Dear Liza

Dear Liza,

In case you thought we were only going on long adventures, let me tell you about our walk the other day. It was predicted to get up to 90 degrees, so Grandpa Nelson wanted to head out early.

Heading down Yamhill Street, we enjoyed dappled shade, friendly dogs and overheard shouted conversations from cyclists. We even found another one of Portland’s Heritage trees! These are trees …….

This one is a River Birch at the corner of 21st and Yamhill, and it is huge. I couldn’t reach around its trunk, and I needed to get well across the street before I could fit it all in to a picture. I am glad that Portland values its trees.

We walked down to Colonel Summers Park, which I have told you about. It is named after an officer in the Civil War and later, the Spanish American War in the Philippines.

The last time I saw the park, it was being remodeled. Now it is complete, and delightful. The low area that used to flood in winter has been given drains so that won’t be a problem. Delightful, silly water features have been added, for kids (even old ones like me) to play in. These are only on in Summer, and use the same plumbing for the water to drain away.

Today, the fountains were being enjoyed by half a dozen kids and a few grown ups, splashing, cooling their feet, or just enjoying the show. We found a piece of shade and hung out for a while.

We passed the Colonel Summer’s Park Community Garden, where local folks can use beds to grow flowers, herbs, or fruits and vegetables. Everything was doing so well!

On the way home, we passed an informal sort of garage sale. The owners of this house have put a cover out front where folks can put things they don’t need and take what they can use. I imagine it has been useful when people need shoes or other such second hand goods. It takes a certain amount of maintenance, I’m sure, but so do most worthwhile things.

We got home from our walk to have lunch and see Auntie Bridgett off to her shift at the SideStreet Arts Gallery. See you next week!!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last week I got to spent the day with Cousins Jasper and Kestrel, and, as usual, it was a fun time.

I walked to their apartment because it was such a pretty day, and the bees were very busy in the north rose garden of Ladd’s Addition. These rose gardens are being maintained by teams of volunteers (who go by the delightfully dramatic name “Off with Their Heads!) because of city budget cuts, and the folks are doing a fine job. I helped a little by pulling off some spent roses.

First on the list of To-Dos was some house work. I folded laundry and they put it away.

We decided on a short walk to Palio first, because juice and pastry is a good start to any adventure. As we ate, our spirits rose and we brainstormed the next step.

Mount Tabor? Train to OMSI? Downtown? I gave them their pick of the city. We decided to start downtown.

As always, Tri-Met (the Portland public transportation system ) didn’t let us down. The number 10 stopped just outside of Palio and took us into the heart of the city. We saw some new public art and wandered around for a while, playing a new game called Random Adventure.

At each corner, a different person would choose the next direction: straight ahead, left, right, or back. We found Schrunk Plaza, with its own Scholar Stone Memorial to Veterans of the Vietnam Nam War.

Jasper had fun squirting us with one of Simon Benson’s Bubblers in Chapman Square.

After a while, Kestrel asked, “How far is it to the Chinese Garden?” I checked google maps… “About ten blocks north,” I told her. “You guys interested?” They were, so we headed north.

The garden, whose name Lan Su means “The Garden of the Awakening Orchid”, was not very crowded. We wandered, sat on benches and told stories, chatted with the fish, and of course, had moon cakes, buns and dumplings at the Tea House. The familiarity and tranquility of the lovely space seemed to do us all good.

When we were full up on stories and lotus blossoms, we caught the number 2 home and rested.

Another great day on the books!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

As Grandpa Nelson and I walked south from Downtown along the West Bank of the Willamette, we saw how quickly the environment changed. Glass condominium towers had views of wooded banks and open river. The paved path passed under dense canopies of cottonwoods.

There was traffic on the river, but it was more recreational than industrial. A small sailboat had to pull over and make room for a large river cruiser taking tourists upriver to Oregon City, and we even saw a fellow water skiing behind a motor boat! This is where the river comes to play.

