Columbia City

My poor child. 25 years from now he's going to be explaining to a therapist somewhere that he spent a good chunk of his first years strapped into his car seat while I sang Tapes 'N Tapes songs on the way to go see the Mayor of a random small town in Oregon. He has a ridiculous amount of patience for my shenanigans so far, though.
We met Columbia City Mayor Cheryl Young at the Senior Center in St. Helens, which is apparently her day job. Most Mayoral positions in Oregon are actually pro bono, or strictly volunteer. Mayor Young has been serving Columbia City for over 27 years--23 of those as Mayor. Henry and I got there a little early so we had to entertain ourselves in the lobby for a while by switching lenses in the pile of eyeglasses we found behind the front desk. Henry was quite methodical about the whole thing: He would line up each pair of glasses in a tidy row, pop out the left lens of each pair into a small pile, and then I would help him replace each lens into a different pair of glasses. We made a game out of the whole process. I then judiciously explained to him that eyeglasses don't necessarily work in the way they were designed when there is a different prescription of lens on either side, and he thought that was delightful. I am not the kind of person that takes away delight from a 23-month-old baby, so I agreed whole-heartedly.
Mayor Young was exceedingly gracious (she even offered Henry a cookie) in autographing our map of Oregon, and Henry was again patient while her friend Jim held him, although he had a pained look on his face the entire time as if to say, "Really, Dad? You know you're paying for my therapy, right?"
After leaving the Mayor, we headed north from St. Helens to Mayor Young's city of Columbia City. It's a tiny hamlet overlooking a wide section of the Columbia River with million dollar homes mixed in with double-wide trailers--a really strange combination but one that seems to work out pretty well for them. The Caples House Museum looked really interesting, although this being February it was closed. The downtown area consisted of the City Hall, the Community Center, Pixie Park (looks like a really fun place for a picnic, and I'll definitely be returning there once the sun comes out), and the most amazing library/pizza restaurant in the history of the earth. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture, but although the pizza restaurant section of library is closed for the winter, the library section of the pizza restaurant is open for business. I think that's probably the best news I've heard all week. Seriously.
20 down, 222 to go.

Gresham

It has been such a long, cold, snowy winter.  For the first time ever in my life as an Oregonian, I can honestly say that I'm sick of the cold and unending darkness.  I've been spending my free time huddled in a fleece trying to find kid-friendly bargain places to stay in rural corners of Oregon like Ontario and Brookings and Keno for whenever the sun finally comes back up without its weird caveats of hailstones and icy wind.  Luckily for me and the sake of this blog I live in Portland and it seems that a third of my Mayors live within a 45 minute drive.

My father and his nine (Catholic, obviously) brothers and sisters were all born just down the street from my house and a good chunk of them haven't fallen too far the house they were born in on Columbia Blvd. that has long since been demolished and given way to the main sales lot of the Caterpillar Construction and Mining Equipment Corporation.  

As a child my parents would take us kids up to Gresham to visit our cousins who lived around 243rd street.  After more than a few rounds of "are we there yet" my parents came up with a tidy solution that not only quieted us down a few decibels but also taught us fundamental mathematical skills at the same time.  Our task was to look at the numbered street signs as we made our way east on Powell and subtract whatever number we were currently on from the above-mentioned 243.  "Are we there yet" quickly turned into "108 blocks to go."  When my parents were tired of that, they made us convert the remaining blocks into miles, so our screaming "74 blocks to go" eventually turned into "3.7 miles to go!"  That novelty would last a few months, and then we had to convert the miles into kilometers.  Later we had to calculate the ratio of fir trees to alders per block.  Every month there was a new computation to make, and every month required more extra-curricular study during the 29 days we weren't driving to Gresham.  Cosines and tangents and cross-ratios filled our heads like sugarplums as we plotted and graphed our way over the landscape of east Multnomah County between Interstate 205 and 243rd street once a month.  For Christmas one year my sister got a graphing calculator just for the insane amount of math that was involved just to visit our cousins.  

And then, one day, they moved away.  So my sister and I started reading books instead.

