Judy – Page 163 – Dear Liza

Friends, Pizza, and Art

Dear Liza,

**View of the Lan Su Chinese Garden from across the street**

My projects continue to keep me busy. I am finishing Cousin Kestrel’s princess kitten birthday present and had to change my story a bit. Did you know that in America in early 1900s, classes in the U.S. didn’t go on field trips? At that time, they were not considered valuable. So I needed to remove a field trip from my 1903 story. Sigh.

Yesterday I also had a nice surprise. A former student and his wonderful family came to visit! First they visited famous Powell’s City of Books, and then came to see me at Auntie Katie’s Books with Pictures. They had fun and bought tons of books! Then they invited me to have lunch with them at Old Town Pizza, a “haunted” pizza parlor downtown.

Of course, I said YES! Pizza, friends, ghosts? I’m there!

The pizza was good and the air conditioning most welcome, as it has been hot here. (Hot for US, like 80 degrees. I understand many places are really suffering.) I didn’t notice any ghosts. After Kyle, his sister Gillian, Mom Heidi and Dad Paul headed off to the Creo chocolate tour, I caught the Orange train back to Auntie Katie’s shop and rode my bike home.

Since it was First Friday, we walked up to Ankeny Tap and Table for street tacos, grilled Brussels sprouts, beer, cider, and french fries. Yum! We walked over to the Sidestreet Gallery to see Auntie Bridget’s new art, as well as all the other new things. I got to meet Dawn Panttaja, Erin’s aunt, creator of lovely, odd sculptures. This one is called “Miss Fortune”, with a skirt made of old prophesies. Creepy and beautiful.

Auntie Bridgett was going to stay and talk to folks, but Grandpa Nelson and I walked to the Laurelhurst Theater to watch “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”, which was a fun roller coaster ride with an ending that surprised me.

Walking home, we swung by the flamingo house, where the birds are apparently enjoying the World Cup Soccer games.

Happy July!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Bioswales

Dear Liza,

Portland is known for getting a lot of rain. Not now, of course, it has been dry and in the 80s! Most years, in fall, winter and spring, we get about 36 inches, or three times as much as you do in Salinas. Building a city where there is that much rain has its own problems.

You want to make sure the streets drain nicely so houses don’t flood. You want to make sure soil doesn’t erode and turn hills into mud slides. And you want to make sure that pollution and trash from city streets don’t end up in the Willamette River.

City engineers work hard at making sure the first two problems are solved. Storm drains are kept clear and streets are graded so they carry water away quickly. But keeping trash and pollution out of the river has become something a lot of homeowners are helping with.

Bioswales are part of this solution. They are a sunken part in a garden, designed to catch rainfall from the roof of buildings. The water flows into the bioswale and slowly soaks into the ground water, or aquifer. This keeps it from running along the street picking up oil and trash, and also helps clean it before it goes back into the water cycle.

I am noticing small bioswales in front yards all over our neighborhood. They are all set up with conduits from the downspouts to direct rainwater into them. They are lined with rocks and gravel to resist erosion, some lined with plastic except at the bottom. The prettiest ones are landscaped with plants that are comfortable being very wet (even underwater) for part of the year.

I love that people here are taking responsibility for helping keep our beautiful Willamette River clean. For many years, factories along the river dumped all sorts of nasty chemicals into the river, hoping they would just wash away. Now there are companies helping clean the river, and people want to help, too.

Yay Portlanders! Yay bioswales!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Baseball on the Fourth

Dear Liza,

**The First Pitch, Courtesy of Miss Oregon**

For the Fourth of July, Grandpa Nelson, Auntie Bridgett and I went to Lents Park, in the far southeast part of the city, to watch some baseball. Portland doesn’t have any professional teams, so these were teams made up of young men from colleges from all over the west. We watched the Portland Pickles play against the Gresham Grey Wolves.The weather was very warm, with interesting grey clouds.

Lents Park has tennis and basketball courts and baseball and soccer fields. There are a few Little League baseball fields, as well as the main field, which holds 1,500 people. Before the game we got to see the new Miss Oregon throw out the first pitch, and another young lady sing a lovely version of the National Anthem. There was also a goodly amount of country music. It felt a hundred miles away from hipster downtown Portland, instead of only five.

