Place: Round Table Pizza
Lunch: Lunch buffet (salad, pizza, pizza, pizza, twisty garlic thingies, pizza), Pepsi
I LOVE this dining room. Brown woods, tiffany lamps...it's old and awesome.
Blue Ford Focus comes flying into the lot and pulls into a handicap spot. Driver fishes in the glove box and produces a handicap hanger and hangs it on the mirror. She and a little girl get out and jog to the door, showing no signs of any handicap between them. There were several non-handicap spots nearby, including one closer to the door.
I only get home about once every five years anymore, and I wasn't planning to come home now either. But on Sunday, two days into my Utah 8-day sabbatical, I decided it was now or never. And after two days here, I am reminded why I don't come back more often.
Portland is, by far, the most beautiful place I've ever been. The greens are simply greener. The air smells fresher. The colors are vivid. Even the highway pavement looks nice. I still get a rush coming into view of downtown at the I-5/I-84 junction. Great restaurants are abundant ("so why are you at Round Table?" you ask. Bite me) and the city and people have an identity all to themselves.
So what's wrong?
It's crowded. I picked up my aunt from work last night on 5th avenue downtown. A flood of people doing whatever they feel like (because former Mayor Vera "Nit-Wit" Katz apparently legalized right-of-way to non-motorist traffic regardless of status of traffic or signals) just beg to be run over...one even accused me of trying to run her over in an explosion of temper and high-brow attitude. Peak traffic is a nightmare on all freeways.
It's snobby. The people of Portland are arrogant snobs. They won't talk to you (or give you a good job) if you don't have a college degree, unless they have something about you they want to complain about and they can talk down to you about it, making themselves feeling that much smarter and more important somehow. And I'm pretty sure there's some requirement in getting a public job that you must treat everybody else sub-human.
It's dangerous for all the wrong reasons. Years ago while working at the Target on TV Highway, one of my co-workers...a woman...was pulled over in our parking lot for a burned-out tail light. They discovered she had an outstanding parking ticket or some such thing and decided to arrest her. She asked if she could tell her boss she wasn't coming in and the officer agreed. She started walking toward the store, he grabbed her, threw her against the car, and made some statement about leaving the vehicle before he was ready for her to. She spent her day in shackles on various police transport buses being transferred to different precincts all day. My comment to her upon her return to work the next day when she related her adventure to us was "You're lucky they didn't shoot you." And everybody...including her...agreed. If you knew the police there at the time, it made perfect sense.
It's self-righteous. Years ago, I went on a blind date with a woman to Cannon Beach, where we stood over the bluff up high at the beautiful view and she said "This was a nice place before all these people ruined it," looking at the people on the beach. I guess we somehow didn't count as the low-life people she was referring to.
It's expensive. Think housing prices are high in your community? I don't know how ANYBODY can afford to own here. Expect to spend $2 million here on the same home you'd get for $400,000 in the Midwest.
Mini-Serve Gas. Oregonians can't pump their own gas. It's the law. What a stupid law. Lawmakers have tried to change this over the years, but the people keep signing petitions to get it to a vote, and they always vote it down. Oregonians are too good to pump their own gas.
Interstate Speed Limit: 65. And the highway patrol is as thick as it is in Nebraska.
So basically, I could probably live here happily if I were independently wealthy and I could limit my movement to between the hours of 9am and 1pm, then maybe 7pm-5am, because anytime outside those hours means gridlock traffic and foul tempers.
Then again, it's not like they need any more residents here anyway.
Not even a native.
