The grey has settled in pretty well today, a slow solid rain. Lucky for me, I have hot soup, fresh bread and music, and writing to you, to keep me company.
Mossy cobblestones
Now that almost all of the leaves are down, I am noticing the houses more. In summer, it sometimes felt like the houses were being eaten by their landscaping! 100 year old trees, bushes, fruit trees and annual bulbs exploded and covered everything with a heavy swath of green.
Noticing the houses
But with the leaves, even the brilliant yellow ones, gone, the houses are emerging to be appreciated in their own right. Lovely pointy Victorians, square and true Craftsmans, even mid-century bungalows are coming into their own. It allows me to see the yards and shape of the houses and wonder which type of yard and house we will move into!
Bare naked Street Sign
After a nice walk out, Grandpa Nelson and I met Auntie Katie and cousins Jasper and Kestrel at The Lego Minifigs place I told you about during the summer. We were there to have the kids choose a bag of Legos each as their gifts for Jasper ‘s birthday.
Actually, we offered Jasper two bags and he said Kestrel should get one of his.
Pixelated Lego Art
I love that boy!
Lego dude made out of Legos
After an hour of hard choosing, including Auntie Katie finding a great book with design information and advice for the budding lego-engineer, we headed over to Blackbird Pizza for dinner and pinball. This nifty place is on the corner of 20th and Hawthorne, right next door to Dr. Locke’s House that I wrote about the other day, so Grandpa Nelson got to see the stepping stone.
Auntie Bridgett, Grandpa Nelson and I spent Thanksgiving in San Diego! We got to meet so many new members of the family, and be with our friends and cousins again.
We flew from Portland to San Diego early Wednesday morning…it was cold and rainy here, but when we got off the plane it was bright and sunny! It always amazes me how just a few hours on a plane can make such a difference.
Park in Old Town San Diego
Auntie Bridgett’s Momma Donna picked us up and we started to work. We dusted Michael’s beautifully fancy dishes and glasses. We made bouquets of flowers for the tables. We played with babies, talked with cousins, and shopped for groceries.
View from our window in San Diego
When the house was looking good, we headed for out hotel down by Mission Bay. What a view! In Portland, the colors are grey and yellow…cloudy skies brightened by changing leaves. In San Diego, the colors are BLUE sky and GREEN grass and trees. Of course, everyone there is on vacation, so there are lots of giggling children splashing in the pool.
Thanksgiving day was a celebration of everyone’s specialties. Cousins Isabella and Elizabeth brought origami name tags. Uncle Nick deep fried a turkey, and Uncle Matt smoked one. There was pistachio salad, corn casserole, ham, another great turkey, and two kinds of sweet potatoes, more than enough food for the 36 guests!
Patio Thanksgiving Table
Since it was so warm, the dinner table stretched from inside he house right out onto the patio, so as the sun went down we had a beautiful view of the Bay and the sunset, then got to see the lights of the city come on.
By the end of the day we were full of good food, exhausted, and feeling very blessed to have been able to be with family.
Sunset in San Diego
The next day we spent walking around Mission Bay, watching people and ducks playing in the water, and visiting Old Town San Diego. There is a long history there, just like in Portland, and there are markets and museums and even a house that they say is haunted. We didn’t see any ghosts, but met Steve, a docent who is a great story teller, who made the history of the Whaley House come alive.
Steve the docent at The Whaley House
Hangar at Coronado
On our last day, Uncle Nick took us all out to Coronado and showed us the helicopters he works on. They are used for search and rescue and are much bigger than I imagined. The kids climbed in and around. It was the last amazing thing in a wonderful visit.
We finally got home after midnight Saturday, and I slept with Mouse the cat on my tummy. Auntie Katie had taken good care of her while we were away, but I think she missed us, anyway.
Satisfied Cat
This morning we woke to rain and chilly weather, but I baked some bread and we walked out for coffee, having a good time, anyway.
Happy Thanksgiving! I wanted to share some new things in the neighborhood with you today.
First, the Flamingos are back, but I have to wonder about them. It seems that for their Thanksgiving feast, they have roasted…a Flamingo? I hope when the holiday is over the one laying down gets up, brushes his feathers, and they all go out for brine shrimp. But you never know, with plastic lawn flamingos.