We found this charming bronze beaver installed at Heron Point. It is a memorial to Stuart Wells Jr., who worked to clean up and maintain the river and its ecosystem. It was next to an informational sign showing how the river’s channel has changed over the years, making it better for shipping, but worse for wildlife.

We passed the Willamette Sailing Club, where young folks were carrying their paddle boards to the river, and eventually entered our destination, Willamette Park! It was five miles from home, and we felt very accomplished as we sat in the shade, watched the trees dance in the soft breeze, and took inventory of our feet.

“How are you feeling?” Grandpa Nelson asked. “Because the Sellwood Bridge is right there… I mean, it’s only a mile away.”

I looked upriver. The Sellwood Bridge, which I had not even counted as being in the city, was indeed, right there. It was sort of waving to us. We could so do this.

The walk between the park and the bridge was hot. There were no trees along the path for shade, but there were a few places where you could walk right down and get your feet wet. I did, once, and even picked up two river stones.

But I knew that the longer we spent in the full sun, the less we would enjoy the rest of our walk. So we hustled along, finding our first shade in a half hour under the Sellwood Bridge.

I stood for a minute, just relishing where we were and how we had gotten there. I felt pretty good about it, I must admit.

We walked up onto the bridge, looking upriver and down. We were amazed at the views of wooded banks upriver and the sparkling city of Portland, our new hometown, in the opposite direction.

The city of Sellwood was founded in the 1890s and has a history all its own, of a playground for the well to do of Portland, of golf courses and rowing clubs. It has a population of about 10,000 and is now a neighborhood, rather than a city, but it still has its own distinctive flavor.

We knew just where to stop for lunch! Ancestry Brewery was just a few blocks from the bridge. We had stopped on our way back from the Lake Oswego Arts Festival last month. The beer, cider, burger and fries refreshed us from what was now an EIGHT mile walk. We sat for quite a while, enjoying conversation, air conditioning, and rehydration.

And it turns out, the number 70 bus back to town runs just a block away! We caught it and enjoyed the parade of humanity and neighborhoods from our seats, transferring to the magic 15 to complete our ride home.

What a great day!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

You won’t believe it, but last Friday Grandpa Nelson and I did another, even longer walk. The day was predicted to be between 65 and 80 degrees, with a nice breeze, so we decided to head out.

First we walked south through our own Sunnyside neighborhood and into Ladd’s Addition, enjoying the now familiar old houses, trees, and rose gardens. We stopped by Books with Pictures to visit Auntie Katie. She was busy making a Scavenger Hunt for Jasper to keep him busy for the morning. Cousin Kestrel was in a MOOD and not interested.

We continued west, across train tracks and under electric streetcar wires, along a busy, well-marked set of paths for buses, pedestrians, and bicycles. It felt like we were in the middle of a very busy world, but since it was past commuter hour, there wasn’t much traffic. We crossed the iconic, harp-shaped Tilikum Bridge, and took time to look upstream and down to get a better sense of where we were.

Walking the bridge gives so much more perspective than even cycling over it.

I got to stop near the West Bank and watch the waves from a passing boat lap along the sandy shore.

On the west side, we walked along through the glass condominium towers and came to the Lower campus of the OHSU. We had cookies and sodas to hold us until we found a good place for lunch. Grandpa Nelson had researched and knew that the South Waterfront Greenway continued south from here, so we wandered around, and there it was!

As we walked along, I was surprised by two contradictory things.

The first was how many people lived in this area. A hundred buildings, glassy and new or older and woodsy, housed what must be thousands of people. It was like a small city of high – and low-rises and condos!

The second thing I noticed was how green and wild this part of the Willamette was. Blackberry bushes, cottonwoods, and all sorts of brambles flourished along the path. Sometimes there was no sound at all except the lapping of the river and the breeze in the trees.

I will tell you more about what we found in my next letter.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last week we got to attend our first Shakespeare in the Park of 2019. It was wonderful!

The play was performed at Lone Fir Cemetery by the Portland Actors Ensemble, and attended by about sixty adults and kids. People brought blankets, folding chairs, and picnics to enjoy.