Mayor Shane Bemis took time out of his schedule to autograph our map, and I'm sure that if you ever meet him he'll tell you that there's more to his fine city than counting street signs.  One of my favorite ways to get to Gresham these days is via bicycle on the Springwater Trail.  And the city center--although somewhat hampered by the wide busy streets--seems to be seeing a revival of some sorts lately.  Also, it's the 4th largest city in Oregon, so that's a little milestone for me.  I'm looking at you, Salem.  One can't even talk about Gresham without mentioning the jazz festival, of course.  Myself, I've never been a big fan of the jazz.  Can't really plot that sort of thing down in a pie chart.

19 down, 223 to go.

Monmouth

Monmouth is best known--at least to anyone under 35 years old--as the last dry town in Oregon. I said that exact sentence to Mayor John Oberst when I met him at the OMA after he autographed our map. As it turns out, Mayor Oberst was one of the principle factors in overturning the no-alcohol law in 2002. Monmouth is still limited to beer and wine, but if the Mayor has his way then perhaps you can get a decent cocktail at the Main Street Pub and Eatery within the near future. The other thing that Monmouth is mainly known for to people my age is that Western Oregon University is 75% women. Whether this is a true fact or just the stuff of legends is impossible to realize without looking it up on google, but I can say for certain that generations of graduating high school seniors have heard this rumor and have probably taken it very seriously when applying for college. Nevermind the fact that it's the oldest college on the West Coast.
Although Monmouth shares a border with Independence, they both have two totally distinct downtown areas. I think the boundary between the two towns is probably right at that weird bend in the highway that usually signifies that someone made a slight surveying error when plotting the original township and range markers. Another rumor--quite plausibly true--was that this section of road was highly patrolled before the beer ban by Monmouth City Police as people drove back to campus from the nearest bars located across the border in Independence.
Monmouth, it seems, has been insulated from the harsh development that comes with being close to a major freeway. It's still surrounded by random farm stands where you can buy berries and pumpkins and whole ducks. Something about pulling off the side of the road to buy a ready-to-roast duck makes me really happy for some reason. And I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of eating ducks either.
18 down, 224 to go.

West Linn

I met Mayor Patti Galle this afternoon in her office at the West Linn City Hall. She was pretty awesome, by the way, even offering to call up the Mayor of Wilsonville if he doesn't respond my my email. Her office has two very comfortable leather chairs that looked like they came over on a wagon with the Peoria Party. She's a newly elected mayor, having just been sworn into the office last month, so hopefully the rest of her term will be filled with the really hard stuff like autographing maps and such.
I had always assumed that City Hall would be located in the old Willamette District of town down by the river. I mean, that's where all the old stuff is so you would think that West Linn City Hall would be an old 1890s victorian mansion. But no, it's up on the hill in a sort of upscale shopping mall with a nice view of Mt. Hood. It's officially the City of Hills Trees and Rivers, and some might remember the old rest area off of I-205 that they closed a few years back because of complaints of idling trucks and shady night time activities.
On my way up the hill to City Hall I noticed there's an unmistakable gap in the very expensive homes and condos that is occuppied by an actual vineyard. I don't know the story behind it, but I'm going to say that it's owned by a stalwart old codger that refuses to give up his land to development because his great-grandfather homesteaded there. And maybe he looks like Patrick Stewart.
Mayor Galle was pretty impressed with how all the signatures are starting to fill up the map, and she asked me what I was going to do with it when I was finished. Maybe the Oregon Historical Society will want it if they're into that sort of thing. I guess my first choice would be to frame it and give it to my son in hopes that Oregon will still be around in 50 years so he can follow in my footsteps for the bicentennial. That would be pretty sweet. Of course, in 50 years all the Mayors will probably be futuristic cyborgs that have mated with the hippies from Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia. I, for one, embrace our new robot/hippie overlords.
17 down, 225 to go.