Odd Flamingo Thanksgiving
Laurelhurst Park keeps changing. I went out in the rain and parts of the park that used to be quiet are now really loud, because the leaves are off the trees, where they provided shelter, and on the ground, where they act like little drums and echo the rain.
Laurelhurst Lake
The views are changing, too. You can now see from the top of the hill all the way down to the lake, because the leaves that blocked the view are gone. Dark has become light, green has become orange. I knew there would be changes in seasons, but I am still surprised.
Tai Chi in Laurelhurst
The only people in the park today were a couple walking their dog and a tai chi class, who were all bundled up but undaunted in their energy and focus.
I am glad to have a nice warm house to come back to after a long cold walk.
Last night Grandpa Nelson, Auntie Bridgett and I got all bundled up and took the #20 further than we ever have, all the way to Northeast 17th and Burnside. Then we walked north to Glisan, where we found the Mission Theater, an Evangenical Mission Church that has been renovated and turned into a restaurant and movie and live theater by McMenamin’s. This is the same company that has saved the Kennedy School, Edgefield Poor Farm, and many other beautiful old buildings here in Portland by turning them into venues that people want to visit.
Foyer of Mission Theater
As a restaurant, the selection is limited but tasty: Nachos, hummus plates, and pizza. The wine, ale, and beer selections are good. The theater itself is well done, with curving balconies and old posters and programs on the wall, but the bathrooms are very dark. The stage isn’t big or fancy, since it is usually used for movies.
Balcony
The performance of Shakespeare’s The Tempest was by OPS, The Original Practice Shakespeare Company. We saw them do Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It in Laurelhurst Park this past summer. Each actor only learns their own part, and carries a scroll with them. Since every performance is about half improvisation, the performances are unpredictable.
Shipwrecked Lords and Ladies
Last night was a mixed bag. The woman playing Prospero the Wizard was good and very gentle, which is unusual for that role. The woman playing Caliban was a very sympathetic monster. Some of the shipwrecked lords were quite screechy, but the story was well-told and pretty easy to understand.
Caliban the monster leading the Lords into trouble
One thing I really like about OPS is the audience participation. When Prospero is describing how she was exiled to the island, the audience groaned in sympathy, and she looked out at us and said, “I know, lousy, right?” We got to boo and cheer and some folks even helped hold Miranda’s drawings up so the audience could see them. It is fun to be part of the show.
When Prosero had broken her staff and given up magic to return to Milan, we gathered our things and walked back down to the bus stop.What a lovely evening.
As I mentioned, Auntie Bridgett and I took a nice long walk through Lone Fir Cemetery yesterday. There are so many graves with interesting stories, but they all feel too sad to tell today. I will tell you about another stone I found and the person it tells about.
On my walks to Auntie Katie’s house, I always go through Lone Fir, then down 20th Street to Ladd’s Addition. At the corner of 20th and Madison is a wonderfully cared for Craftsman Style house, and on the curb outside is a block of cement about 24 inches wide, and 10 inches by 10 inches that says “Dr. Locke”.
Being curious, I went online to do some research. Between real estate sites and old newspapers, I have pieced together this history.
Dr. James Kelsey Locke lived and worked in that house from 1906, when he had it built, until 1924, when he died at the age of 62. He was an obstetrician and his house was a “birthing house”, since babies were not born in hospitals back then. He had been a doctor in Portland since 1892, and was much loved by the community. He left a widow, Minnie, and two grown children when he passed away.
There are living quarters on the first floor and four ‘birthing’ bedrooms on the second floor. There was even a ballroom on the third floor, I suppose for celebrations of births and other entertainments. A newspaper article lists the house as being sold to Dr. Arthur Johnson the same year it was built, which leads me to believe Dr. Locke had built it as an investment, sold it to Dr. Johnson, but continued to live and work in it.
He was also on the staff at Good Samaritan Hospital in the Northwest part of Portland for many years, and in the Oregon State Senate for a short term.
The block of cement outside was used as a step, to make it easier for Dr. Locke’s very pregnant patients to step out of their carriages onto the sidewalk. If you watch the old movie “Meet Me in St. Louis”, you will see this sort of step used when people come and go.
Dr. Locke’s former house Photo credit:Portland MLS
We don’t know Dr. Locke, and except for the probably thousands of mothers and babies he gave care and comfort to, he was not a historically significant person. But his story is part of the city’s story, and I love finding out more about it.
