Where Went Portland?

What’s wrong with Portland? It died and is awaiting rebirth from all of us within.

It passed into a much-too-early past in 2020. For 18 months, only ghosts called upon the whispering winds of gutter garbage to mingle with the leaves, dust and political bullshit turned fine powdery nothings.

The joy is gone. Very few restaurants which once graced our lively, lovely downtown remain. Pioneer Place mall sports only Gucci-type stores none of us blue collar folks could afford, if we gave a damn about such ridiculous fluff. Still hanging on are an independent game store, Made in Oregon and the movie theatre. Otherwise, silence. A walk through this mall today and you can hear a mouse fart.

Life is but a chore today. Few seem capable of changing it. Sure, people are slowly coming back. It was fun to see the Winter Lights displays and the large crowd of smiling (and unmasked, finally!). Portlanders whuppin' it up to loud thumping music on Pioneer Square a few weeks ago. Traffic lining up to watch the ongoing spectacle as transit lumbered past. I marveled at this return to my nightly run through downtown. It was magical.

One can't help but recall our city of yore. Twelve Days of Christmas displays in the windows of what once was Meier & Franks department store now-turned empty office building and ritzy hotel. Roving carolers at Christmastime in bright hues of Victorian dress. Blue Man orating from the down low on the Square. Silver Man miming in perfect unmoving form in front of Pioneer Place. Unipiper unicycling his Darth Vader mask through the weaving thousands.

I wonder if we'll ever find the soul of our city again, or be able to rid it of the Pandemic Litter which tramples our collective nostalgia. 

Downtown has become a third-world poster child for artless trash display. It’s there for the taking but nobody’s buying into the cure. Tent cities of hard-luckers and drugged out weirdos stuff the streets north of Burnside. Tent-dwellers on 6th between Davis and Everett accessing their tents from streetside, their doors just inches from my doorside, two or three inches to deathly light rail's merciless edge.

Perhaps the most disgustingly sad scene of the past week was a young man plunging a needle into his arm as I rolled into a bus stop thinking he wanted a ride. As I opened my door to him, his fixed stare told me he was already on a ride far away from mine. I hoped it brought him back.

Rolling through there this week I saw a dirtbag pissing on a statue at a MAX platform. Nobody batted an eye; they just tested the wind and altered course. Just beyond, a drug-addled dipshidiot sashayed across the transit lane, naked, nonsensically philosophizing or singing while paying no heed to vehicles that could instantly crush his buzz. Turning onto Everett I had to stop to miss running over the victim of someone purposefully pushed into the path of my bus.

To decriminalize heavy drug use requires much more than acceptance. Treatment of addiction has taken a distant place now that sterile needles have become available. Simply allowing it does nothing to help the helpless. They are only more brazen in their spiraling down into the high-turned-low they believe is nirvana. Their high only brings a deathly low. Where is the help all our taxes we're told are now the junky's reward? Languishing in committees, no doubt. 

People are just tired: of being underpaid, uber-charged, undervalued, overlooked, under-appreciated and overwhelmed by the trash heaped upon a place we once proudly boasted to visitors. Now we say “nothing to see here, honestly.” Even the vaunted elk statue which had graced Main between 3rd and 4th Avenues since 1900 fell to the hell Portland has suffered since Portlageddon '20. It survived the protests but fell victim to the ruthless rioters who followed. Thankfully, it is to return later this year. Perhaps once we see Elk's grand antlers once again, we can feel a sense of unity once felt when it was erected 122 years ago.

Portland is a city with grand traditions. Some are quirky, others timeworn yet perpetually busy. Turbulence and oddities have reigned since settlers began clearing Stumptown to create this beautiful city upon the muddy banks of the Willamette River nearly 200 years ago. "KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD" seems to remain the best-selling bumper sticker of this proud populace. It's evident great efforts remain to keep this slogan relevant. 

I can only dream we bring our dear city back. Better than ever. Grab those vaunted bootstraps and yank a firm Northwest tug upwards. Inflame our Timbers, brine our Pickles, fire the Blazers, gorge the Winterhawks and prick the Thorns. Revive our once-world renowned transit system and spark the city's spiritual flame which has sputtered like a campfire's last embers. Just a puff, a wee bit of kindling, and a great municipal spirit might just rekindle the flame Portland has always warmed itself by.

It's time to come together. We have fought amongst ourselves for good, bad and the "Just Who Gives a Fuck?!?" Is it too much to ask that we forgive each other, or shall we just hold a funeral for the greatness which once shone from this magnificent municipality grown from a splendid rainforest? We can't all agree, and sometimes we never do, but somehow this city grew into a shining star despite disharmony and strange allures long before I moved here from Arizona 20 years ago. From what I've seen of our people, disharmony can actually form alliances where peace is possible. And from that, a new growth of possibility is pending.

It's time to RISE, Portland. The world is waiting for us to get our shit together. Rebuild and reunite, even with those whom you disagree. Otherwise, we should just abandon this place. And that would truly be a irrational disaster. We have weathered the many storms of two years, plus 200 past. Pandemic, protest and violent riots, fire/ice/snow storms. Are we simply done, or could here a future be?

As a bus operator, I have seen it all from my corner office with a 180-degree view. I've seen all of you, more or less and figuratively speaking. The rich, the poor, the rest of us in between. Heard your stories, felt your pain, more than you could ever know, even if you could not ever believe my empathy. I cried when returning to my wonderful home and Beloveds, disseminating all the horror the streets had laid before these ever-vigilant eyes. I know so many of you who aren't so lucky. I've tried to be more patient and forgiving because I have so much more than others, to wait that extra few seconds as you run to catch a bus that was once a bit later. Enduring more abuse than ever before, I realize my rolls have been a lot less terrifying than many of my fellow brothers and sisters. My assaults have only been three; my fellows have often suffered thrice that, or more. So far, I am lucky.

Enough. It's too sad to continue describing the hell that is Portland today. The eternal optimist through my description of hell on Earth, there is too much more I could write here. YOU know what I say is true, so I'll just... STOP.

Meanwhile, I join you in prayer for a better tomorrow. For laughing children returning to the sidewalks and in Portland's Living Room. Clean streets, small businesses returning, restaurants bursting with high-tipping patrons, less gunfire and more community hugs.

I close my eyes and see what once was, and what can be next time. Portland, remember Bonnie Raitt's song "I Can't Make You Love Me".

"I can't make you love me, if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't. Here in the dark, in these final hours, when I lay down I feel the power. But you won't. I can't make you love me... if you don't."

Please, restore love to our city. We need all of us to bring it back into harmony. Offer your ideas to help clean our streets of the worst it has become. Open your hearts and exercise effort to join your neighbors, and the least in between, to find a place where we can co-exist in peace and prosperity. Somehow, we can find a way to bring this wonderful city back to a place where people from all over can gather and have a good time.

Once again.