Weird Portland Wednesday: A Simple Unicycler Roaming the Streets

Portland has many different types of transportation.  We are well-known for our train, the Max.  We are well-known for our bus system, Trimet.  We have streetcars and an aerial tram.  We have cars and bikes and all the usual suspects.  Many cities also have such transportation types, but we have something no everyone else probably has...we have a Unicycler.  Oh, no...not just ANY unicycler, but a Darth-Vader-playing-the-Star-Wars-theme-on-flaming-bagpipes  unicycler.  We have The Unipiper.

The Unipiper

Seriously, how many cities can claim such a treat?  And he does so much for us!  

He officiates weddings.

He shovels our snow.

He entertains us.

But mostly he helps keep Portland Weird.

And so it goes

peace~~~

A Plea Among the Riff-Raff

Yesterday my fella and I were heading up to celebrate our grandboy's 16th birthday.  Traffic through the tunnel that leads to the freeway entrance was stop-and-go, so we had plenty of time to read the spray-painted tunnel walls.  Not a pretty sight.  Now don't get me wrong.  There are plenty of beautiful graffiti tags out there.  But this specific tunnel doesn't sport such a visual treat.

So among the spray-painted riff-raff, we found a pearl.  A small beautifully calligraphic plea to Bring Back the Mullet.  We were able to sit there for a bit and mull over that plea.  Bring back the mullet.  Oh yeah sure...now there was a style that needs be returned *voice fading away*

The mullet.  Yes, the mullet.  Business in front and party in the back.  We think of this style as a 1980s icon, but the beloved style dates pretty far back.  Incidents of the hairstyle were documented more than 1,400 years ago, when Byzantine scholar Procopius wrote of a craze among young Roman men in the 6th Century BCE, who sought to emulate the look of Hun barbarians by growing their hair long all around the head except across the forehead, where they kept it cut short. (here I feel so scholarly when I do this)
 
President James Polk sported a mullet. And of course every great athlete and many entertainers in the 80s gave us this look--Paul McCartney, Billy Ray Cyrus, Andre Agassi, Larry Bird, David Bowie.  The list goes on.  So the mullet is deeply ensconced in history.  

Perhaps we should simply allow the hairstyle remain as a footnote in world history.  Iran agrees.  The Iranian government banned the mullet as an acceptable hairstyle for men, claiming it was part of a "Western cultural invasion.” Barbershops were raided and serial offenders were issued steep fines.  This might be one of the few policies that Iran has created that Americans could agree. 

Others would disagree and will march to the right to wear their hair in any style that floats their boat, flips their skirt, or bounces their ball.  All-in-all I can  appreciate the small voice heard with a sweet little plea posted right there among the tagged riff-raff. 

And so it goes
peace~~~

It's Just Another Silly Love Story

 

I joined the Internet in 1994 through my friend, Scott.  I loved the interaction with people all around the world and found a great channel to chat on Internet Relay Chat (IRC): #41plus.  I took on the nick of pollyanna and became an Internet geek of sorts.  I met lots of online friends in person at IRC Parties and when I would travel across the U.S. during summers.

I had become special friends with a man in Kentucky and spent a year in that long distance relationship.   When that fell apart, I vowed to never do the long distance relationship thang again.  But alas, the majority of my friendships were online, it was inevitable I would meet someone else who would become important.   

    My good friend, Besthippi (Steph), introduced me to nolte (Doug), who lived in Pennsylvania.  So okay, what's a few thousand miles?  I had been a single parent for the past 20some years and wasn't eager to jump into anything permanent.  Hmmm...or was I?

Doug was different than some of the other men I had met online.  No games.  No BS.  Just Doug, take him or leave him.  The first time we met face-to-face was in 1996.  In 1997 I took a sabbatical in order to figure out this relationship...and (the academic reason) how to teach Public Speaking online and went back to Pittsburgh, PA for a year.  