Ashland

If you've ever tried to go to Ashland in the summer then you know it is insane there. Cars clog the streets and tourists swarm the sidewalks like minks after an ELF raid. You have to go two miles deep into Lithia Park just to escape the smell of Vanillaroma perfume. So that's why we always go in April and just pray for good weather. It's worked so far.
Mayor John Stromberg was nice enough to autograph our map at the recent OMA conference in Salem. Amazingly (and bravely), he keeps a blog, too. And that's just asking for trouble when you're the Mayor of an entire city.
Anyway, going to Ashland in April allows you to stay somewhere a little better than the Super 8 out by the freeway. We stayed at the Ashland Springs Hotel and even got a discount because I lied and said I was with Bear Creek Medical. Probably shouldn't say that. We also got to eat at Chateaulin and I had a really good golden beet salad. But things change. I heard that the famous Lithia Water fountain doesn't run anymore because someone complained, but I'm not sure if that's true. I also heard that the old pizza place that backed up to Ashland Creek has been demolished in favor of a condo project. Again, I haven't been there since April of '06 so maybe that's not true either.
At any rate, sometimes I think of Ashland as what all of Oregon would look like if Californians ruled the earth. Nothing against Ashland or Californians, in fact far from it. I love the fact that Ashland exists--it's like visiting a whole different state without leaving Oregon's borders.
16 down, 226 to go.

Canby

Canby Mayor Melody Thompson was nice enough to schedule a minute or two with me last night just before some sort of City Council Meeting at City Hall to autograph our map. It's a fine old building in the original part of downtown that you probably miss if you're just driving through on 99E. When I was a kid my sister and I used to pester my parents on a daily basis to take us to the park there, because they had an ultra-cool play structure. I tried to find it last night when I was wandering around town but I got distracted by all the people huddled exactly 10 feet from the entrance to the American Legion Hall smoking cigarettes in the cold. Between that and the Canby Pub and Grill, downtown seemed pretty hopping for a Wednesday night.
Unique pubs in 100 year old buildings almost cancel out sad cookie-cutter things like the new KFC/A&W on the highway next to the weird MASH helicopter that welcomes you when you're coming into town from the south.
After meeting the Mayor I tried to find the bridge we used to spend our summers jumping off into the Molalla River, but I'm not sure it exists anymore. Of course the Canby Ferry is still around, which is one of three Willamette River ferries that you cross on the fifth date with your new girlfriend from out of state. The fifth date is pretty much a pivotal make-or-break period in a new relationship so you want to bring the excitement of boats combined with the safe knowledge that it's only a 3-minute trip.
15 down, 227 to go.

Fairview

Most of us have driven through Fairview without even realizing it.  Then again, I doubt most people even know Fairview exists, but it does.  It's the kind of oblong rectangle that is bordered roughly by 201st to the west, 233rd to the east, Glisan to the south, and the Columbia River to the north.  Or perhaps you've been to Blue Lake Park.  Entirely in Fairview's borders, Blue lake is actually a pretty sweet spot if you go during that one sunny weekend in April we always seem to have where the temperature finally peeks up over 70 degrees for a couple hours before plunging back to the low 50s.  

I'm embarrassed to say this, but today was the first time I've ever ventured into "downtown" Fairview.  Although Fairview was incorporated in 1908 or thereabouts, their downtown was just recently built in 2000.  It's a strange otherworldly "planned" community that looks like something Norman Rockwell would paint if he were a contemporary city planner.  The main street is narrow with lots of ground-level retail with living spaces up above.  According to a couple "for sale" signs I saw, there are live/work spaces available should you be in the market for setting up your own shop and dread the prospect of commuting more than one flight of stairs.  People were walking their dogs on the meandering sidewalks and I even saw a bunch of scampy 9-year-olds pacing out the bases for a game of stickball in the central city park.  If I had seen a little boy in a puffy dress eating an ice cream cone or a little girl getting her bikini bottom chewed on by a floppy-eared dog, I swear I would have started looking behind billboards for hidden DeLoreans.  

Mayor Mike Weatherby was happy to welcome me into his office so he could autograph our map.  The first thing he pointed out was his portraits of Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.  We talked about the establishment of the 40 hour work week and the minimum wage for a bit, and then he moved a cactus shaped pinata off of his desk so he could sign the map just north of Gresham.  I've found that whenever I meet Oregon Mayors in their offices, I always feel like I just want to hang out and talk about Mayor stuff for two hours so I'm very conscious of the time when talking with them.  I don't want to be a lingerer and waste their entire afternoons.  But I have a weird feeling that Mayor Weatherby wouldn't have minded me bringing in a hummus plate or something while we sat down and talked about resource allocation.  Maybe I'll try that one with the next mayor? 

