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If you think literally, this blog is named after Portland’s airport. I can’t think of another city that identifies with its airport code like we do. DFW sounds like a traffic infraction. SFO sounds like an abbreviated apartment listing. PHO Live? That sounds like a Dirty Dining segment. And yet, everybody refers to Portland as PDX. I’m not here to raise issue with that, I think it’s fine. But, after six months or so, I believe it’s time to address the 250 lb gorilla in the room:

Our PDX, Portland’s airport.

After a series of emotionally draining personal incidents, I felt the need to get away. As the city grows, there are fewer places to find solitude. After the Airport MAX opened, I discovered the wide open spaces at the Mt Hood stop. Its a MAX stop in the middle of nowhere, rarely does anyone get off or catch the train there. I can sit there as long as my bladder will allow, watching planes come and go, flocks of birds, the occasional coyote wandering through the wetlands.

I have a friend who works at PDX. I used to visit her a lot, we’d play Scrabble on her breaks between flights. A few years back, you could find me haunting the airport any given weekend. I was fascinated with its dynamic, and loved the people-watching. Throw in conversation with a pretty girl, what’s not to love?

Time marches on, and we don’t see each other like we used to. (She got married and had a kid, sorta squelched the pursuit.) But we are still close, so I called her and told her I was coming for a visit.

The airport hadn’t changed much. When I was visiting regularly, construction was wrapping up on the big expansion/remodel. There was a new spot to plane-watch. It was the things that hadn’t changed that pleased me.

Hark! There’s still a Coffee People at the airport! My friend used to know all the baristas, and we got lots of deals on caffeine. I resisted spending $5 on coffee for nostalgia’s sake. I know Starbucks owns them now, so I knew it was more marketing gimmick than anything. (Especially when I saw the backward Coffee People sign at the Starbucks by the escalators.) If I were to drop any money, it would be at the Powell’s store. They always have something cheap that catches my eye.

I sat at the northern security entrance for a while. I used to wait there for my friend. People disembark from planes, and this is where the family meets them. It’s touching to watch the young lovers rushing to each other. The soldiers returning home to a hero’s welcome. The embarrassed teenager awkwardly dodging his mother’s kiss because “People are watching, Mom!”

I’m not wearing sunglasses because I’m trying to look cool. If I’ve had a couple of adult beverages, it’s impossible not to get misty.

What shocked me most were all the stores at Cascade Station. Um, hello? Pardon my questioning demeanor, I acknowledge I’m no fookin’ genius, but wasn’t the original idea of putting an airport way the hell “out there” so if an airplane falls out of the sky it won’t hit anything bigger than a couple trees and a cow or two? I must question the logic of putting a huge strip mall at the end of an airport runway.

Do we really need a Mattress World there? “Ooh, honey! I *knew* I forgot to pack something.” I look forward to someday seeing someone hauling a box springs onto the MAX…

Of course, if the terrorists want to ‘kill whitey’, all they have to do is take out the IKEA. What in the hell are all those people doing buying furniture on a Sunday night? Must be some mighty fine meatballs…

The Mt Hood stop will not be a quiet spot much longer. Either offices or condos are being built a stone’s throw away. I saw less wildlife than before, and the fog was such that I couldn’t watch planes for more than a few seconds. I had a brief but wonderful visit with my friend, revisited memories of days past, and witnessed progress in action.

Maybe next weekend I’ll go back, get a mocha at the Coffee People and get my ass kicked at Scrabble.

The Christmas spirit is alive and well in Portland’s West End.

On election night, as people celebrated a young man went around starting fires in garbage cans and dumpsters. One of those fires destroyed the front of Julia’s Specialty Gifts. The young man who allegedly started the fires is locked up, but there was the problem of what to do about the shop. This is Julia’s busiest time of year.

Neighbors came together, and a storefront across the street was made available to Julia’s, next door to Ray’s Ragtime. They’ve been busy carting stuff across the MAX tracks and are back in business. They will be opening at noon on Friday with a full-on Christmas blitz!