What fun we had!  I was able to travel to new places and meet new old online friends.  I had traveled the south the years before and now I was able to travel more north, including Canada and Niagara Falls.  And then it was time to go home in order to write my research (I had been teaching an online class for the year) and finish out the academic year.  I returned in the summer and we set about plans for Doug to move to Oregon.  I always said that he followed me home so I had to keep him.  He arrived Halloween 1998.  We were perfectly happy to remain unmarried but it changed.  We wanted to make it official.

 We set our wedding for Saturday, July 10, 1999.  We wanted to be married outside in the garden somewhere.  I wanted daisies in my hair and bare feet.  My hippie dream back in the 1960s.  We decided to get married at Cathedral Park in north Portland, under the St Johns Bridge, but had to change the date because the Hood to Coast bike ride always stops at Cathedral Park.  With our family around us and a few special friends, we were married.  Friday, July 9, 1999.

There's really nothing special about our love story, except it is our love story.   We were pioneers in that we met online and married...and still together celebrating our 20th anniversary of marriage.  We are still having fun but it seems it is "older people" fun.  He still makes me laugh.  I still get him out and about on spontaneous whims.  And life is good.

And so it goes
peace~~~

What's On My Design Board?

Spring Rain

I usually don't have unfinished projects because I like to see the quilt finished.  For many years I never started a new project until the first project was completed.  All that has changed as the years have gone by.  So what projects do I have on my design board right now?  Plenty.

In my Spring class, the students made a nice quilt called Spring Rain.  When I was a student in this class, I always had the project complete by the last day.  I'd bring it to class and sew the binding.  This spring, I haven't completed the project yet.  My class this summer is "UFOs"--unfinished objects.  I will add the borders to the top in a week or so.  But I do love the soft spring colors of yellows, blues, and whites.

 In June I took a class up in Washington at the best little fabric store around: The Paisley Duck.  Well worth the 40 minute drive.   I wanted to make this cute pup.  I have it in mind for friends who lost their sweet pup last fall.  It was an interesting process of reversing the pattern and appliquéing with fusible webbing.  I usually do needleturn appliqué, so this was a bit of a challenge.  I now need to sandwich and quilt it.  I will be using different stitches on the pup body to help the illusion of a crazy quilt on the pup body.

Probably the worst procrastination on my design board is my husband's stepdaughter's (I call her my stepdaughter-once-removed) stepson's (I call him my stepgrandboy-twice-removed) high school graduation.  I make every niece, nephew and grandie a wall-hanging that focuses on their interests when they graduate from high school.  It is the worst procrastination because he graduated a year ago June.  Gotta get it done!  

He is going to an acting school in Los Angeles.  Him on TV gets lost with the bordering fabric.  I need to remove all the dark around his TV and add a lighter fabric.  Then add the "rabbit ears" at the top and quilt it.  I'll finish this by next weekend :)   

That's what I'm working on.  Plus three quilt tops to quilt for a client.  And a bunch of other projects I an eager to get started!  What have you been up to lately?

And so it goes
peace~~~

Sunday Funday: Splish Splash

I love the water.  I love the feel of silky water against my skin.  I love the feeling of total weightlessness, of floating.  Coolness on a hot day.  We grew up around water.  Dad had a ski boat. Mom couldn't swim, so insisted my sister and I take lessons.  

Washington Park Swim Center

All summer from preschool through lifeguard training, Mom would take us to the local swimming pool weekday mornings for lessons, and then return after lunch for the 25 cent I-take-lessons-discount-swim in the afternoons.  Our summer lives existed around the smell of chlorine.

We were simple people in that a sprinkler was the best of fun when the pool wasn't available for us.  Or we'd just get the hose out.  Cold water was all it took (and you could take a long cold drink in the middle of a game!).  

I had a plastic wading pool for my grandboy.  When he was two, he started swim lessons.  Oh how he loves the water.  He would stay in the water until his fingers and lips turned blue, and then whine about getting out.