The play, which is about vain King Lear and the bad choices he makes, isn’t a comedy or a romance. It is a tragedy through and through. Brothers and sisters turn on each other, and children against their parents. Good people die, as well as bad.

But the acting, music and setting were so perfect, we didn’t mind the sadness. A violin, pipe and some dissonant singing gave the piece a very courtly, other-worldly feel.

The acting was extraordinary. Isabella Buckner, who we saw last summer as Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet”, stole every scene she was in as The Fool. Her role was part comic relief, part Greek Chorus, and part BFF of the fading King.

King Lear, portrayed by Jim Butterfield, was old enough to be forgiven his foolishness, but still carried the remains of his former glory with him.

Lear’s evil daughters, Goneril and Regan were well played, Jill Westerby as Regan being completely believable in her insane greed. Cordelia, the daughter who loved her father best and who was treated the worst, was played by Sam Reiter with earnest, unsimpering love.

As the play goes along, Cordelia is banished and Lear thrown out into the storm, while his steadfast friends and enemies of his enemies work to keep him and themselves alive. Summer winds whipped through the cemetery at just the right moments, showering us with leaves and making proper sound effects.

By the time the play was over and more than a few bodies lay on stage, night had fallen and we applauded and packed up in the dark. It was still very warm and the walk home through the neighborhood was a good place to talk about the play and fill in plot points we had missed.

Another fabulous day in Portland!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last week Grandpa Nelson and I went to our first ever professional soccer game! We saw the Portland Thorns play the Houston Dash at Providence Park here in town. Soccer is such a big part of the Portland culture, we wanted to give it a try.

As usual, the magic number 15 bus got us where we wanted to go. Outside the stadium, the ladies reminding us to open our bags for inspection were also chanting “PT! (clap clap) FC! (clap clap) I figured out this stood for Portland Thorns Football Club, but it took a minute.

The Thorns are a professional women’s team, and are so good that several of the players were on the International Championship-winning team at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Paris a few weeks ago. Lindsey Horan and Tobin Heath were on the US team, and others played for their country of origin, like Brazil.

The buses and trains were full of folks wearing green, red and black, as well as Thorns scarves and tee shirts, as we headed downtown. A river of happy fans moved toward the stadium. Providence Park has just finished a multi-year remodel to increase capacity and modernize the facility, and this is the first time I’ve seen it unwrapped. Outside, there was art and new decoration.

Inside there were homages to the old structure, as well as posters and timelines that told about Mr. Lownsdale’s tanning factory, which stood on this spot over 150 years ago.

Our seats faced due west, and the sun was RIGHT in our eyes until it ducked behind the stadium. I improvised and was more comfortable, but I did look like I had borrowed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s poke bonnet .

The new construction in the stadium provided for lots of places to sit and watch the game besides your regular seats, and many new places to eat. Beer and wine, of course, were also close by.

There were opening ceremonies, where players who had played internationally were recognized, and local singer Tiffany Dempsey performed the notoriously difficult national anthem beautifully. All the close-ups were captured on a new Jumbotron screen that let us feel even more up close and personal than our 12th row seats did.

Soccer games have a really different rhythm than baseball, which is the only other sport I follow. There are two 45 minute halves and a 15 minute halftime, with no time outs, innings, or other built-in breaks. Many folks stayed in their seats whenever there was action on the field, cheering for goals and reacting loudly and emotionally whenever the other team got possession of the ball.

Every now and then, chants of “EQUAL PAY! EQUAL PAY!” broke out, highlighting the discrepancy in professional soccer players’ pay. Women make just 10% of what men do, despite being responsible for the larger percentage of attendance. The international success of the women’s team, and the failure of the US men’s team to make it anywhere near the finals, have brought this issue forward.

