The Big Smoke is Thick In Portland City Center Today, and Wildfire Developments

3755

Today I had an appointment for a taste test group at the OSU Food Innovation Center down on NW Naito Parkway. I can neither confirm or deny that it was in some way related to seafood though I did find all samples rather tasty.

It was worth $50 for showing up, so there's that as well. It's gotten to be a pretty big draw, but it's fun and interesting and they always pay you money for showing up so I recommend Googling that stuff up and getting on the list if you can.

Camera was ready of course because there is a flood of wildfire smoke images accessing the digital image part of the internet and I would be remiss if I did not contribute. Actually, I'm rather counting my blessings: chance could have made me a resident in an area that had to evacuate. Not a desirable outcome, as thousands of people would certainly tell you right now. 

This is downtown Portland as seen from NE Lloyd Blvd just west of Grand Avenue. Usually a very good view. It is a very good view, but of a rather bad thing right now. Taking in a homeless camp just makes the whole thing of a piece.

The air quality is atrocious, akin to just sticking an unsmoked cigarette in your bronchial tubes.

And this is the Lloyd District as seen from the Banfield Freeway (I-84), on approach to that area from the east:

As scary as yesterday's sky was, I'd prefer it to this.

Developments we've heard since yesterday:

• The town of Detroit was largely burned to the ground
• Mill City got smacked but not as hard as originally thought
• The towns along the Cascade Piedmont in Marion County ... Silverton, Mt. Angel, Sublimity, Stayton, still remain on Level 2 evac status, one move away from having to leave
• More than half of Clackamas County is now on Level 3 status: this includes Molalla and Estacada, and most of the way along Highway 213 down to the Marion County line at the Pudding River. 
• All the major towns in Clackamas County - Canby, Oregon City, Gladstone - are also on Level 2 evac alerts. 

Social Distancing in Clackamas County

3685This is how they tell you how it's done at the hi-tech second-hand and pawn joint in Clackamas next to the 7-Eleven at SE 82nd Ave and Otty Road, that place called simply Stuff ...

Bruh!

They're serious about it too. We have a mask to hand wherever we go now, and we donned them before entry. But while we were there, we saw them turn away more than one chucklehead who couldn't be bothered to pay attention or thought maybe they could get a pass

No, pal, not even. We've all read about intubation and we're not really in the mood for that, thanks. You go shed 'Rona somewhere else.

[branding] Whither And/Or Whence Oak Grove, Oregon?

2799Seen in The Oregonian today:

The sign just appeared. If anyone knows where it came from, they haven't come forward. But there it was -- the white and green "Welcome to Oak Grove" sign nailed below the green state signs on southbound McLoughlin Boulevard alerting drivers to the next towns coming up.  

That was April 4. Two days later, Milwaukie crews took the sign down because it wasn't actually in the unincorporated Oak Grove area, but one-third of a mile north, inside Milwaukie's city limits. Instead of trashing it, Milwaukie staff turned it over to Oak Grove resident Fred Nelligan. 

As it would happen, Oak Grove is a community laying roughly in the northern part of the unincorporated area of Clackamas County between Milwaukie and Gladstone. It doesn't include the whole of that area, of course; if you go to the corner of SE McLoughlin Blvd and SE Oak Grove Blvd, right by the Oak Grove Fred Meyer store, and draw a circle about 1.5 miles in radius about that point that'll pretty much take in most of the community. While some definitions have it between the Willamette River and Oatfield Road, others are a little more generous going east. And I'll be frank; I don't know what the neighborhood association's definition is.

But it's a pleasant enough place. I know several people there and they're very happy with the area; there's always been a banked fire of pride about being from Oak Grove. But never a strong sense of that thing we can't do without any more, 'brand identity'.

What is Oak Grove? Well, it's a bit of land in Clackamas County with a community that has a shared identity. It's got all sorts of incomes and lifestyles, from high to low; its axis is one of Oregon's oldest highways, State Hwy 99E, also known as McLoughlin Blvd, named for Oregon's most notable European pioneer. Follow that road south just a couple more miles and you land in Oregon City, where Oregon (and most of the organized American West) began. There are prosperous middle-class residents off either side of McLoughlin, even if some of the properties along that old road seem rather distressed. And there's a panoply of opportunities to spend your money on the main drag; chances are, if you can't find it along McLoughlin, you can get by without it for a little while. There is some local history, if one considers the famous "Bomber", which has a quirky history of its very own.

What Oak Grove is really doing right now is growing an identity. Up until now, that identity was pretty much a place you passed through either just after leaving or just before you get to Milwaukie. There's bound to be some basic human "you had to be there" silliness, like an unknown signster putting up a "Welcome To Oak Grove" sign up on a state milepost sign that's actually 1/2 mile inside the Milwaukie city limits.

But Oak Grove is a nice place with a whole lot of nice people, and community is a good thing, and they have a right to be proud as they build that community.

More power to them.

Just put the right sign in the right place, next time. Remember, it's easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, as someone once said.

You should probably try getting permission next time though.