Portland has a bunch of wading pools in our parks.  Fun with fountains shooting up for the kids to play.  Buckets filling with water and pouring our over heads.  Who doesn't love those?  And the city parks and rec have a bunch of indoor and outdoor pools--indoor for year-round swimming and outdoor for neighborhood fun.  

Evergreen Airport Waterpark

But the BEST are the cool water parks!  Oh My!  Hampster tubes to slide down into a big splash!  Big pools.  Smaller pools.  Swim pools.  Splash pools.  Slides.  stairs.  A whole trail of goodies to add to the splash.  Evergreen Airport in McMinnville, OR has converted an airplane into a huge hampster-tube slide.  Oh My! 

Evergreen

Super Waterpark

Admittedly it does look simple compared to some of the waterparks out there, but it's not far away and not super expensive.
 
(borrowing from lyrics...) So pack up the babies / And grab the old ladies / And everyone goes / 'Cause everyone knows

It's Summer!  Get thee to the Sunday Funday pool!

And so it goes
peace~~~

Fighting for Freedom

Elizabeth Freeman was the first slave to fight for her freedom from slavery by taking her case to court.  Her fight for her own freedom changed history forever.

Elizabeth was born to native African slaves on the farm of Pieter Hodgeboom around 1743.  The name she was given was Bett Mum.  When Hodgeboom's daughter married Colonel John Ashley, Hodgeboom gave the newlyweds both Bett and her sister Lizzy as a wedding gift.  The two girls were teenagers.  About this time, Bett gave birth to her daughter.  She was called "Little Bett."  The father is unknown.  Bett, Lizzy and Little Bett now lived in the Ashley house in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

The Ashley House

Hannah Ashley was mean to her slaves.  The story goes that once Mrs. Ashley went to discipline Lizzy with a heated shovel and Bett stepped in between the heated shovel and her sister.  She was severely injured on her arm from the hot shovel.  It took a long time to heal and the scar was quite ugly.  Even though Bett was illiterate and had no schooling, she was quite clever.  She didn't hide her wound behind clothing, but kept it open for all to see.  When visitors would ask what was ailing her arm, Bett reportedly answered, "Ask missis!"  Elizabeth later said that "Madam never again laid her hand on Lizzy."

Colonel Ashley was a wealthy citizen in Sheffield.  He served as a judge of the Berkshire Court of Common Pleas. In January of 1773, he moderated the local committee that wrote the Sheffield Declaration.  This declaration was approved on January 12, 1773. It stated that “mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.”  This same language was used in the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 and in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

Theodore Sedgwick

Bett Mum heard the discussions for the constitution and took the words to heart.  In 1781, along with an enslaved man named Brom, she took her plea for freedom to the prominent
attorney, Theodore Sedgwick.  Sedgwick had helped draft the Sheffield Declaration.  He decided to take her case as a "test case" to determine if slavery was legal under the new Massachusetts constitution.  Even though the case demanded that Ashley release the two, he refused to free Bett and Brom, stating they were his property.  Sedgwick took his case farther up the judicial ladder, arguing that slavery was illegal under the new constitution (ironically because of the initial words formed by Ashley himself).  Sedgwick won the case and slavery was banned throughout the state.

The Sedgwick Home

Once freed, Bett Mum changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman.  Ashley offered her a position as a paid servant if she returned to his home, but Elizabeth refused.  Instead she and her family became paid domestic worker in the Sedgwick home.  She also worked as a healer, midwife, and nurse. After 20 years, she was able to buy her own house where she lived with her children.

Smithsonian National Museum of
African American History and Culture.

Elizabeth Freeman died on December 28, 1829 and was buried in the Sedgwick family plot in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  She is the only non-Sedgwick to be buried in the “inner circle” of the Sedgwick family plot.   She was approximately 85 years old.  

Ms Freeman never did learn how to read and write.  But she was still able to make history by being the first black woman to take her freedom to court and doing so, gained freedom for all slaves in Massachusetts.