During the game, it was fun watching all the people. The grownups were trying to stay cool and eating every piece of fried food they could lay their hands on. The kids were walking around and around the stadium, eating gallons of snow cones.

The teams played well, and it was interesting to see young men from Hermosa Beach, California (where Grandpa Nelson lived when I met him) playing against kids from Eugene, where I was going to college when your daddy was born. The starting pitcher for the Pickles is a student at Cal State Monterey Bay, right close to you!

Dillon, the dill pickle mascot of the Portland Pickles, came out and visited with the crowd. Kids gave him high fives and he stood for dozens of pictures, though it must have been over a hundred degrees in his heavy costume. If you will excuse the pun, he is a bit of a ham.

Since there was going to be a double header (that means two games in one day) , each one was going to be short, just seven innings instead of nine. That was okay with us, really. The Pickles were not playing well and we lost, 3-1, to the Grey Wolves. It was hot, we were tired, and ready for a lay-down before fireworks this evening.

After we got home and rested, the clouds came in heavier and it actually rained! So much for fireworks! We played Scrabble, which Bridgett won in a landslide, and watch “Yankee Doodle Dandy” with James Cagney.

I hope you and the family had a wonderful Fourth of July!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dr. C. Gee Wo

Dear Liza,

I love researching history! Since my story takes place in 1903 Portland, I am getting to know about people who lived here then, and how things were for them. One thing that was really different was that there were laws against some people living here. These were called Exclusion Laws.

But life usually finds a way, as in the case of Dr. C. Gee Wo, a real Chinese person I have learned about and put into my story. Dr. Wo was from China and was an herbal doctor, using teas and herbal medicines to help make people better. He studied for many years, in China and America, to be good at his profession. He moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where he had a popular practice for eleven years, from 1889 to 1900.

**Dr. Wo’s ad in Portland newspapers, 1900 to 1910**

During that time, he married a white lady name C. DeWitt (I can’t find her first name anywhere, just her first initial. Maybe Caroline? Celestine? Charlotte?) In 1900, they moved to Portland, Oregon, and Dr. Wo opened his herbal medicine practice.

At that time, the Exclusion Laws said Chinese people couldn’t own property, so Chinese needed to rent apartments, mostly in the neighborhood on the west side of the river. But Dr. Wo’s wife was white, so she could buy property where they wanted. They bought a small house, and, when business was better, built a bigger house next door.

As the years went on, Dr. Wo became a respected member of not just the Chinese community, but of the city of Portland. He donated to victims of the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906. He contributed to local causes and invested in businesses. He helped the city grow.

Dr. Wo retired about 1915, but stayed active in the community at least until 1921, when he made a large contribution to the local Community Chest fund. I haven’t found any information about him after that time, but I will keep looking. Being a history detective is exciting!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Inspiration from Everywhere

Dear Liza,

Welcome home! You just got back from your long visit with Grandpa Victor and Baba Alla in Moscow. I enjoyed all the photos you sent. I imagine you are speaking very good Russian by now.

I have been doing several projects here, dividing my time between them. The first is finishing Ruth’s quilt, which I got done, folded, and sent off yesterday. It should be arriving in Salinas this week.

The second project is making Cousin Kestrel’s birthday present. She is turning seven this week, and is celebrating with a Princess Kitten themed party. I am working on a pillow (or maybe it will be a wall hanging) of a princess kitten. Here it is, as of now. There will be lots more curlicues.

I have also been walking around the neighborhood. The hydrangeas are all coming out so blue!! That may be a usual thing here, but it is sure a surprise to my California eyes! Also, the lilac bushes here smell like lilac….in California, you were never quite sure.

Working on my story is taking up some time, too. It is getting better, but since it is a history story, I want to have all the facts right. I am reading about the Chinese Exclusion Laws, which said that Chinese people weren’t allowed to live in Oregon. Remember last week we visited the Lan Su Chinese Garden? So you can see how that turned out. Studying history lets me see how foolish it is to try and keep people out because they are different.

