Dog-Gone News

Lois Lane rides again. This time Kathleen played the part of the news reporter who hung around with Clark Kent. She was driving us from a yarn shop on SW Alder, and we were now on our way to NW Portland. Suddenly she shouted for me to look out the windshield. I was somewhere else; occupying my own little island inside the car.

Directly in front of us was a bicycle with a shirtless rider. OK, I thought, but that’s hardly newsworthy on a sunny afternoon. What was she so excited about, I wondered. Then she shouted again: “Look at the dog on his shoulders!”

“Oh, my god,” I replied. Sure enough, a medium sized dog balanced like an Olympic gymnast on a balance beam. Without moving, it held its position as it stretched across the rider’s shoulders. No wonder I didn’t see the dog at first, it was the same color as the rider’s sporting tan.

The closer we got, the dog looked like a young Pit Bull. Maybe the driver and his dog were Siamese twins. A loose red leash was the only other connection between the two of them. I wondered how fast this bike, rider and dog could go. Maybe 25 mph would be their top speed.

I then said to Kathleen: “Where’s your camera?” Now she was multi-tasking, and Without letting up on the accelerator put the window down and reached out with the camera. She kept one eye on the prey and one on the road while she took a shot or two. Meanwhile, I felt like a patient in a dentist chair, anxious to know how everything looked. She announced that the results were good.

Our pursuit continued until we stopped for a red light and they made it through. Now we lost sight of them; for good, I feared. Suddenly the rider and his pal reappeared from an intersecting street near Burnside, and Kathleen was now playing the role of an Indy race car driver. I played the role of her sponsor, when I said: “Don’t lose ‘em.”

She managed to stay a bumper away for three or four more blocks until the rider sensed that we were close behind, or his hitch-hiker was also a ‘people whisperer.’ The bike cut sharply to the left and sprinted against the oncoming traffic, if only for a moment. The dog and rider had won, or escaped. We looked like we lost, because We couldn’t follow them any longer. In fact, we won too!

Kathleen was still excited as she relived the event. I was left to wonder if someone could teach that dog another trick, like taking pictures of trailing motorists.

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Needed: A Spare Tire or Hand

Just how many wheelchairs are on the sidewalks of Portland at a given moment? I decided that this question could be answered with a sample by driving from SW 4th and Washington up to SW 10th and Clay and then looping back to the point of origin. No sooner had I started my drive-by survey when I stopped for a light and an elderly may, all in black (No, it was not Gerry Glanville, the new football coach at Portland State), started to cross the street. The passersby that were going in the same direction made slight lateral moves but did not ask if he would like a spare hand. Never mind, he managed to cross a number of streets before this one and he knew not to ask for or expect help, no matter how slow he was.

But his pace was almost too slow to avoid a car next to me that decided to jump as soon as the light turned green. Whew! He made it. And he `continued going south and out of view.

Why did he cross the street? He didn’t look like a chicken.

The next sighting of wheelchair-bound citizens was banded together on the sidewalk alongside SW 10th and SW Salmon. One, a young man, had neither a right leg nor a left leg. (Iraq?) One of the others appeared to have two good legs, but no feet. Otherwise he would have been walking or just leaning against the building. The two remaining members of this rendition of the four Houseless Men had wheelchairs, legs and feet. Which of those parts were broken? A quartet for sure, but maybe not a quarter between them.

What were they talking about? The weather, or whether thou go’est.

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Dumb Act Involving Kids

We were going through Nordstrom’s store at Lloyd Center. As we came down the escalator a couple of young males, dressed in the latest street styles of pants and caps came into view. One of them was pushing a two-seat stroller, the kind with the seats in a single row as opposed to being side by side. The other male was walking alongside. At the top of the adjacent down elevator the men changed roles and the one who had been pushing the stroller headed alone down the escalator while the other one grabbed the handle bar on the stroller and swung it around so that the child in the front seat was now facing away from the first step. He then proceeded to walk backward down a couple of the moving steps. At the same time he lifted the stroller up while keeping the child in the front stroller balanced on the higher step while the child in the back seat was suspended in the air. The pusher was not willing to take an elevator; that would have been too much time. He showed no concern for the children’s safety.

Was one of them the father of these children, or were they each the fathers of one of the children? Or was neither one a father, just guys being ‘good guys’ who were taking the little guys out to the mall? Frankly, I think the kids were in the way today. The kids had no choice, and the young adults made all the wrong choices.

Lloyd Center near-mishaps were not yet over. As we walked near a display of dresses I almost stepped on a young girl who was laying on the floor while talking on her cell phone.

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Proof That No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Going west on NW Lovejoy Street I stopped behind a string of cars that were waiting for the light to change. On the sidewalk to my right side a woman with a little dog was walking in my direction. Suddenly she stopped when her pet dropped a deposit on the sidewalk. Without a plastic bag in hand she scanned the leaves on the tree overhead but they were beyond her reach. As she looked around for another solution I saw a hand from the passengers-side of an SUV reach out and hand the woman a baggie. With a quick kick the brown product went into the bag. Just then the light changed and the car began to move forward, but not before the bag was handed back to the person in the car.