Rain has become the “normal weather” here, so when there is some sun, we make the most of it! Sunday was a sunny day so Grandpa Nelson and I went out for a driving “park tour” of this City of Roses. Auntie Bridgett had a lot of art work to do, so we kissed her good-bye and promised to bring back good pictures.
Band stand at Peninsula Park
First, we drove to Peninsula Park. which was built in 1909 as the city Rose Garden. There are a few thousand rose bushes, with a very few blooms still in sight. Most were pruned down for the winter, of course, and the garden was laid out in a wonderfully formal arrangement, looking like they belong in Le Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. There is also a gazebo-style bandstand and old fashioned pavings. These are surrounded by tall and beautiful elm, birch, maple and ginko trees, all shedding their leaves most colorfully. There is even a soccer field and play area.
We left Peninsula Park knowing that we would return in the summer to see the roses at their peak, and headed off to find lunch. In the historic suburb of Kenton we found lunch and Paul Bunyon. This 31 foot tall statue of the legendary lumberjack was built in 1959 (when I was three years old!) as a tribute to the lumber industry in Portland. It got a new coat of paint last year. The statue is very big for the little bit of land it is on, but people come from all over to see it.
Paul Bunyon
We enjoyed lunch at Swift and Union, a beef-themed cafe where we had no beef: french fries, squash soup, and salmon cakes filled us up and made us happy.
Columbia Park
We drove west to Columbia Park, which was built in 1891, when this area was still a separate city called Albina. The park has climbing and water toys for summer, basketball courts, but also a large forested area for walking through. It was nearly empty and very beautiful. The fallen leaves made an almost uniform carpet over sidewalks, walls and lawns, looking like a coloring book filled in by someone with only a yellow crayon.
St. John’s Bridge from Cathedral Park
Westward and northward, we passed the University of Portland Campus and drove along the Willamette to Cathedral Park, so called because it runs along the river under the cathedral-like columns of St. John’s Bridge. The bridge was built in 1931 and is acknowledged to be the most beautiful bridge in the city, and possibly in the country. This park has no formal plantings, but some large public sculpture, trees, and the river and bridge itself make for a memorable spot.
When we were cold and a little damp (the sun had hidden itself behind some clouds) we got back in Miles the Volkswagen and drove across this lovely bridge. It is so high above the river ( 205 feet) it doesn’t need to be a drawbridge like the others in town, and soars like a rainbow.
Rain forest in Forest Park
On the west shore, we found Forest Park, a 5,157 acre park with almost no development. It is, as it promises, a forest. We found a narrow residential road that ended at Lief Erickson Drive, which looks like it used to be for cars but is now only for bikes and people. It was getting damper and colder, but we walked a quarter mile up and found a Jurassic Park-like rain forest and fairy sized waterfalls. We will come back here again.
Driving back to town, I noticed that the #15 bus runs almost to the park entrance! I could walk to Belmont, get on the bus, and be here in about an hour. Or in the car, 20 minutes. Not bad for proximity to a huge, bustling city.
We got home and warmed up, and when Auntie Bridgett had finished her work, she and I went for a walk through Lone Fir Cemetery. But I will tell you about that tomorrow.
The first big thing that happened yesterday was that Grandpa Nelson bought me my birthday present. Yes, my birthday isn’t until next March. He went on-line for more than an hour and with lots of clicking and frustration and patience, he got two tickets to the musical HAMILTON when it comes to Portland next spring! He tried for four tickets, but there were only two available, so Auntie Katie (who loves Hamilton even more than I do) and I will be going to see the best musical in the last 30 years during spring break, 2018!
I smiled all day and well into the night. This sort of theater just doesn’t exist in Salinas… there just aren’t enough people to support it. I am feeling very blessed to be in this huge city where thousands of people love music and theater, and to have Grandpa Nelson, who will spend the time and money to make sure I can see it!
As if that wasn’t enough for one day, at 5:00 we took the #20 downtown. It was cold but dry and clear, and the lights reflecting off the river were beautiful. We walked from the bus stop up to Cheryl’s on 12th for dinner. We had tried to eat there for brunch, but it had been full. Dinner was pleasant, but nothing fabulous. The best thing was Christina, our server, who was conversational and helpful, and the curry pea salad.