My last ongoing project is studying French. We hope to travel in Europe some more, and it’s just good to keep my brain busy, so I spend half an hour a day on Duolingo or reading in French. Duolingo is FREE online and goes at my own pace, so I can keep trying until I get it right. C’est tres amusant!

Have fun at your next summer adventure, sweetie.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dinner at Sunnyside

Dear Liza,

Friday is usually our night to go out to eat, but this Friday the weather was so beautiful we decided to eat OUT, like outside, instead!

I roasted some vegetables and chicken during the day, and made a nice salad. We packed up food, a nice red wine, and the badminton set, and walked the three blocks to Sunnyside School. I like a lot of things about Sunnyside. The two story brick building from 1925 is beautiful. It houses both an elementary school and an environmental middle school. And the playground becomes a public park when school is not is session.

We picked our “table”, a flat spot under a sycamore tree, and spread out the blanket. The tickets are free to this human theater. While we ate we watched dads play catch with kids, teenagers shoot hoops, girls giggle on the steps, and toddlers chase pigeons.

After food and wine, it was probably silly to try the first game of badminton of the season, but we did it anyway. We were just as awful as we were last September, when the set was new, but we improved as the wine wore off and we remembered how long the rackets made our arms. Our longest volley of the evening was 11 hits without a drop.

It wasn’t pretty, but it sure was fun!

When we had thwacked our last birdie, we packed up and walked home in the evening light. Fluffy clouds floated by and. trees rustled. We got into pajamas, watched the Giants win, and fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up this morning painfully remembering that I am not 20 anymore, but happy for the adventure. More badminton…..soon.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Rally for Families

Dear Liza,

Saturday morning, Auntie Bridgett and I took the number 20 downtown to the North Park Blocks to join several thousand other people for a political rally. A rally is a demonstration to show your support of something. I have been to sport rallies in high school, and political rallies for candidates for Mayor, Governor, and President.

But this was a rally for families. Our President, Mr. Trump, has decided that people who want to come to America are committing a crime, and that this crime is so bad that parents are arrested and sent to jail, and separated from their children, who are also sent to jail. Yes, children, in jail.

So all over the country, people planned big get togethers to show their support for these families that have been pulled apart, and against Mr. Trump’s policy of separating families. People made signs, made up chants, and even wore some costumes. There was a brass band called TheUnPresidentedBrassBand, playing to keep everyone entertained. There were speeches by our Senator, Ron Wyden, a minister, a social worker, and many people who had come to America from different countries.

This is a very sad thing, breaking up families. The children aren’t told where their parents are or when they will see them. The parents are not told how to find their children, not told where they are. Lawyers can’t always get in to see or help these people and they are not told that they have any rights. No other crime in the country is dealt with like this. This is cruelty.

Now Mr. Trump is saying these people are “invaders” and “an infestation”, as though they were soldiers or, worse, rats or bugs. He equates them with dangerous gangs and criminals, saying that we have to lock them up to protect our country.

sometimes laws are wrong. Slavery was legal. Forbidding women from voting was legal. We have to pay attention to history so we can see what is happening from a longer perspective, and not always believe what people tell us. Laws can be wrong, and when they are, we need to say so and act on what we believe to change them.

This wasn’t as fun a post as many, but I wanted to let you know what I, along with about five thousand other people in Portland, were up to today.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Giving Back

Dear Liza,

While we were living in Salinas, I got to be friends with a wonderful lady named Ruth Andresen. Ruth is the mother of Pete, one of the most involved parents University Park ever had, and grandmother of four of our students. Ruth was born in 1921, so she is exactly the age your great grandma Billie would be.

I met Ruth because we were both active at The First Mayor’s House, also called The Harvey Baker House, the oldest building in Salinas. Ruth has lived in Salinas since the 1940’s and actually knew some of the people who lived in this historic house, Florence Baker and her sister Helen. They were little old ladies when she was a young wife and mother in the 1950s, and she used to go visit them. They would tell her stories of their childhood in 1890s Salinas. She heard history, as they say, from the horse’s mouth!