14 down, 228 to go. 

Toledo

In the upstairs common area of the Wildwood Hotel in Willamina there's this great map of Oregon from around the 1920s or so. Pretty much the only thing similar to today's maps and that old map on the wall is the basic outline of the state. But counties are shaped differently if they're there at all, roads are either twice as curvy or just missing, and the City of Toledo is about six times the size of neighboring Newport. I think that gigantic mill was built around that time, then add the railroad and the port there and Toledo might have been the most bustling metropolis on the Oregon Coast for a decade or two. The photo up there is from 1906, but most of the cool buildings downtown that still stand seem to be from the 1920s, like the Yaquina Bay Hotel. That place looks like it has some stories. The whole downtown area there is filled with antique shops and a cafe or two--definitely worth a visit. I could live there.
It was a 1997 Benchmark Atlas of Oregon that brought me to Toledo the first time. My friend Brendan was babysitting his mother's convertible so we decided to head out to the beach "the long way." The long way, in this case turned out to be a series of logging roads and two-tracks that looked much more passable in my atlas. We were so close to the bay there at Toledo that we could smell the mill, but someone had blocked the road with an earthen berm. After high-centering on said berm because we were 22-year-old college studens that didn't know any better, we walked down to Toledo and flagged down the first pickup we saw to help us get unstuck. I'm always getting a car stuck somewhere, and each time it seems that I find the same stereotypical logger-type person to help out. He sighs, shakes his head, tells me how much of an idiot I am, and then won't take any money for his troubles. Every town in Oregon with a population of less than 3000 must have like a dozen of those guys.
Toledo Mayor Rod Cross is, as he put it, difficult to get in contact with during basketball season. After a couple of emails and a few phone calls to City Hall, I luckily met him in Salem at the OMA and he autographed our map.
13 down, 229 to go.

Albany

Albany is easily overlooked by most people traveling through on the interstate.  A lot of Oregon can be seen via the highway, if that's the way you do things.  When I was in college down in Eugene and dating a girl up in Portland, Albany was nothing more than the blur of a McDonalds sign or the promise of a Taco Bell.  Interstate 5 is both a blessing and a curse to towns like Albany.

Here's the way I see it:  Albany probably started as a river town that depended on steam ships for goods and services.   A few years later, the railroad probably showed up and shifted their economy a few blocks inland.  A few years after that, highway 99 brought automobile traffic through the city.  And then the interstate cut a swath through someone's farm two miles outside of town and in no time Best Western and that Taco Bell I mentioned earlier became the face of Albany.  That's the abridged history of Albany according to me.  

I'm sure the real story is better, but the point is that you're doing yourself a real disservice by zooming by Albany without getting to know it.  But it's actually harder than just getting off the interstate.  You also have to get off of US Highway 20 and make a couple of unmarked turns.  But after that, it's easy to find downtown.  And once you do, head straight for Calapooia Brewing Company.  I'm not saying that the food is going to blow you away or anything, but when you see people shoveling hops out the back of a Ford F150 into a wheelbarrow then I think you know you're getting some fresh beer.  

Just down the road from that is Bryant Park, a cozy spot on the Willamette that I have had the pleasure of spending 4 hours at last summer due to weird circumstances.  If anyone reading this knows the story about the mushroom house, I'd sure like to know it.  

Perhaps I should have asked Mayor Sharon Konopa when I met her and she autographed the map.  Perhaps we could have gone out under the cover of darkness and burned down that Taco Bell.  Probably not.

12 down, 230 to go.

Keizer

Mayor Lore Christopher autographed our map at the OMA so the least I could do would be to pay a visit to her city and figure out something to include here that doesn't involve the totally NC-17 night I had there in '96 at the Wittenberg Inn.  Or the boring fact that half my paychecks during my first few years of college went straight to the used record shop on River Road.  I think it was called "Rocket Donuts" or "Bodacious Donuts" or something like that.  Definitely was about donuts.