I know the turkey isn’t even in the oven for most of y’all, but it’s not too early to think about helping a neighbor who has been dealt a dirty hand. If you need Christmas ornaments and other goodies, stop by and say hi. They are on SW Morrison Street, four blocks west of Pioneer Square, where the Holiday Tree will be lit by KGW’s news team at 6 PM Friday.

But, first things first. It’s turkey time!

(Although the title of this could be a sign in local gym locker rooms, if you pay attention to Craigslist Missed Connections, it’s not. It’s about the mail our postal system delivers.)

As I read Sunday’s Oregonian, (from the LA Times, sorry OregonLive…) I came across an article about a postal delivery person in Apex, North Carolina. Instead of delivering coupons, election porn and other mail deemed “junk”, he stockpiled it at his house. He’s been busted, and duly chastised. Now, I’m not a big fan of junk mail, but *I* like to choose what I throw away. This case hits especially close to home: I have a cousin who lives in Apex, NC, and we correspond all the time.

She has mentioned her “lazy mailman.” I’ve sent her movies, and as far as I know she’s always gotten them. When I saw this, I sent her an e-mail. Here’s her response:

“Now THAT’S funny!!! Here I live in Apex and haven’t heard it. Yes, my mailman (if it’s the same guy) still does the same thing with packages. He drives directly up to the mailbox and anything too big I think he stockpiles and delivers a couple times a week. I KNOW he still does this as I checked the status of a package online and it said “out for delivery” and he didn’t deliver it for 2 days! Lazy bum!!!”

She has sent me numerous packages, and all have gotten through, AFAIK. A few years back we went through a Blue Velvet phase. The movie was set in Lumberton NC, and filmed in Wilmington. After seeing the movie, she went on a road trip. While the real Lumberton was nothing like in the movie, a lot of the spots in the film still exist in Wilmington. She took pictures, and even got a tour of the ‘Deep River Apartments’ where Dorothy Vallens lived. She sent me the pictures, and a very special can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

PBR isn’t nearly as fashionable back east.

I have excellent mail service in my neighborhood. Sometimes I get two deliveries a day. I don’t know why this is, it doesn’t happen often, but we will get an early delivery and then a second one later in the day from a different mail carrier. (And yes, they are legit. I live in Felony Flats and can sniff out a fake mailman a mile away.) It’s not bothersome, unless I haven’t put out the outgoing mail. Double “D’oh!”

I think the USPS does a wonderful job, especially this time of year. I still marvel that for less than fifty cents you can get a guy in uniform to carry a piece of paper across the country for you. Thank you, postal carriers and delivery people, for hauling all that stuff around!

Even the junk…

I got the bug.

I have a hearty immune system, and have pretty good luck avoiding the social disease of the day. (And by social disease, I’m referring to colds, flu and such; not the diseases that are fun to catch.) On the morning of my first day off, I woke up with shivers and a burning throat. After coughing up a tennis ball, I popped a couple of ibuprofen and went back to bed. I’ve been sleeping great, and it’s going away slowly. I’m still sniffly, but feel guilty.

Why? Because it’s such a beautiful day outside. The golden sunset, the few rusty leaves still on the trees. Exercise always makes me feel better. I’d vowed to at least go for a walk, and I still might. Killing time waiting for the bus, I started watching the Apple Cup. This is where my ambition started to wane.

I normally have Sundays off, and get my football fix then. I won’t skip doing something fun to watch football, unless the football is really, really good. I get into following the Ducks and Beavers this time of year, building up the adrenaline for the Civil War. I know this sounds flaky, but I root for both. I didn’t attend either school, but spent some time on both campuses as a teenager. The Beavers can get to the Rose Bowl, I just wish they didn’t have to hurt the Ducks to do it. If the game is close, and the Ducks are trailing and threatening with a few minutes left? I’ll put my Oregon tee shirt on.

Hell, I may wear my U of O shirt and my Beavers hat at the same time. I’ll walk down 82nd and watch the jock’s heads explode.

I scanned the TV listings and couldn’t find a Ducks game today. Google tells me this is a BYE week for the Ducks, but not for the Beavers. I checked the usual TV channels, and couldn’t find them. Why aren’t they on?

