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Last week we got to celebrate Grandpa Nelson’s Birthday. I won’t say how old his is, but the Beatles wrote a song about it…

The day started with presents on the couch and snuggles with Mouse. Bamboo straws, left-handed soap (” Smells like weird scissors!”) and a book about wine from Auntie Bridgett’s Mom, Donna. Also, a new Irish cap to replace a lost one from Trinity College.

On our trip to visit Aunt Bea a while back, Grandpa Nelson had noticed all the wineries south of Portland, so off we went to Mcminnville. Spring has made the country even more beautiful, a hundred shades of green accented with pink dogwoods.

We found the closest McMenamin’s establishment, the Hotel Oregon, built in 1905, and enjoyed a good lunch. The building was old and quirky, with the good food, friendly, easy service and artsy touches we have come to expect from the McMenamin brothers. The views of the Willamette Valley from the rooftop bar were lovely and green.

Walking the streets of the delightfully funky Old Town area, we saw a turn of the century Elk’s Lodge and other historic buildings, housing art galleries, cafes and wine tasting rooms, as well as stores selling books and art supplies for students at nearby Linfield and George Fox Colleges. Also, founding fathers hanging out in the sun.

Grandpa Nelson enjoyed a flight of red wines from Willamette Valley Vineyards and we watched people go by and thought about how lucky we both felt to be alive, happy, and together.

We found the Currents Art Gallery, and chatted with Sharon Cook, the artist staffing the place. She and Auntie Bridgett talked about art and the art business, for quite a while. It’s always good to hear other people’s ideas.

Feeling the need of some greenery, we headed for the local park and had snacks…fruit, water (to combat all the wine) and peanuts. We saw historic grist mill stones from the mills that helped establish McMinnville back in the 1840s. Loving the history, we were also delighted to see a tiny maple seedling starting to grow in a crevice in the stone.

Heading back north we stopped at Walnut City Winery. McMinnville used to be a major walnut growing area until the famous 1962 Columbus Day Storm literally ripped many trees from the ground and threw them around. New trees would take 10 years to produce, while filberts, also called hazelnuts, can be ready in 3 years. Needing to make a living, the folks planted filberts. Now Oregon grows almost all of the filberts in the country, and 30 percent of all the filberts in the world! So it was a good move.

We enjoyed the last wine for the day and continued on our way, stopping at Newburg for a tasty dinner, then drove home….tired, over-wined, and ready to be done. We had a quick video chat with you and your family, watched the Giants win their game against the Reds, and we all went to bed.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last night we went to two activities. The first was a Belmont Business Association “Mixer”, which is like a party where you meet folks you might want to do business with. I am not in business, but Auntie Bridgett is, so we went along for dinner, drinks and conversation.

The Mixer was held at Crush, an informal bar/restaurant on Morrison. It is in a beautiful old building and the folks are friendly. We had fries, quesadillas, Absinthe, wine, and cider.

When folks started showing up, we chatted and met a real estate agent named Tina who loves Auntie Katie’s Books with Pictures and also loves Side Street Arts! Hooray for business camaraderie.

After the mixer, we headed (via Lyft) down to Division to see the release of the new Nib Cartoon books at Books with Pictures. I love the Nib because it is smart and funny, political and sharp, but not vulgar.

We got to met Matt Bors, Eleri Harris and Sarah Mirk, who are some of the many editors and artists for the magazine.

They walked us through the process of making a comic book…how they decide on, research, and write the stories, how they edit, illustrate and format them. The whole process showed me, once again, that one single mind can’t get things done. It takes different points of view and different areas of expertise. Understanding this helps me let other folks work on my story.

Since I’m not an artist, I was most interested in how the text, the writing, was worked on. It turns out, it is mostly written and then cut, cut, and cut again. Eleri’s story of turning a 1,600 word interview into eleven sentences was painful but familiar.

We got to hug Auntie Katie, whom we will see again on Mother’s Day. We will head over to her apartment for breakfast, then downstairs to the new shop to sweep, paint, and whatever else needs doing.

Love, Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

It was another pretty day! This makes three in a row! It might really be spring this time. But we aren’t taking it for granted.

Auntie Bridgett needed to do art work, so Grandpa Nelson planned an adventure for he and I. We started by boarding the “Magic Bus”, the number 15, and heading downtown. I needed to put some money in the bank, and it is always nice to walk around downtown, taking time to notice the old buildings.