Keizer has spent most of its Oregon life trying to outsmart Salem into not annexing it.  Indeed, Keizer didn't even become an actual incorporated city until 1982--relatively recently methinks.  And to this day the only way you can tell that you've left Salem and entered Keizer is by the blue signs indicating streets instead of the traditional green ones like in Salem.  You might remember Keizer from an interesting news story from a couple years back.  I think it's worth clicking on that link if you're in the mood for a chuckle.  

This afternoon on our way home from the Oregon 150 Weekend (yes, I'm a nerd and made a whole Oregony weekend out of the deal), we drove up Broadway to River to Chemawa, ignored all the "park closed" signs, and hopped the gate to Spong's Landing Park just outside Keizer city limits.  Like most cities in the Willamette Valley you don't have to go far from town to find a nice quiet spot.  It's too early for dragonflies but we saw a great blue heron looking for frogs down on the shore, and what may or may not have been a beaver.  It was probably a nutria, but I like to think it was a beaver.  And then, best of all, we saw at least a hundred geese following the Willamette from south to north--a true sign that winter might come to an end again this year.  

11 down, 231 to go.

Fossil

The map--the actual map of Oregon--that I'm getting these Mayors to autograph isn't the best map in the world. It's more of a topographical style than a road map style so sometimes it's difficult to find towns like Fossil when you have an audience of thirty-some Mayors that would otherwise be trying to enjoy their catered lunch at the OMA. 

Mayor William Brown signed our map with his shaking hand after the embarrassingly long moment it took me to find it on the map, and you could tell he's been around for almost as long as the city of Fossil has been incorporated.  

We were heading from Crane to Shaniko last August and my wife had a weird craving for a gin and tonic so I was more than happy to drop her off at my favorite bar--I think it's called The Shamrock--in town while the baby and I visited a couple of the museums.  I swear sometimes that Wheeler County's biggest industry is museums since it seems every little town there has at least two or three of them.  My favorite one in Fossil is in the old Pine Creek schoolhouse.  It's volunteer staff, as is true in most Eastern Oregon towns, is an old woman that knows absolutely everything about anything and anyone that ever came through in the last 100 years.  Whenever I'm in this part of the state I usually haven't shaved, showered or shampooed for a few days so these women are always a little leery of me at first.  But after a few minutes they warm up to me and offer me a cup of Lipton Tea.  Plus this time I had a four-month-old baby with me, which I think helps people to believe that you aren't a shoplifter.  

The Fossil Mercantile is the grocery store in town, and it's a site to behold.  It has a wide planked pine floor and they sell cowboy boots right along side the artisan goat cheese.  I know for certain that if there is a heaven, it involves cowboy boots, gins and tonic, and artisan goat cheese all within a 3 block radius.  I could die and go to Fossil.

10 down, 232 to go.

Scappoose

Every time I meet someone from Scappoose, I mention that my sister lives there. Without fail, they immediately ask me her name, as if Scappoose is such a small town where everyone knows each other. Perhaps that was true 15 years ago, but if the afternoon traffic on highway 30 is any indication, Scappoose is rapidly becoming another of Portland's bedroom communities. When I met Mayor Scott Burge, he of course asked me who my sister was. And just like everyone else I've ever met from Scappoose, he's never heard of her.
Mayor Burge and I talked about the Scappoose Creek Inn, which is where I took the above picture of a really tiny llama that had gotten snared in a spider web. He told me that since the Inn isn't within the city limits of Scappoose, his city doesn't get any tax benefits. "We have a hotel tax," he joked, "But no hotels." Such is the life of a small town mayor. Being the awesome husband that I am, I took my family up to Scappoose for my wife's birthday last year. A lot of people might find that odd, I suppose, but a lot of people are stupid. I honestly believe that there is just as much value in eating weird Hawaiian food and watching your toddler chase chickens around as there is in, say, going back to Seaside again. Come on people, how many times do you need to go to Seaside before it gets old?