The Apple Cup went on long enough that I missed another bus. I won’t say who won, because it’s being rerun later. It had a great finish, and I didn’t mind missing the bus. It gave me enough time to find the Beavers game. As I scanned the channels, I found it on the Vs. Channel. (32 on Comcast Cable in Portland.) They are playing the Arizona Wildcats and the game has kicked off.

After that, the Blazers play the Phoenix Suns. Man, I gotta watch Shaq school Oden…

I shouldn’t go out and infect the rest of the world with this awful cold, should I? I mean, it’s for the good of my fellow man that I sit in my room with the window wide open, breathing the fresh air and root-root-rooting for one of my many home teams.

I’ll watch the sunset during commercials.

Ever wonder what it takes to get your newspaper to your door? Not the writing, printing and trucking, but the actual doorstep delivery. I have an inside scoop; a couple of family members have been doing it for years.

The day starts about 2 AM. She goes to ‘the shack,’ a nondescript building in a bunch of warehouses. After a caffeine infusion, she puts the ads in the papers and wraps them in plastic bags. She can do 300-400 in about an hour. Then she loads the car, a small station wagon. She has about ninety minutes to accomplish her mission, because the Oregonian advertises that the paper will be there by 5:30 AM. It’s a noble aspiration, but sometimes it can’t be done. Often the papers don’t reach the shack until 4 AM, but that’s not the customer’s fault.

So she tries. I have seen her come home soaked from the rain. Ice storms? It’s probably hilarious to watch her from the comfort of your living room as she slips and slides along the sidewalks. If the roads are too bad, she will use a tarp, tossing the bags of papers inside and dragging it along like Santa with a bad shoulder. She has delivered by shopping cart when her car has broken down.

Why does she persist? She likes the hours. She has kids, so it gives her a chance to make bill-buffer money without leaving the kids home alone after school. It’s good exercise. Soon after starting, the weight started dropping off, and she’s lost (and kept off) about 100 pounds. It’s everyday exercise; the job is seven days a week. The last day she took off? About a year ago, when I took her son to his first rock concert, and she wanted to tag along. (I would have been mortified if my uncle and mom had taken me to my first concert, but my nephew was thrilled to have two such cool old people in his life!)

The job has definite downsides. If she’s sick? Too bad. She takes a coffee can and a roll of toilet paper and forges on. The house keeps her awake late? “Oh well, who needs sleep?”

Then there are the FOODDay haters. Recently her pay-per-paper dropped, while the cost of the paper went up. (Delivery people are independent contractors. She even pays TriMet tax.) So she started delivering the bane to most people’s existence, the FOODDay.

For some reason, people love or hate the FOODDay. You know, it looks like a paper, but it’s full of coupons instead of news. She’s been chased down and paper-pelted by people who don’t want them. Others bitch if she doesn’t get there soon enough. It’s an aggravation she’d rather do without, but delivering the big O has hardly been a satisfying experience lately. After the pay-cut, she took on FOODDays to make ends meet. Now, Oregonian staffers are complaining that she’s either too early or too late, but not giving her a time frame in which to deliver. (Other than the specified “Not before 5 PM Monday, or after 5 PM Tuesday.”) She usually delivers them with the Tuesday AM edition.

Other than the one lady who complains every time the paper isn’t there by 5:30 AM, (even though she often leaves it outside until 7 AM) she likes her customers. She greets the dog and power walkers, is a great neighborhood watch, and even clears the spiderwebs from the sidewalks. (A not-so-fun side-effect of her job.) She’s Missouri Mule stubborn, so she drives out of her way to keep the 5:30 Lady happy.

I don’t think I’d be so flexible.

So, if you’re one of the dwindling numbers still getting the dead tree edition, thank you for your support! You are helping to keep a young family financially solvent. I’m asking that you be extra nice to your paper carriers; they go through a lot to get those coupons to you. And if you have issues with your paper or FOODDay, she likes the input. Leave a comment and I’ll pass the thoughts along.

Maybe you are one of the lucky ones she delivers to…