This one, The American Bank Building, was not the bank we needed to go to, but is pretty just the same. It was built in 1913 by A.E. Doyle, the same fellow who designed Reed College. I love how he makes huge buildings pretty but not garish and dark. He used white glazed terracotta for the decorations, so they have stayed bright all these years. We took the train to Washington Park, then the number 63 through the park to the Rose Garden. We have seen a few roses blooming in town, and hoped for a good show.

We looked and looked, but out of the 10,000 rose bushes at the garden, we found two, count them, two, tiny miniatures in bloom. Debut, a lovely dark pink, and Dee Bennett, a bright orange, were the only bright spots in acres and acres of green. The view of Mt. Hood was fantastic, however, and the azaleas were nice. It’s hard to have a BAD day at a garden.

Grandpa Nelson, after he got done chatting with this statue of a Royal Rosarian, looked at the map and found a trail to lead us down the mountain. It was sunny, warm, and everything smelled wonderful. Wildflowers, crows, even a few butterflies, were all out celebrating spring.Coming off the trail, we found ourselves just across the street from an old friend, the beautiful statue of Sacajawea and her son, Jean-Baptiste. This statue was commissioned from artist Alice Cooper for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. Besides city funds, it was paid for by school children who sold buttons to raise money for it. I have seen articles in newspapers of the time about contests between grade levels at local grammar schools. Apparently using school kids for fund raising is a time honored tradition.

Nearby is the less-beautiful column that memorializes Lewis and Clark, who were appointed by President Jefferson in 1804 to travel west from St. Louis, Missouri, and find a route to the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to Sacajawea, a Native American woman they met in North Dakota and who knew the land, plants and animals of the area, they made it through the mountains and to the coast safely.

After we rested a bit and enjoyed the breeze and the views of the city, we headed down about a million steps to West Burnside Street, where we bought lunch at Zupan’s. This is a very upscale grocery store, and it sure smelled good! The deli had pulled pork tamales and the bakery had cinnamon rolls, so we both ate just fine!

On the way down the hill we found a giant redwood tree in front of an elegant 1920s apartment building. At the foot of the tree was a brass plaque:

Hmmmm…. The tree is beautiful, and probably older than the building, but Portland’s FAVORITE tree? We have trees in our park that we have named, for goodness sake! We get very attached to trees.

As it turns out, during the 1987 Rose Festival, the Oregonian newspaper held a popularity contest, and this redwood, (a native Californian, I must note) growing in the west hills, won. Since the contest hasn’t been held since, this is the reigning champion.

Smiling about how silly, and beautiful, the world is, we caught the magic bus just a block from the market, got home, and crashed. Views, hikes, art and lunch…we had had a full day.

I wonder what adventure we will find tomorrow?

Love, Grandma Judy

After a northwest winter of grays and browns,

Rains and mud, getting by by hanging on,

Spring comes.

The sun appears innocently, like a child after a tantrum,

Rises over chilly neighborhoods,

And smiles.

The celebration starts with the cherry blossoms,

Pink and smelling of sandalwood,

Eventually dying in blizzards of pink, drifting in gutters,

Beautifying even in death.

And while they distract us, tulips rise, straight as redwoods,

Towering above tiny lavender bells.

Fiery azaleas explode, jealous of all attention.

Rhododendrons, reptilian buds impatient since January, all jump at once,

Impossible variegated globes.

Each player takes its turn, a great jazz riff, swaying in the breeze like dancers in a club.

Finally, as a quiet coda, a single white rose blooms behind the cemetery.

Dear Liza,

It was a pretty day today, much different from the chilly winds yesterday. I was feeling restless, so I went to visit the dead people.

Spring always makes the cemetery fresh and beautiful, allowing us to think about the permanence of death and the changing of the seasons. And besides that, it’s just pretty… the pinks and greens against the blue sky.

Today, since a large dogwood was blooming, I got a very nice photo of the Soldiers’ Memorial from the Civil War. This young man carrying a flag is usually in shade, but the white tree behind him let him show up better.

I found this sad little headstone, a marker for two little sisters, ages 12 and 9, who died within days of each other in 1880. Was there a flu epidemic? Measles? We may never know. Children died much more often in those days, before vaccines, antibiotics, car seats or sewage systems.