Cheryl’s on 12th Photo Credit: Cheryl’s The Living Room Theater Photo credit: Living Room
We walked to the Living Room Theater, just a few blocks away. Grandpa Nelson had gotten us tickets to see “The Battle of the Sexes”, a movie set in 1971, when he and I were dating in high school. The movie is about Billie Jean King, a professional tennis player, and her work to get equal pay for women athletes. One of the ways she did this was to play a male tennis player named Bobbie Riggs. I remember when it was all really happening and enjoyed seeing the clothes and hearing the music of my high school days up on the screen.
The movie was so good, we talked about it as we walked toward the bus stop….but didn’t stop! We went into Powell’s City of Books, because Grandpa Nelson wanted to do some early Christmas shopping. He shopped, I people-watched, Auntie Bridgett looked at graphic novels…until 10 P.M., our bed time.
Powell’s City of Books Photo credit: Powell’s
We caught the bus and enjoyed the dark quiet ride home.
With all the wonderful pictures of changing leaves I have been sending you, you might wonder, “What happens after all those leaves fall down?” Yesterday, we found out!
It turns out that Portland, (“The City That Works” according to the city trucks) has plans for this. Twice during the fall, each part of the city has leaf days. On leaf days, several trucks come, in order, to get rid of most of the leaves.
The first truck is a small bobcat/forklift sort of vehicle, pushing what looks like a small soccer goal with brushes along the bottom. The soccer goal thing corrals leaves that have been gathered on the side of the street into piles. After several trips up and down the block, all the leaves are a pile about 4 feet high in the middle of the intersection.
Leaf Scooper
Next comes the scooper. This is another forklift sort of thing with red “hands” that pick up this whole pile in about 3 scoops and puts them into a waiting truck. There is also a vacuum that comes and gets leaves missed by the pusher and scooper, and dumps them into the truck.
Leaf washer
After the leaves have been pushed, scooped and vacuumed, a truck with huge water tanks comes by and squirts the street to wash the leftover leaves and slime away. Finally, a regular street cleaner truck, with rotating brushes, comes by and makes the street all clean. When the crew it done, there are about 12 leaves left on a street that had been 2 feet deep in them.
This whole process takes about half an hour….per intersection. I can’t even imagine how many crews just like this must be all over the city.
After a day of leaf watching and writing, we all went over to visit Auntie Katie and the cousins. We stopped by Skottie’s Pizza, on Division, and picked up a “Proctor Special” of pepperoni, pineapple and ‘p’olives (the kids like alliteration) and a seasonal special of squash, caramelized onions and mozzarella. Not cheap, but very good, and plenty for leftovers!
Auntie Katie making dishes out of pizza box lids!
Grandpa Nelson played Legos with Jasper and Auntie Katie and I made wrapped baked apples with cousin Kestrel. They were delicious!
Wrapped apples
Auntie Katie also showed us how she has improved a cape she got from a now-deceased friend from synagogue, Libby Braverman, about 25 years ago: She made the already warm and beautiful cape Portland-safe by sewing a thin line of lights to the front! It makes you show up while out in these early-dark months.
Yesterday I got out for two walks, one in the morning with Grandpa Nelson, and one in the afternoon with Auntie Bridgett. It was cold and wet but not raining, and both walks went through our favorite, Laurelhurst Park.
Grandpa Nelson’s walk was quick. He was still “at work”, at his office downstairs, but he needed to stretch his legs and clear his head. We covered ground, enjoyed the thousands of leaves floating on the lake, and saw dogs running full speed just for the joy of doing it.
My walk with Auntie Bridgett was less hurried. We saw some fine mushrooms.
Happy mushrooms!
We talked about how different kinds of trees are changing at different rates. Most of the maples are pretty bare, but other types of trees still have quite a few green leaves.
Looking up, she said, “For example, this one.” We stopped beside a tree we hadn’t really noticed before. It was some sort of conifer (there were small green cones under it) but had clearly changed color and was getting ready to lose its leaves. “This tree isn’t well,” was my assumption. When an evergreen goes yellow, it’s near the end.
Mystery Tree
We took pictures of the tree and leaves, tucked the location into our memory banks, and continued our walk.
