The last golden days
The election follows close on the heels of Halloween
Calendar
There are two big events coming in the next 10 days: Halloween on October 31 and Election Day on November 5.
Halloween
When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. It wasn’t about the costumes. It was the candy. I was a total sugar freak, right up until late middle age, when all that consumption caught up with me and I became pre-diabetic.
I am not with the program when it comes to Halloween in the 2020s. I think adults glom onto this holiday because it’s not connected with anything overly religious, like Christmas, and it’s fun to get dressed up. But without candy, the holiday has little appeal for me.
Decor
Do you have neighbors who never take down their Christmas lights? Well, I have neighbors who never remove their Halloween decorations. All year, we’re treated to the skeletons draped over the balcony railings and lurking in the bushes, wearing scanty outfits that change with the seasons. Bats and spiders hang on slender threads from the trees that arch over the sidewalk.
Meanwhile, our next-door neighbors have a gentler take on the holidays. I love their carved pumpkin creations.
Bones on the bus
A blond woman in a perky plaid skirt looks like she’s 14 but is probably in her mid-20s. She’s carrying a copy of a massive textbook, Human Osteology. Well, it’s nearly Halloween. A good time to be boning up on bones.
Skeleton time
Apropos of Halloween are the reader boards outside the Bare Bones Cafe & Bar on Southeast Belmont.
Election
Portland is a blue city, and Southeast Portland is deep indigo. I appreciate the care and thoughtfulness that went into designing a handmade Harris-Walz sign.
You won’t find pro-Trump signs on lawns in my neighborhood. This sign is subtle and effective.
The best of the bunch
I found this message on a wall in the kitchen entry of the Epworth United Methodist Church, which hosts a Japanese-style luncheon four days a week.
Election Day is on Guy Fawkes Day this year. This is not surprising, as there are only seven days that can be the first Tuesday in November, and one of those is the fifth. In 2024, while the Brits are celebrating the spoiling of a plot to blow up Parliament, this election threatens to blow up our democracy. Both factions in the race for president scream that the country will suffer grievously if the other is elected. But don’t be fooled by false equivalency; one of these options really is scarier than the other.
Archives
I discovered the City of Portland Archives when I was researching my posting Ghost Streets. In the archives I finally found an ordinance from 1933 describing how addresses were to be assigned in the city.
You may recall that the last two digits of any address in the city (assigned in the Great Renumbering of the ’30s), divided by 0.2 (or multiplied by 5), gives the distance, in feet, from the previous intersection to the front door. Locating the ordinance confirmed what I had read in a newspaper account from that time and had already proved to myself by calculating dozens of addresses.
The archives are popular! An open house on a recent Saturday drew dozens of interested citizens. We weren’t allowed to prowl the premises, but we did get an idea of the vastness and scope of the city’s collection of everything Portland.
The city archives used to be stored in far North Portland in an edifice known as the Chimney Building, a former incinerator. What a choice for fragile paper records!
The city moved the archives to fresh new digs at Portland State University in 2009. The old site, Chimney Park, is now an off-leash dog park.
Field trip
When I heard about the old incinerator in Chimney Park, I took a long, long bus ride out to the tip of North Portland to see this eponymous chimney for myself.
Chimney Dog Park can be reached either by a bus that runs down Columbia Boulevard once an hour, or via a long, meandering path from Pier Park. I took the scenic path, which skirts woods full of towering cedar and fir, and passes over a footbridge before coming on the old incinerator.
Big old chimneys are fast disappearing in Portland. Still remaining are the Union Pacific stack in the Albina Yards at the Port, visible from Northeast Interstate Boulevard and the yellow line MAX train. Union Station has a big chimney, and so does Chapman Elementary in Northwest, where thousands of Vaux’s swifts congregate in early fall.
Alas, the chimney at Chimney Park has been demolished.
Fortunately, the archives staff were happy to provide photos of the old building.
Poems for strangers
The farmers market in the Park Blocks at PSU is different from other markets I visit, such as Multnomah and Lents. It’s bigger, for one thing, with literally scores of vendors and vast clouds of upscale shoppers.
Here the shoppers seem to be laser-focused on buying. You don’t see a lot of smiles on their faces. It’s hard to make eye contact. Everyone is after just the right baked goods, the most perfect produce, the freshest flowers. Cheese, coffee, meat. Honey, pottery, items made of wood. Do they really need to take themselves so seriously?
I offered to write poems, as always for free, at the PSU market last week. Writing poetry is harder at this market. Despite the size of the crowd, I did not get many requests. And many people did not come back for the poems they asked me to write.
And, frankly, I did not get any tips. True, the poems are free. But at other venues, a few people will always slip me a small bill or other remembrance by way of thanks. Lents, arguably the most working-class market, is where I get the most tips.
Regardless, I enjoy writing the poems. I just wish the people I wrote them for cared enough to came back and get them.
Poems
One person who didn’t return for their poem was Jamie, a teen who wanted a poem about the meaning of fall.
Fall nostalgia
They’re a gift, fall memories— First days of school, new lunchbox. Kids’ Halloween, princess or ghost. Riding your bike as leaves whirl around you. Warmth of inside places. Warm chocolate to drink. Books you still remember— Harry Potter, or Henry Huggins? I remember fall markets, Bins of squash, ears of corn. People burned leaves in those days— That was the perfume of fall.
Kaylee said to write about whatever I wished, then she, too, never returned to pick up her poem.
Animal crackers
Salty, silly, not too sweet— Can you tell that’s a tiger? As kids, we put up with these crackers When really we wanted chocolate chips.
Tay asked me to write about changing seasons
Changes
Seasons are chameleons. Shedding and renewing. Now’s the time for colors Making way for bare. Bare trees, bare souls. Nature, scrubbed and waiting. Holding its breath till spring— Or breathing icy frost. Shadows of the season, Sunsets earlier each day. Fall shuts down with sunsets, Cold fingers and noses to come. Cliff, an older man, admired my handwriting and asked me to write about Spirit. He never returned, either.
Spirit
Moving within us, Bringing us forth Into the world, Fresh as a newborn. The edges of our being Honed and smooth. All the rough places. Turned, hemmed and stitched. Whatever we seek, Whenever we knock, Spirit will be there. Opening the door.
Friends Megan and Gretchen wanted a poem about love
When we’re ready
Love. We’re going to need it. In this, a country Where no one agrees. Greed, exploitation, People sleeping on pavement. Bring us the love now, God! We need it!
Lauren asked for something about new paths
Pathways
Forks, forks in the road Moving into the mist We lose track so quickly. Wish we could remember. How we got here, what we want. It’s never easy, is it? We need a map, or perhaps a key, Something to lighten our way on the path. Bring us guidance! Bring us insight! Show us the way. We are so alone.
Check out
Meter out
I wrote about meters last week, with many photos, including this one.
My sister, Catherine Sanborn, used the photo as inspiration for a drawing. Her work really captures its uniqueness and adds dimensions of heart and feeling. Notice how some of the dials look like faces. What else do you see here?
—30—
Housekeeping
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Thank you Fran. I find much serenity in your postings.
Love seeing Catherine's painting here. Those jack-o-lanterns of your neighbors are very cool!