The most avid fans call themselves The Rose City Riveters, and all sit in one section. They have chants (led by energetic folks), and roared “One Goal Beyond!” for the first goal, “Two Goals Beyond!” for the second, and so forth. They even set off a bright red smoke bomb whenever the Thorns scored, and several sections march back and forth. It was fun to watch…from a distance.

The section we were in had the disadvantage of the bright afternoon sun for a while, but some advantages, as well. During the first half, a young man tossed hot, free, wrapped hot dogs and hamburgers to fans, followed by candy and chips in the second half. His aim was very good, and his supply seemed endless. There is also an air conditioned cafe close by, which sells regular stadium fare at discounted prices.

And near the end of the match, VooDoo Doughnuts opened up a table at the top of the section, and you could walk up and take as many as you could carry! Kids and parents were fetching for the family. It was amazing!

When time ran out and the Thorns had won 5-0, we joined the exiting river and walked a few blocks to catch a bus home. It was standing room only and full of fans, but we were all happy with the thrill of victory.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Art is everywhere in Portland! On our long walk through the neighborhoods last week, we got to see all sorts of it.

In Kerns, the old Sunshine Dairy building is due to be torn down and the lot turned into a high rise apartment building. It is home to this extensive, colorful mural. I like to mention the difference between “tagging”, which is just scribbled names or words, and “street art”, which demonstrates creativity, planning, and skill. This mural, which I would most definitely call street art, will disappear when the building does.

Just across the Banfield Freeway is Gabriel’s Bakery PDX USA. Besides smelling delicious, each of its loading dock doors has a delightful mural, depicting animals helping out with the wheat harvest. Llamas, sheep and even a mama fox and her cub are shown in peasant clothes. They are adorable.

Crossing into Sullivan’s Gulch, we found this mural to remind us where we were. It was painted by volunteers and shows Native art and other original occupants of the place.

Political statements are everywhere in Portland, and this was my favorite of the day.

A yarn-bombing always shows a fun neighborhood. Creativity on display in a non-permanent, non-vandalism way is always welcome, in my opinion.

In the Eliot neighborhood we found this display in a front yard. Is is a playful cemetery? Or just a way to show off some pretty plates?

Murals in the Eliot neighborhood show realistic and symbolic local stories… mothers and children missing absent fathers, ghosts of those who have passed away, and a strong ethnic personality.

I don’t think I will ever tire of finding new art here in Portland.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

I can tell Grandpa Nelson is feeling better, because we are going on more really long walks. Yesterday we covered five and a half miles on foot!

We headed north from our house in Sunnyside ( a green rectangle near the center of the map), and passed familiar places like The Pie Spot, which used to feel like a long walk.

Along the way we passed through the Kerns neighborhood, which is home to the da Vinci Arts magnet school, in a building that was built in 1928 as a girl’s polytechnic school.

We left Kerns when we crossed the Banfield Freeway on a noisy pedestrian overpass, and entered the Sullivan’s Gulch neighborhood.

Sullivan’s Gulch is actually the name of the ravine which for years was a barrier to city development, and now holds three different sets of train tracks and eight lanes of freeway.

Sullivan’s Gulch is home to many historic homes and businesses, such as the now-closed Sunshine Dairy, with its 50 foot tall carton of milk. This building is set for demolition and will soon be a 20 story apartment building. It is also the home of the Helen Bernhard Bakery on Broadway, Grandpa Nelson’s favorite doughnut maker in the world. We stopped for a snack.

Leaving Sullivan’s Gulch, we entered the Irvington neighborhood. This area is where the monied class moved around 1900, when the downtown area became too crowded to be genteel. Many large, beautiful Victorian and Craftsman style homes were built on large lots, and have been well maintained. The century-old chestnut trees gave us good shade and made us feel welcome.

In Irvington we met Jane, a lady who lives in the 1913 F.E. Bowman apartments. She liked our appreciation of history and invited us in to see her apartment, which has really large windows and classic 1920s built-in cupboards.

Grandpa Nelson’s original goal was Irving Park, which has a baseball diamond, large wooded area, and fun water play fountains. We got our tired feet wet, cooled off, and decided if we wanted to continue on. We did!