On the other side of the park is a ‘tree map’, showing what sorts of trees are growing where in the park. Once we got oriented, we saw that our mystery tree was listed as a Metasequoia glyptostroboides, also known as a Dawn Redwood. Dawn Redwoods are deciduous conifers, meaning they have cones like evergreens, but lose their leaves every fall. A rare thing, indeed.
Close up of Dawn Redwood
Dawn Redwoods are really special trees for other reasons, too. They were alive 60 million years ago, when dinosaurs were around. Scientists have found their fossils in North America, China and Japan. A Japanese paleobotanist (person who studies extinct plants) named Shegeru Miki found fossils in Japan and called it “Metasequoia”, meaning it was sort of a grandmother to all other redwoods. He assumed the tree was extinct.
At about the same time in China, a forester named T. Kan found a living grove of the same kind of trees. Because this all happened in the middle of World War II, it took years before they learned about each other’s finds.
Needles of Dawn Redwood
When the seeds and other parts of the plants were sent to botanists at Harvard University, the tree was called a “fossil tree” and a seed gathering expedition went to China. Thousands of seeds were sent to different places around the world, including the Hoyt Arboretum and Laurelhurst Park here in Portland. The next year, the tree in the Arboretum bore cones, the first tree of its kind to bear cones in North America in 60 million years, or so they all thought.
It turns out there were, and still are, Dawn Redwoods growing wild here, in forests, the Gorge, as well as parks. They weren’t extinct, we just hadn’t found any as of 1941. Now we have. It seems there are always new things to discover!
I love what this story tells me about curiosity, problem solving, and serendipity. The same kind of trees grew in China, Japan, and North America, for millions of years. How did the seeds travel so far? Were the continents closer then? What if that scientist hadn’t send those particular seeds to that particular guy?
On Sunday, Auntie Bridgett, Grandpa Nelson and I took the #20 bus downtown. We admired the architecture while hunting for a place to eat. The problem is, Portland is a very Sunday Brunch-oriented city. If there is a restaurant open, they are packed. We tried Cheryl’s on 12th: a mob. We looked at Tasty n Alder: packed. Finally, we went to our old stand by, Kenny and Zuke’s Deli, at 11th and Stark. They had only a 10 minute wait, and we enjoyed reading the newspapers and magazines they had out.
Kenny and Zuke’s looking outChurch and leaves
After a filling and delicious meal of roasted veggies, eggs and rye toast with lots of butter, we headed off. Since we weren’t in a hurry, we got to notice all sorts of things. The leaves keep changing and are beautiful at every turn.
Odd things, like a dog fountain guarded by a brass bulldog named Zelda wearing a top hat, standing in front of the Hilton Hotel, just cracked us up.
Zelda the water fountain guardian
At Pioneer Square, we saw the 45 foot Christmas tree being put up. The lower branches had been removed to make it easier (something I had never seen) and some workmen were busy re-attaching the branches onto the tree while other men were running electric cables down the tree for when they light it up next week. Down below, a fellow was stringing lights on smaller trees to make everything cheerful.
Christmas tree going up!
We kept walking and got to The Oregon Historical Society. A group of talented musicians and historians were putting on a show about The Art of the Protest Song, a history that runs from before I was born to today; people using music to tell other people how they feel about what’s going on in the world, and to let people know they aren’t alone in their concerns. We heard some Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and several original songs by the musicians. It was wonderful, and very well attended. There were 100 chairs up when we got there, and almost 100 more were added before the show started.
Quilted logo of the show
After the show, Grandpa Nelson suggested we try walking home. We were surprised, but willing. It wasn’t very cold, and there was even some blue skies coming between the clouds. And there was always a bus close by if we got tired.
Light on the River
We walked down to the river, then north along the Tom McCall Riverfront, to the Morrison Bridge. A curvy on ramp took us up to the bridge, and we walked across the Willamette River. It was beautiful. The trees, seen from above, spread out and drop their leaves onto the roadway. The sidewalk is separated from the big traffic by a bike lane and fence, so we felt safe. The sky had gotten grey so the river was, too.
Trees seen from above
On the east side, we walked past warehouses and car repair places, up Morrison Street, through the Lone Fir Cemetery, and home for dinner. Auntie Bridgett’s Fitbit said we had walked almost 5 miles! Hooray for walking!
Dear Liza 