Walking around the back of the cemetery, I found two columns dedicated to David S. Stearns, who donated the money for this back entrance to the cemetery, which isn’t used anymore. I have found Mr. Stearns in articles in the Oregonian newspaper of the 1900s, where he is mentioned as building large structures downtown and negotiating all sorts of land sales. He and his family also took vacations with other prominent Portland families. He was what we call a “mover and shaker”…. he got stuff done.

I always learn new things at Lone Fir.

Love, Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

I know you and your daddy listen to lots of music together, so I imagine you have heard of The Beatles. They were four musicians from England who were very popular when I was a girl, in the 1960s and 1970s. Their music is still studied and listened to today, and listening to it was the second part of our adventure in Alberta.

This year is the fifty year anniversary of the Beatles’ most popular record album, Abbey Road. To celebrate, a group called The NowHere Band were performing the entire Abbey Road album, live at the Alberta Rose Theater! Grandpa Nelson had bought us tickets.

We got there early, because the show was sold out and we wanted good seats. Waiting in line, we enjoyed some more of the quirkiness of Alberta with this sign.I didn’t take any pictures during the performance, because that is a very rude thing to do. I even asked an elderly lady to get off her phone, but I felt bossy doing it.

What surprised me most, at first, was that The Beatles only had four guys, but The Nowhere Band has eight regular band members, plus a few extra female singers, two violins and a cello, a few saxophones and a trombone. This is because for a lot of their later music, the band used orchestras to help give their music more interest and depth.

Also surprising was that since performing the whole album would only take 45 minutes, and that’s not much of a show (so they said) , the band performed a random and wonderful collection of Beatles songs first.

The music was wonderful! The website for the band is very vague about giving the members’ names… there will be a photo of ten people and a list of 20, in no particular order, so I can’t tell you who sang what. But they were all very good. The bass player, and drummer, as well as all the vocalists, have serious rock and roll chops. They kept the original arrangements, but seeing and hearing it live, with the room vibrating with drums and bass guitars, made every song more special.

The group said that some music just needed six voices, and when they sang Paperback Writer, it did. In My Life, a simple song about remembering, only needed three voices, but kept the original harpsichord piece which made it so special.

The group took a well- deserved rest at intermission. The woman who sang most of John Lennon’s most difficult parts, like She’s So Heavy, worked her voice very hard and needed recuperation time.

The second part of the show was, as advertised, the Abbey Road album start to (almost) finish, from Come Together to The End. The orchestrations, complexity of sound and harmonies were almost perfect. Because has really close harmonies, and they were just off enough to rattle my ears a bit. But the drum solo was amazing.

When the band took bows and left the stage after The End, several of us turned to our partners and said “They’re not done…where is Her Majesty?” And of course, the audience clapped and hooted until the band returned, singing the adorable 45 second love song, to finish the show.

We were all happily full of music and memories as we walked out into the really chilly evening, to find the car and head home.

What a wonderful day of art, music, food, and the company of my people!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

On Saturday, Grandpa Nelson, Auntie Bridgett and I drove up to the Alberta neighborhood again. It was chilly and almost trying to rain, so we took our jackets.

One thing we love about Alberta is the artsy feeling of the place. There are lots of art galleries, but even outside, on roofs and walls, there is art. All sorts of murals and even this skeleton on a ladder keep you looking around.

We stopped in at Monograph Bookwerks, a small, independent bookstore. Today was actually National Independent Bookstore Day, but we didn’t know it at the time. Since the last time we were in, John had collected some wonderful old maps! Maps are one of my favorite things, and old maps are even better! I got a 1948 map of the state of Oregon, and a 1965 map of downtown Portland. I will enjoy staring at them!

We wondered some more and got hungry, so we stopped in at Bunk for really tasty sandwiches and French fries. It has this wonderful mural on the wall, and though I have no idea who it is, it was fun eating lunch near him.More art that we saw was this not-very- flattering, but very amusing, portrait of Mr. Trump, and this mural of a squirrel and his dog friend skateboarding.We visited the Guardino Gallery and saw wonderful pieces of art, including some by people we know from The SideStreet Art Gallery. It was like seeing old friends.

