my heart of rest.
I won't bother you with the playtime at the pool, or the lawnmowing (although the new electric mower kicks ass like a crazy monkey) or the terrific Saturday evening I spent with my friends Brent and Julie - and about 400 other Timbers Army supporters - down at the Thirsty Lion to sing for our Boys in Green (who came away from Qwest field with a hard-earned point thanks to Futty Danso and his brilliant header).
There's just too much there, and it's mostly home and kiddo stuff, anyway.
Nope, the highlight of the weekend was the 49th edition of the St. Johns Parade.
First, if I may, a bit of local history.
The only source I could find for the history of the Parade was the May issue of the "St. John's Review", a ridiculous local fishwrap news and advertiser that serves primarily as the ego-polisher of one Gayla Patton, who is the notional editor of the birdcage liner. Whenever I glace at it it seems composed largely of advertisements for local businesses and whatever oddball local news Gayla and her friends can drag in.
A fellow named Speirs writes local history, including the piece from which I siphoned most of the following information. Jim Speirs has never met anything made, born, or thought of after 1971 that he's enjoyed or approved of, and most of his writing is a slavering paean to the wonders of living in North Portland when men were men, women wore pumps and pearls, cars ran on real gas, and all these damn dirty hippies, ungrateful college punks, noisy negros, and scary wetbacks lived somewhere else.
But aside from that the man knows his North Portland history.
According to Brother Speirs, three residents of the North Portland area, led by the manager of the local Savings and Loan, got the idea of a "a parade and neighborhood cleanup" some time in the late fall of 1962 or early winter of 1963. Apparently the notion was connected with removing "mounds of trash" which, again according to the redoubtable Mr. Speirs, "...was spewed throughout the neighborhood with careless abandon by private citizens and public municipalities..." (which is a pretty good sample of the guy's prose. I said the man knows his North Portland history - he just doesn't write it worth shit...).
You see, since early in the 20th Century, St. Johns had the only landfill in Portland city and there seem to have been a lot more people who had trash to dump than had the buck to pay to put it in the landfill. So the northern end of the St. Johns peninsula, including what are today Chimney and Pier Parks, and several now-vanished locations such as the old Kaiser shipyard housing areas near Marine Terminal 4, had become, again in Jim Spiers words, "a huge mound of stinking trash".
These North Portland civic boosters managed to get the then-Mayor Strunk (who lived up here, perhaps the last Mayor to do so) involved in the project, "Operation Cleanup", which consisted of a week in which the dump was free to all, and a concerted local effort to clean the illegal dump areas around St. Johns.
According to Speirs, the entire business woke the rest of Portlanders up to the mess that was happening in St. Johns (he claims that garbage trucks came from as far as Kalama, Washington, to creep into the side-streets like North Taft to illegally dump their loads) and the resulting furor eventually resulted in closing the landfill. It's now a nature trail.
Seriously.Anyway, the first one of these parades kicked off on May 25, 1963. I have no idea what it looked like or who marched in it. I suspect that it wasn't that different from this years, with various politicians, bands, civic organizations, car clubs, and rodeo queens.
It was preceded by a "Talent Show.And a "Cowboy Breakfast" served in the parking lot of the local Safeway.
I swear I am not making this up.
What the fuck this public feed had to do with cowboys I have no idea; there couldn't have been an actual cowboy within the municipal limits of St. Johns, and I doubt if the meal consisted of cowboy, either. I've been to that old Safeway, and other than smelling vaguely like a very old cow it wasn't remotely Westerny or cowboyish. Not so much as a cowgirl or cowkid. I don't get it.
We'll just have to chalk that one up to the Sixties' fascination with all things wild and woolly but they did serve a pantsload of hotcakes and sausage that morning.
Thinking on the entire business I find it funny as hell that the entire idea of the Parade has absolutely nothing to do with...well, anything, really, other than cleaning up great heaping mounds of nasty shit. It neither commemorates nor celebrates anything, has no historical regional or local basis. Although it's sparsely advertised as the "first event of the Portland Rose Festival" I don't know of anyone who really knows this, or really cares much if they do. There's supposed to be a "theme", although nobody lining the street could tell you what it is or gives a shit about it.
Come to think of it, tho, it's perfectly North Portland that the entire Parade is the brainchild of a freaking St. Johns Rotarian bankster who specialized in home loans for St. Johns. I especially love that he had a weekly radio show called, ingeniously, the "The Bob Hazen Show" (the man was a fucking marketing genius), which, according to our scribe Mr. Speirs "...broadcasted weekly programs extolling the desire and benefit of North Portland properties." I know the feeling; I've felt the desire of North Portland properties myself.
The whole early Sixties Parade farrago and the stalwart worthies who ramrodded it sends our boy Spiers into an orgasmic paroxysm of suckupitude. I can't reproduce it; you have to hear it from the man himself; "What these heroes of North Portland couldn’t have known is what an incredible gift they were giving to St. Johns. They couldn’t have dreamed that their efforts would forever change their community; that they were at the cutting edge of history and would help give residents a new sense of pride.
They never thought in terms of getting credit, nor did they think they were in any way special. They were giving to the point of exhaustion, selfless in their efforts, and unaware that the hours and days that they toiled over would forever and permanently change the face of St. Johns. Like so many heroes from other situations, these people simply shrugged their shoulders when you expressed disbelief at their efforts. They responded with words that are seldom used in today’s world...words like “it was the right thing to do,” or “North Portland needed our help,”...or something so jaw dropping and amazing as “anyone could have done it”...and they never failed to give praise and credit to others!"Well, okay then.
Now in all seriousness, Hazen, Dunn, Benshoof, the Levetons, and the other organizers of the original Parade did do a hell of a good thing; it sounds like North Portland really WAS a hell of a nasty mess back in the day, and they got up and helped make things better. Whether they used all those words seldom used in today's world...well, I guess we'll have to take our man's word on that. Home loans might just possibly have been involved.
We may never know.
But last Saturday's St. Johns Parade would probably have appalled them. The marching bands were all from local middle schools or even elementary schools, and their "uniforms" were matching T-shirts, at best. The Boy Scouts straggled along in a gaggling clump that would have had them and old Baden-Powell weeping bitter, bitter tears at the state of the former sons of Empire.The straw skimmers and ice-cream suits of the Royal Rosarians, our very own Kiwanis-Lions-Rotary Club would have reassured them.
But what they would have thought about the marching pregnant mommies from the Children's Relief Nursery
or the yoga float, or the pirates
or the steampunks..?
Well, the reassuring thing to me was the very slack, chaotic, unmilitary lassitude of it. There was no danger of being energized to go invade something or fight someone; this was as far from massed troop units and the regimented splendor of a military parade as can be imagined. Even the leading color guard was a packet of shambling sheriff's deputies who seemed consciously out of step, like children deliberately defying their father's attempts to make them walk like grownups.
There may be many things about today that trouble and discourage us. We may have wars abroad and unemployment at home. We may be a society as divided by wealth, and ideals, as any time in our history.
But, for me, to sit on the lopsided trash can savoring the fine greasiness of the Signal Station Pizza's bounty and to watch the richly odd, untameable, freakishly unique, foolishly serious little parade pass by was to feel myself sink deeply into my community, into the workaday hours that are St. Johns, that is the North End, that is Portland, that is my home.
And was to realize that this is my home. That for all the many lands and many seas I have passed over, all the places I have lived and the people I have lived them with, it is here that I have come home to; here is my heart of rest.
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