In the Eliot neighborhood, which had interesting home made art projects on display, we enjoyed a pleasant rest at Denorval Unthank Park. The park is named for an African-American doctor who was brought to town in 1929 to treat the domestic servants and railroad porters, who were also African American and whom none of the local (white) doctors would treat.

We walked a little further and found a wonderful lunch of hamburgers and french fries at at “barbar”, where we had eaten sometime last year.

By now we were eyeing our return home, and crossed the 5 freeway on another pedestrian bridge. This one had good views of downtown, and our favorite skyscraper, Big Pink. It dropped us at Overlook Park, where we had views of the Fremont Bridge and a Trimet stop for the yellow line train. This took us to the Pearl and Downtown via the Steel Bridge, and we transferred to the magic number 15 to get us back.

What a wonderful day!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last week Grandpa Nelson and I, along with Auntie Katie and the Cousins, went to Enchanted Forest. This hand-made roadside attraction is the dream child of Roger Tofte, who bought the steep 20 acre property in 1964 and began building a fairy tale park.

Learning as he went, Mr. Tofte started with small things, like the pumpkin for Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater and some mushrooms, and then moved on to bigger things. I especially love his Wicked Witch, which has steps up and a slide down, and is very “witchy”.

Auntie Katie hasn’t been to The Enchanted Forest since she was two years old. Both have grown since then.

Now there are rides, like the Frog Hopper and Bumper Boats. Some have height requirements… you must be “this” tall, but no taller than “this”. Unfortunately, that meant that Jasper was too big for some rides he wanted to go on, and too small for others. Feelings were hurt and howls were heard echoing through the forest. But we all got through it.

I guess I must really be a Grandma… I was less interested in riding the rides than I was in watching the kids riding them, and really, most impressed with the skill Mr. Tofte developed in carving his magical place. Dark, spooky Caves to wander through, critters and faces and skulls in unexpected places… all these made me stop and smile in the middle of melt downs and log rides.

After lunch of pizza, watching dancing fountains and Irish music, and some ice cream, it was time to head home. The one hour drive home took almost TWO because of Portland commuter traffic. But Auntie Bridgett had tuna salad waiting for dinner when we got home.

Home sweet home!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Grandpa Nelson and I took a walk the other day, all the way to Downtown. Usually we take the magic 15 bus and then decide to walk home, but we finally figured out that it is DOWNHILL to downtown, and UPHILL home! So the three miles going in that direction are sure easier!

We walked down Salmon Street most of the way. The houses and trees are all from the 1900s and are interesting and beautiful. The street is also a Greenway, so there is less car traffic.

We saw some interesting things, like this sculpture on a balcony, made out of old bicycle wheels. There were also some arching fig trees big enough to sleep in.

Nearer the river, we found this iron sculpture that memorializes the Phoenix Ironworks’ location from the 1890s. The almost abstract piece lets you see a bit of the roofline of the factory. Many of the manhole covers in Salinas and other places were built right here!

From the part of the Hawthorne Bridge that goes over the warehouse district, I was able to see old industrial buildings and their decorations up close. It is nice to think that even cement factories had tried to be pretty.

More modern art installations stood on other buildings, like these store mannequins looking surprised to be out in the open.

Once across the bridge we stopped for lunch at The Good Earth, a fresh sandwich shop. Very tasty and friendly. It is in the same building as the Police Station, and there are some fancy decorations in the walkway out front.

Finally, we got to the Portland Art Museum! Grandpa Nelson hadn’t seen the Paris 1900 exhibit yet, so this was his first time. We watched “Voyage to the Moon”, enjoyed seeing Paris again, and watched moms explain the pictures to their kids.

The walk had been three miles, though, and we were pretty tired. As we left, we saw this fine fellow polishing “Eye of Orion” by Manuel Izquierdo, a bronze sculpture that needs Just a little care. We caught the bus home and had a nice rest.

Love,

Grandma Judy