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The Mall Walkers

Washington Square Mall has a reputation as a ‘walker’s mall.’ I walked from the parking lot and through Macy’s which lead me to the main thoroughfare where walkers were going in every direction. I settled into a seat on a bench with a perfect view. In every direction shoppers were moving; some with packages, some with kids and a few who probably were just along for the walk.

One person who passed my spot was out of character when it comes to walking. If anyone should have been on foot, it would be this security guy. Not here. No, he’d been given a Segway scooter to buzz around on. Trouble was it made him look even taller, like John Wayne looking over a herd of cattle. Still he could still be a ‘flatfoot’ since all he did was stand in one place.

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A Finger For A Finger

Driving east on SW Everett I stopped at the corner of SW Naito Parkway. There was a slight wind blowing and I saw a black plastic bag move along the sidewalk until it stopped under the rear of a bicycle that was pointed to go across Naito and turn north. The light turned for me to go and as I made the right hand turn I slowed down and tried to get the attention of the bike rider. I did so by pointing in the direction of his rear tire. He took one look at me and gave me the finger. I pointed again and again, each time with more emphasis at the rear tire, but he never turned his head in that direction. Instead he continued to give me the finger. Come-on now he was over 50. As I moved on I looked in the rear view mirror to see if the bag was stuck in the sprocket and spokes. Unfortunately, he rode on without it.

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Friday Night Pizza

Kathleen was out of town until later in the evening so I decided to eat at 360 Degrees in East Vancouver. I asked for a window seat so I could read a ‘Drivers Wanted’ manual from Volkswagen. This is not a story about a good meal, though it was. It is a story about a dad and one of his children.

Soon after I ordered and began to try to get into the mass of information about the car a young, athletic man, with two sons, was shown their way to the table immediately to my left. When one of the two boys bolted for the front door I saw the dad catch up to him and hosted his arms high and settled him into the bench against the wall. The waitress had already set up two children’s chairs and one adult chair on the side closer to me. The boys may have been twins, both about five. I have twin grandsons, six months old

One of the sons easily picked himself up and got into a child’s chair. His brother slipped out of sight as the dad pulled out a couple of sets of colored pens and paper. The boy in the chair had no difficulty starting to draw. The other son was less interested and continued to squirm. With patience and hugs the dad gave most of his attention to the son next to him. He tried encouragement and more hugs, but it was not easy. It looked to me like this son wanted to be sure he was in a safe environment.

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Recycling the Love

It was leaning against the trunk of a small tree, right behind a bench in the Park Blocks and Salmon Street; a nice 2’ X 2’ cardboard sign. Surely an itinerate poet wrote it. It said:

Its prior owner had not headed to a freeway off-ramp without it. When I’d walked by this same spot two hours earlier the bench had an occupant sitting there. Plastic bags from a McDonald’s meal were scattered all over the ground; likely it was his trash. I wondered when I returned, would any of his stuff be picked up?Well, he must have gotten some good luck in the meantime and knew that someone else could use his effective sign. Except for a see-through lid for a large size Coke and a straw in the hole, all the trash I’d seen earlier was gone.Again I wondered. How long will this sign stay here before the love of its prior owner played forward. Too bad I was in a hurry. I’d have enjoyed sitting on another bench and timed Portland’s pursuit of philanthropy.

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Connecting the Dots

Taking a break from the lunch time conversation to use the restroom at New Season’s on SE Powell I made my way to the back of the store. An arrow pointed to the exact location. On entering the alcove I could not avoid noticing a young woman standing there. Noticing meant noticing how she looked. At first I thought it must be due to the lighting. But as I got within an arm’s length I confirmed that her face and exposed neck were heavily marked, or masked, with tattoos. Dots, dots and more solid black objects were prominently worn, yet her face remained innocent.

On entering the men’s room I saw that a young man was washing his hands while facing a large mirror. His tattooed face starred back at me. I could not miss seeing the dots. They went, on both sides, from his ears to his chin. Larger dots moving into smaller dots, much like bumps on some kind of sea shell.

As I exited he was still scrubbing his hands. Was this a reenactment of a scene from Macbeth? Shakespeare wrote: “Out spot, out damn spot!”

She was still standing there, looking a bit concerned. I nodded to her and said that he would be along shortly. Somehow that seemed like the right thing to say, rather than stare at her. No doubt those damn dots were stubborn. Was he trying to scrub them off and be born again?

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Who was No. 39?

Watching a gathering mid-summer night crowd form at the NW Johnson Street Park is a cool way to find out what is cool in Portland. Besides noticing the big barbeque that was being staged for a worthwhile cause, my eye picked up a graying ballplayer. How did I know he was a ballplayer? Anyone there could have done it.

He still had his Portland Beaver’s cap on and he wore with pride his game jersey. Something about the number 39 made sense too. Like Jack Benny, 39 is the age of immortality

Wearing a batting glove was a nice touch too. He wasn’t signing autographs but maybe only because he wasn’t asked. Still he engaged in various conversations yet fortunately never swung an imaginary bad like some old timers have a habit of doing. An athlete, nevertheless, and from a time when baseball mattered in PDX.

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