And so it goes
peace~~~

Watching Fireworks Over the Trees Tops

I grew up in the county.  Dad built our house along a dead-end dirt road.  We had neighbors on each side, but lots of fields along the road.  There was Mr. Coopers farm across the street with acres of farmland and orange trees.  The field past Granny's place was open, bumping into the dairy pasture.  And Billy and Martha lived right next door.

Living out in the county was great because there were no sidewalks and lots of space to play.  We had a large front yard where Dad installed lights and then a badminton/volley ball net was able to hook on the light poles.  We slept outside in the summer with a contest on who had the most mosquito bites the next morning.  I always won *beamin with sweet blood pride*

The Los Angeles County Fair always put on a great fireworks display for the Fourth of July.  We did go to the fairgrounds one year, if I remember correctly, but more often we just watched the fireworks as they burst over the trees from our backyard.  Of course, we would have to peek around the trees, but it was great watching the display with Billy and Martha, and Gary and Donnie when they stayed the summers with their grandparents.

Our backyard was pretty barren.  Dad had his large collection of stuff that he could dig into when he needed a part or something, but under the clothes line all the way back to the fence (where the neighboring goats lived) was open.  We'd have a little campfire, roast marshmallows and watch the fireworks over the tree tops.  Glorious!

The best way to roast the mallows is to get them good and dark.  They catch on fire pretty easily and the fun is to then pull them up and blow out the fire.  So here we are, young kids (with parental semi-supervision, of course) roasting marshmallows and watching the fireworks up over the tree tops, laughing and joking and being silly, the way kids do when they are outside after dark with parental semi-supervision.  Having fun. 

And a specifically marvelous display burst magnificently over the trees.  We all gasped and oohed and aawed.  Billy was just in the process of pulling his burning marshmallow out of the fire when this spectacular display burst overhead and he whipped around to see.  His perfectly darkened burning marshmallow smacked into my cheek.  

That was the last year we roasted marshmallows and watched the fireworks in the backyard over the tree tops with parental semi-supervision. 

Now, some 60 years later, no one would be able to see the fireworks over the tree tops from the backyard.  The trees have grown.  The city has grown.  The streets are paved.  The glorious fields are tracked.  But there was a day within my lifetime when the simple county life was fun and open and perfect for watching fireworks over the tree tops.

Have a safe and happy fourth of July
peace~~~

It's National Ice Cream Month!

I scream.  You scream.  We all scream for ICE CREAM!

July is the best month of the year, hands down.  First, it's smack-dab in the middle of summer.  Warm lazy crazy days that gives us more daylight than we deserve.  As a kid, we played board games every day.  Risk.  Clue.  Life.  We'd play gangsters in the old car next door, war in the empty field down the road.  And after it started to get dark, we'd play Hide-and-Seek.  You know the rules change after dark, right?

It's also my birthday month :)  And my grandboy's birthday month :)  And my wedding anniversary month :)

But the BEST part of July is it is National Ice Cream Month!  Think about it.  There are 31 days in July.  That's perfect to visit your local Baskin and Robbins and have a different flavor of ice cream every day!  YippeeSkippee!

President Reagan declared July as the month to celebrate ice cream, with the third Sunday of the month designated as National Ice Cream Day.  It don't get much better than that.

No one knows exactly when ice cream was created but Alexander the Great enjoyed icy drinks sweetened with nectar.  It came to the United States around 1744 and presidents have always enjoyed it.  Jefferson made his own recipe and Dolly Madison served it at her husband's second
inaugural ball.  

Vanilla is the most popular flavor.  To some it is too boring, so they love exciting new flavors like Banana Peanut Butter Chip and Brown Butter Bourbon Truffle.  Some like it deep fried.  Some like it soft-served.  Some want healthier choices.  Some want the full fat content.  And who makes the most ice cream?  California, of course.
 
Enjoy
peace~~~