When I was learning about Salinas history to write stories and curriculum for the House, I started visiting Ruth. We talked about history, but she also told me about her life. She was a geology student at Stanford University when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, which started the western end of World War II. As a graduate, she worked in Washington to help create maps that helped with the Normandy Invasion! “It was such an exciting time to be a young woman in the world”, she said. “There was important work to be done and we got to do it.”

Ruth is still helping people learn about history. She does spinning demonstrations to show people how pioneers turned wool into yarn, and gives lectures about the “Old Days”.

She also helped organize the very first Founder’s Day Celebration in Salinas. The first one was so small, even the newspaper didn’t say much about it, but by the second in 2017, there were hundreds of people! In 2018, thousands of people came to visit the Harvey House, attend lectures, play carnival games, listen to music, and have pony rides. It took dozens of people to make it happen, including my dear friend and former Principal, Mary Randall, but at the center of it was Ruth. In my carelessness, I do not have a photo this wonderful woman! (I was probably enjoying our conversations so much I hated to interrupt for a photo.) Silly Grandma Judy.

Anyway, for the second Founder’s Day, there was going to be a quilting booth, showing folks how to quilt and displaying old and new quilts. I was going to make a small one during the day as a demonstration. But so many other groups wanted booths, the quilting booth didn’t happen.

**Almost done quilt, and Mouse the cat**

And now, with the extra time that comes from not preparing lessons and teaching every day, I have gotten it out and am almost done. It will be wrapped up and returning to Salinas very soon. Thanks for all the stories, Ruth!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Back to Downtown

Dear Liza,

**Plaza outside Student Services Building**

Well, since I wasn’t able to find what I needed Downtown Tuesday, I needed another trip. But that is absolutely okay with me, because I love it! The day was sunny and breezy. There were people out walking their dogs, summer camps on walking trips, and even a small farmer’s market on the Park Blocks.

First, I visited the Oregon Historical Society Research Library. I have a part in my story where the school children are walking on a field trip, and I wanted to know what they would be walking past. I found the City Directory for 1903 to see what was there. As it turns out, the neighborhood I am interested in, the northwest, was mostly houses, with about ten churches, at the time. Businesses and city services were closer to downtown.

One of the fun things about research is that you do a lot of looking at other things before you find the ones you are really looking for. I found a book of detailed maps of downtown Portland from the big re-development in 1985. Loving maps like I do, I fell into that one for quite a while.

Then it was time to return to the City Archives. Walking down towards Portland State University is always interesting. There are young people, music, fountains, and always something new to see. This fellow, washing windows 5 stories up on a 14 story building, looked very at ease in his work.

Since thousands of students come to the University everyday, there is great public transit to this area. Street cars, light rail, and buses are all over the place.

I found interesting information on the parade that the city of Portland had to honor President Theodore Roosevelt on his visit in 1903, and then it was time to head home. Walking back, I noticed that The Portland Building is under a huge construction project. The giant statue “Portlandia” is still attached to the front of the building, but completely draped to protect her from the work. I miss her.

After dinner, we all walked up the The Laurelhurst Theater to see “Ocean’s Eight”. It was a fun movie and the walk home, under the lovely pink sunset, was the highlight of a very good day.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Into Summer

Dear Liza,

**Hollyhocks and day lilies, living together, mass hysteria!**

Now that is is officially summer, our evening walks have moved from six o’clock to more like 7:30. It stays light until nine and it feels silly to waste all that lovely sunlight!

Yesterday evening Auntie Bridgett and I walked around the neighborhood and noticed that the flowers are really exploding. Sweet peas, roses, day lilies and hollyhocks are shooting up out of the ground like the police are after them.

Even the sunflowers are getting tall and majestic. The bees all seem to be prosperous and busy.

We met a new cat, a very friendly young lady with beautiful markings and a tag that declares her to be “The Princess.” She not just allowed, but demanded, that we pet her, squeaking in a very royal voice.

On the way home we passed The Belmont Inn, and stopped in for a few games of Monster Bash, our favorite pinball game. We played together for a few, then went head-to-head. My score of six million made me very proud until Auntie Bridgett whupped me with forty-four million!!! Holy smokes, I need more practice!

Aw, shucks. More pinball….

Love,

Grandma Judy