Walking into Dashiell’s POISONVILLE

 

Up early and looking at the candle glow from the Caswell’s wedding candle on our dining island as the sun struggles to come up in Portland Oregon.

 The light is thin and flat when it does come, and I can see that patch of pink petals from the trees on the Portland State University campus from our dining room window.

 The fallen petals are blowing around on the pavement framed by the newly emerging Spring leaves of all the trees between our window and them.

 Light comes to the whole of the city as all of these new leaves rise up and into the new day.  I get restless and have to walk again.  I am wearing out the soles of one pair of my MBT’s but do not care as I have another pair for walking if the sole gets too floppy.  The MBT’s still make me smile when I walk in them.  This day I head out with a bag for some groceries and my copy of the library book holding three DASHIELL HAMMETT novels.

 I’ve decided to start out with the the one in the back first.  For some reason they put the newest ones first and the oldest one at the back.  Wanting to know more about him and how he evolved as a story teller I will start at the back with “RED HARVEST”, which was originally called “POISONVILLE”.  I head down the streets, past a man waiting for some Portland transit.

 Even on an overcast day like today the way things stack up for viewing in Portland still strikes me.  Whether it is the man’s setting by the transit stop or the construction and repair trucks parked a little further down the street, everything seems very worth seeing.

 I have always liked trucks and all the stuff they carry.  It goes back to learning how to drive when I was 15 in my dad’s panel truck with all of his plumbing and heating fixtures and bits of pipe and wire rattling and banging around behind me in the driver’s seat learning the definition of FRICTION POINT when using a foot clutch while shifting the manual gears to move the truck forward.

 But, even if I never drove that old truck, I would still be taken with all the stuff.  I was really wandering aimlessly now, with the eventual purpose of finding a place to sit and read.  Found myself near my favorite tree in the whole city.

 This tree talks to me everytime I walk by it.  If I stay away from it, it will call out across the sculpture court to get my attention.  I cannot ignore it.

 This part of town is a great Jack-In-The-Box of visual treats, you just have to keep walking and walking and they sproing up and surprise you every time.  I almost never can hold a train of thought in this part of town due to these pleasant interruptions.

 So I go further downtown.  Back down to where PORTLANDIA watches over the City Hall area.

 She’s still one of my favourite ladies in the whole city.

 I continue a very zig-zagging walking route, past all sorts of downtown buildings.

 I was pleased the first time I saw all of these older buildings still standing and being used.  There are some things I still have to digest about the way Oregonians and Portlandians go about their lives, but when it comes to the mixtures of buildings they either know something or have been very lucky.

 All of these with different uses all coexisting with Commerce and Industry in the downtown area.  Many people that come here like to live in the PEARL north of here, but Viola and I have always liked Downtown.

 There are historical problems which are not truly finished being resolved yet, but History and The Future are working hard on Portland to become as real as the calendar that shows us in a new century.

 The history of the place shows a constant tug of wills to move forward or hold fast to the past.

 Even the architecture gives small clues to the tugging of wills and needs.  If one looks past the grand entrance and lets their eye drift along the building to the right side . . .

. . . . . there are concerns or changes visible as one walks by.  But I am not looking hard at that today, I am looking for a place to sit down and read.  I hear a piano playing jazz so I move toward it.

 I find this a good place, so I plant myself down and enter “POISONVILLE”.

 Once I’ve read for a time, I head “HOME” again . . . .

(END)