TIME FLIES

Break from editing -

I google mapped down the old neighborhood in Portland Oregon... going back in time to 1974.

Wow. Things change but then they don't. The 'boys club' seems abandoned. I played pool there with a 100 other fatherless guys when I was just 6 and 7. Wow - that is Matt's age! I liked the guy who ran the place. He treated me well, took time to talk to me. I think now he probably knew I wasn't comfortable being the only white kid. I had not met my dad yet but he seemed like what a dad was I guess. I never met my dad until he came for me a few years later. Funny thing, my dad turned out to be a corporate exec. Think these years were just the result of some marital revenge on his part. I bounced to several foster homes at times, but they were all in the neighborhood.

The business buildings look exactly the same - just closed now. And the mailbox is gone. The 'store' was on the corner there. I use to go down to get cigarettes for my 12 year old sister...tell them it was for my mom and to put it on charge. We had a huge charge the guy kept in an index box. He gave me grief every time...then gave me whatever I was sent for. I thought all milk was 'powdered' :-)

Here is a photo of my street - seems they renamed it 'Rosa Parks Way.' I got my second dog from the house in the foreground - the people moved one day and just left the dog. I named her Blackbeard.

Looks like they replanted 'street trees.' The city came in to beatify the neighborhood when I was a kid. My brother and his 'friends' bought some machetes at a flea market and literally chopped down the city's first attempt.

The tall house was abandoned the whole time I lived there, like 4 years. The kid across the street taught me how to use matches when I was 5 years old. That same day we ran around lighting little fires and putting them out. One kind of got away from us under the back porch of this house. So we worked hard to stamp it out...with a large wood door laying in the back yard...and other wooden boards we found. I finally got an idea...I ran to the house and passed my mom while I carried a party punch bowl full of water.

"What are you doing?"

"Noth'n."

The fire department came and saved the house...but not the back part. The fireman said, "the other boy says he didn't do anything."

I said nothing. But remember processing that.

I told them I set the fire. He talked to me about never doing that again and stuff like that.

Funny - fire has been serious stuff with me. I never trust its really out. I ended up driving fire trucks later in life.