posted on January 10, 2002 10:01:02 AM new
HI, KRS!
Thanks for the URL - it may yet be a tool for Democracy.
Clackamas, eh? Welcome to Oregon: you are in a climatic rergion classed as Northern Rain Forest. I hope that you enjoy the rain, cold, and dampness. Moss is the major crop here on the west side of the Cascades. Oregon's largest cash crop is Marijuana and has been so for over three decades; far outstripping wheat. Grass seed is grown here in the enclosed Willamette Valley and when it goes to seed in the late spring, you'll hear the alerts on the news. Hope you don't have breathing problems. Like Gollum, you'll grow to despise the Sunlight as it hurts the eyes when it makes it's annual appearence in Summertime - July through August. Boring is amazingly rural from such a short distance from shopping malls. Clackamas is a nice area, but so many of its local young inhabitants tend to be wasted remains of crystal meth users. The twons of Sandy and Estacada in particular. Estacada is one of those towns you'd expect to visit in the South during the 1930's - a very close-knit community. It's always reminded me of a great place for a body or two to go missing. But don't get me wrong: some of the nicest people come from there as well. Mind your own business and be polite at all times and change your licence plates to Oregon soon -- otherwise your vehicle may be targeted for vandalism. Like I've always maintained: Oregon is a mish-mash of extreme types living together.
posted on January 10, 2002 12:07:13 PM new
Ha! Borillar, you're guilty of geographic bigotry.
As it happens I do enjoy grey rainy weather, or I wouldn't have lived 20 years in my house in the Santa Cruz mountains, CA in a canyon area where the annual rainfall average exceeds all records in Oregon--where the Pacific storms come ashore to park against a mountainside and rest a bit before going on to dissipation in the valleys to the east.
You ask about breathing problems? You ask a person who's spent five years now in such a polluted environ that on a clear day you can't see the hills just a mile or so away. Where industrial waste is a way of live for Chevron, and the navy spent so much waste crude into the bay that the entire area is declared a superfund site for EPA cleanup which now will never happen. Accidental effluent spills occur periodically with barely a note in the back of local newspapers, and nothing is done save a paltry fine once and a while while those responsible continue on as before. Whole neighborhoods are evacuated each time there's some toxic event and no one cares.
But anyway, we'll be not far, near Mulino, between there and Mullalla, across the interstate from you. Able to fish from the back of the house and hope the river don't rise too far, grow fruit in the little orchard and play at grafting. A six bay shop, a small pasture, a fine old house set 150 ft back from the road. All for a price that wouldn't buy a one bedroom condo here. Does Windy City road ring a bell? What a name for a place for me.
If you ever get bored out there and you want to know where the "action" is in Portland, it's mainly underground. The northwestern part of the city is a hold-over from the Hippie days and has all of the touchy-feely stuff ~ sorta like a mini Berkely. The southwest area is all business and financial. The southeast side is industrial and where the working class lives. The northeast is the shipping yards and the more impoverished tend to live that way. There's a couple of good spots on Columbia river where you can nude sunbath, but don't try eating the fish as they tend to glow in the dark, being just west of the Western Nuclear Waste Respository in Bordman that leaks a lot into the river. In fact, don't eat any from the Willammette riveer either. It's downstream from Teledyne-Wachang - makers of extremely heavy metals and radioactive substances - and they get dumped into the river once in a while too. Portland itself has been the nation';s #1 Superfund Toxic Waste Cleanup site for over two decades. Seattle may have been a better choice.
posted on January 10, 2002 11:02:04 PM new
You're just worried that my presence might degrade your property values, you old skinflint.
I've done my homework, and the net is full of great , err, accurate info. I did have a few surprises. One was the lack of control over tawdry businesses in Milwaukie, and another was the rapidity with which the sprawl from the city is moving east. Gresham is packed with young up climbers, and Boring isn't far behind. No more rural, and the place is criss-crossed by freeways so getting away from the everpresent low humm that they make is impossible there. It actually took us two hours in bumper to bumper traffic to reach Boring by way of Gresham from Milwaukie, what? 30 miles? That episode eliminated the area from my consideration. It's better south, at Canby and either west or east from there. We're grounded just about halfway between Portland and Salem, away from the madding crowds to cop a phrase. The flow in 'my' river doesn't originate where the Columbia does--it's instead a gathering of small streams to the southeast of that and there are no 'don't eat' postings around until the confluence of it into the Willamette.
But you're right--it's stunning how urban development can create seas of look alike houses in a span of 30 years. I used to haunt the northwest as a vagabond and remember that coming into Portland from any direction was a noticeable event. Only in the last two or three miles did it seem like I was approaching a city. Now it's quite another thing in almost every direction. I came close to buying one in Clatskenie (sp?) to the northwest of the city, but we finally decided that 60 miles was more than we wanted to separate ourselves from the facilities available in Portland or another city.
Seattle?! You've GOT to be kidding. Seattle used to be my alltime second only to San Francisco favorite city, I even attended UW there and lived in the University district. But now it ain't nothing like then. To be frank-it sucks. Mostly an awful place, teeming with traffic and pissed off people. One big perverse and vain attempt to compete with or be like California.
posted on January 11, 2002 12:34:44 PM new
Well, Californians did notice the charm that was Seattle and moved up and devoured it.
Be careful of streams that originate from Mount Hood as well. Seems that folks further up than you never voted for modern sewage facilities and dumping directly into the river is common. In fact, it was only last year (2001) that Portland itself stopped dumping directly into the Willamette and produced a modern sewage treatment plant to process the waste before loading it into the river. I recall from Boy Scout days that if you excrete into a river, it takes an average of 10 miles of run before the water is "pure" again.
To understand why there is such a diverse cross-section of America here, you have to take in Oregon's history. Originally, Oregon was all about Lumber on the West side of the Cascades (Wheat on the east). The typical Oregonian said to themselves one day in 6th grade math class, "Gee: in just a few years, I'll get to go work at the Mill and earn $16 an hour, or I can put up with all of this B.S. and go work for McDonald's at $1.25 per hour! I think I'll take a nap!" And when the lumber industry crashed in 1980, the situation changed. The state diversified and sought to increase it's exports and increase its high technology base that has been here since WWII. So, you have folks who are largely uneducated with strong cultural values and morals - no matter how bazaar that turned 16 before 1980. Then you have the X-Gen crowd who is somewhat a bit more educated (10th grade) and bounce between the Old Cultures and the new High Technology via Religion, namely weird Christian or Satanic cults that make the Taliban look like Libertines. Of course, with the holdover from the massive Hippie Movement, you have the Wiccans and the Pagans here. In fact, there are statistically more people who name themselves as Pagan here than Christian or other regular religions. The black people here were mostly imported from the south during WWII as it happened in Detroit. They tend to get the short shaft a lot here. You have to remember that the actual beginnings of the Ku Klux Klan actually got its start as an organization in Astoria, Oregon (and still going strong today). Then, you have the influx of educated people throughout most of the 1990s, who are massive consumers of ever-sleek commodity that will bring them status (the rest consume Crank and Crystal Meth and alcohol).
Still, it beats living east of the Mississippi anyday!