By then it was time for the second part of our adventure, so off we went!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

It was another lovely sunny day today! Auntie Bridgett had to work at the SideStreet Arts Gallery, so Grandpa Nelson and I walked her there, then got snacks at Whole Foods up on Burnside, and walked back through Laurelhurst Park. We found a lovely piece of grass close enough to the lake to hear the ducks, and stretched out on your striped blanket with our books.

The theater of life that is the park played out around us. Since we were lying on the ground, our perspective was a bit odd.

We heard the osprey dive into the lake and hit the water, causing ducks to fly in all directions, and seconds later flew we saw him overhead with a good sized fish in his beak.

A trio of girls played cards and chatted on the grass, visiting with all the dogs that passed by.

The sun had a halo, which means that somewhere in the atmosphere there were ice crystals. The barking of dogs and encouragement of their owners echoed from the dog park area. “Don’t go in the lake, no, please don’t….” Seconds later, “Oh, good girl!”

A couple practiced their circus/yoga/ acrobatic moves, much to everyone’s enjoyment, while another young lady played on her bongo set.

The grass was so soft, Grandpa Nelson fell asleep, and I sat up on a picnic bench to look around. Kids negotiated with moms about when it was time to leave.

It was a lovely day, and we were sad when we had to head for home, but we can go back again tomorrow, when a different cast of characters will act in their own plays.

As we got home, I got good news on the patio! The maple and birch seeds I stuck into flower pots last fall have opened up, and I now have the beginnings of of fine bonsai trees! I will keep an eye out at thrift shops for some traditional pots for them.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

We had a perfect, sunny day yesterday! So after we had a visit from a lady measuring for our new window blinds, we headed out for a walk.

Auntie Bridgett has been telling me all winter how bright and colorful the spring is here, and now I know she wasn’t exaggerating. As we walked north through the Laurelhurst neighborhood, we saw layers and layers of color from azaleas, dogwoods, maples and camellias. It was amazing.

Our goal was Coe Circle, which was the end of the streetcar line back in the 1900s when this upscale neighborhood was developed. Once the streetcars were removed when cars became popular, the circle of lawn became a traffic circle, controlling the flow east /west on Glisan, and north /south on 39th.

Into this circle, in 1925, was placed a gold covered statue of Joan of Arc. This is a copy of Emanuel Fremiat’s “Jeanne d’Arc”, which is in France. It was paid for by Dr. Henry Waldo Coe as a gift to the city in memory of the Doughboy soldiers of World War 1.

In the traffic circle is also a huge cherry tree which has been blooming with great exuberance. This combination of statue and tree had been what I wanted to see…it was why I wanted to walk there.

And this was a bit of a let down, and a lesson. The statue was beautiful and shiny, as it always is. But the tree had faded a bit, as all spring blossoms do. It was lovely, but not at its best. Next year I won’t wait to walk up.

I have always heard the line “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”…now I know the same goes for photographing cherry blossoms.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

In the story I am writing, the main character is a girl named Clara who has moved from Brownsville to Portland, a distance of about 100 miles. Yesterday, Grandpa Nelson took me there so I could learn more about it.

Brownsville is an old town, founded in 1846 as a place for Kirk’s Ferry, a way for folks to get across the Calapooya River on their way to and from Portland. Compared to the Willamette or the mighty Columbia, the Calapooya is tiny…but if you wanted to cross it before there was a bridge, you would need a ferry.

Since my story takes places in 1903, I was most interested in buildings that would have been standing at that time. I wasn’t disappointed! There is the Moyer Mansion, built in 1881, on the way into town from the train station. The Masonic Hall was build in 1865, and the Starr and Blakely Drug Store was built in 1875, so my Clara would have known them. The City Bank was built in 1903…it would have been the newest thing in town.

I found a nice mix of housing styles, some stylish and majestic, some small and cozy. I found one that I will use as a pattern for Clara’s house, though I don’t know when it was built.

The buttes that loom above Brownsville give it a snug feel, not like it is out on the wide flat land, but nestled and comfortable. They seem to be too small to have names, at least on the maps I have found online. Washburn and Ward buttes, way far out of town are bigger, but don’t have any effect on the feel of Brownsville. I will keep looking.

The Brownsville Ditch is an offshoot of the Calapooya River, hand dug in the 1860s to power the woolen mills of the town with water power. It was great to get a sense of where my girl is from, the place that would have been her homebase.