{"id":9214,"date":"2024-11-20T06:56:49","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T14:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=9214"},"modified":"2024-11-20T06:56:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T14:56:49","slug":"82nd-avenue-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/82nd-avenue-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"82nd Avenue Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- wp:themify-builder\/canvas \/-->\n\n\n<p>I drove home from the airport after dropping off a great friend. It was a gray morning, the day after the election. Rain fell. I did not drive any of the interstate highways. I never do when driving to or back from the airport. My route is always 82<sup>nd<\/sup> Avenue: the most teeming, gritty, squalid, vibrant, strange, blasted, diverse, reckless, dangerous, \u201cmassage parlor\u201d infested, fascinating roadway in Oregon. Nothing else comes close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are never stories on interstate highways, except road rage. Driving along 82<sup>nd<\/sup> Avenue at any time of day or night is an American writer&#8217;s dream. A soggy buffet of stories moving in real time. I could write a book on that roadway, or better yet, start a weekly newspaper that reports only on matters of 82<sup>nd<\/sup> Avenue and only distributes the edition via racks and homeless newsies. The office of the paper is the dive bar with the two derelict RVs marooned out front. They get a free ad as payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The morning felt grim. My friend left in an utterly forlorn mood because of the election results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for my mood, on that drive home from the airport, I was searching for hope, not in my mind, but my country. This roadway was perhaps the unlikeliest place in Oregon for such a search, but there I was. You search where you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Traffic backed up where 82<sup>nd<\/sup> Avenues flows under I-84 and I came to a complete stop almost directly under the overpass. I looked left and saw several homeless men wander around in an obviously drugged-out state. I saw a tent and someone pushing a contraption conveying cans and bottles. The city had installed huge concrete barriers under the overpass to prevent camping. Barbed wire was also strung up everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I looked right and surveyed a former motel now converted into transitional housing for homeless families. A school bus stopped a few vehicles ahead of me flashed its blinking red lights. A Latino girl, probably in third or fourth grade ran in the rain to board the bus. Her mother was right behind her, wearing pajamas and a hoodie. She smiled and waved at her daughter as she disappeared into the bus. Seconds later, the mother came up to a window, smiling, and yelled something to her daughter inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I got my fix of hope. Red lights went dark and traffic lurched forward. I went forward as well. Always forward in these times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t look back, said Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You look back, you end up as Lot&#8217;s wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Advance, always.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I drove home from the airport after dropping off a great friend. It was a gray morning, the day after the election. Rain fell. I did not drive any of the interstate highways. I never do when driving to or back from the airport. My route is always 82nd Avenue: the most teeming, gritty, squalid, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9216,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9214\/revisions\/9216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}