Oregon City Coffee Shop

Early morning in my hometown. This building was boarded up in my youth, but has since been put to distinguished use as a great coffee shop. Across the street, Oregon City’s theater once stood. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten its name.

Also across the street, the Oregon City Library stands, a Carnegie gem, lovingly restored and expanded a few years ago, a project financed by the voters when the government asked them to finance it. Who votes no on libraries?

I spent long, long, hours in this library, reading books and magazines and checking out records. I think I still owe a fine for a lost Stevie Wonder album. I always went to the library alone, on foot or bicycle. My mother never once dropped me off or picked me up.

Oregon City sure has changed a lot in recent years. The downtown finally resurrected itself. I like the changes. The Grand Ronde Tribe wants to buy the old mill site on Oregon City’s side of the Willamette River. I hope they get it. It was theirs once. But please film a war movie there and blow up some of the machinery. But, please leave a few traces standing to remind people that OC was once a three whistle mill union town and supported a vibrant middle class.

I’ve got about 20,000 words on a memoir about growing up in OC in the 70s and 80s, tentatively titled Pioneer Pride. I hope to release it in 2020 if the zeitgeist is right, perhaps release it only in Oregon City, in bars, libraries and street libraries, thrift stores, the Elevator, one old news rack. Who knows? That’s the way I publish these days. I hope my old Oregon City friends will support it. It’s not going anywhere without them.

I stash a few of my books in the lending library here. They always manage to disappear by the time I return.

Someone very special to me still lives in Oregon City. I so wish we could reunite, preferably in Howell’s or Coney Island or the Fall’s View. OC still has three great Oregon Tavern Age joints left!

LA Woman plays. The Doors just don’t seem to garner the attention from current media and listeners other bands from that classic era do. Today, I find myself much more interested in their music.

Yard work for my Old Man later this morning. Also, a possible meeting with important people about the most far out cultural event in Oregon history—Vortex I. Naturally it has a far out Oregon City connection and his name was Dr. Cameron Bangs. He used to practice medicine not too far away from where I am writing this.