You can also head up the hill to Scaponia Park and find huckleberries and caterpillars. We found about 3 pints worth and made milkshakes when we got home (with the huckleberries, not the caterpillars). Or you can rent some kayaks and see about a hundred beavers and heron in the various sloughs and lakes. You can have what is possibly the worst Chinese food ever, if you're into that sort of thing. Better yet, you can eat here. It's like a cross between a nice restaurant and a dive bar. I'm trying to convey a sense of urgency when it comes to Scappoose, because I'm afraid that in the next ten years it will be swallowed up by Portland kind of like Wilsonville was in the early 90s. I guess what I'm saying is that you should go before they have a Best Buy.
Nine down, 233 to go.

Nehalem

One of the greatest things about the Oregon Coast is that everyone has their spots that no one else knows about, where you can still find a little quiet even though it's Saturday in August.  So while everyone under 30 is on the boardwalk in Seaside and everyone over 30 is pretending to be able to taste wine in Cannon Beach, you can find me in Nehalem*.  

So when Mayor Shirley Kalkhoven autographed my map and I said that Nehalem was probably one of my top 5 cities on the coast I'm pretty sure she thought I was being a suck-up.  I only spoke with her for a few seconds so I didn't have time to state my case, so in case she's reading this I'll do so now:

• I've kayaked around Deer Island at least a dozen times.
  
• I've almost sleep-walked off the back deck of the floating hotel into the river.
  
• My son found a caterpillar at Nehalem City Park up on the hill.
  
• I've suffered a hangover from the blackberry wine at the Nehalem Bay Winery.
  
• The first place my wife and I went camping together was Nehalem Falls.
  
• Wanda's cafe is probably the best place to get breakfast between Neskowin and Astoria.
  

I'm a little conflicted here though:  On the one hand, I'm compelled as an Oregonian to invite people to stop and visit places like Nehalem instead of just going straight to the obvious places--you'll never find me at the Seaside Pig N' Pancake, for example.  But on the other hand I don't really want a whole crowd of people there mucking it up for me and my family.  If you do go, you gotta check out that grove of old growth sitka spruce up by the falls.  Just leave campsite T1 open for me.  

Eight down, 234 to go.

*People that know me may wonder why I didn't include the story about the camping margarita girls here.  Feel free to tell your version in the comments.  

Cottage Grove

I'm pretty sure I'm getting my metaphors mixed up from PSY 201 when I say this, but Oregon is very gestalt in that the sum of its parts are greater than its whole.  Looking at page 33 in the 1994 Rand McNally Atlas will show you a good road map of Oregon, but our state is better represented as a series of small towns--each with its own quirky and unique characteristics.  Cottage Grove is the perfect example.  

Founded in 1848 by Lord William de Cottage Grove and ruined in 1957 by Interstate 5, Cottage Grove still clings to one of the state's best under-appreciated downtown areas to this day.  Don't believe me?  Check out the last 20 minutes of a little movie called "Animal House."  'Nuff said.  In 2005, Cottage Grove was even the home of the 25th anniversary party of the release of Animal House, and it won't surprise anyone that reads this that I was there with bells on.  

Before I go any further, I just want to say that Mayor Gary Williams was extremely friendly, and the first Mayor to give me a town pin.  I didn't even know that towns had official pins, but they do.  I met him in Salem at the OMA and he was the first Mayor to shake my hand and make me feel welcome despite the fact that I was using up their catered lunch time with this silly project.

Okay, that said, Mayor Williams has some serious party planning skills.  Or skillz, if you will.  And that Animal House weekend was one of the craziest weekends of my young life.   Sure, it helped that a friend of mine won the John Belushi look-alike contest.  And yeah, maybe I had been drinking for a good chunk of the two days I was there.   But it warmed the cockles of my beer-infused heart that a little town of 9,000 people could welcome a crowd of 50,000 into the streets of their downtown, and then disperse them with fire hoses after the parade was over.  It was chaos:  People were running in every direction trying to escape the downpour.  Seriously!  But instead of terror and panic, everyone had a knowing grin on their faces as if to convey, "We knew what we were getting into when we came here, and we're enjoying it."

And that's what Oregon is:  A whole bunch of towns filled with people that--for the most part--knew what they were getting into when they came here, and are enjoying it.  Despite the downpour.

Oh, and also I don't have any pictures of Cottage Grove because I jumped in the pool of the Comfort Suites with my camera in my pocket.  I tried to fix it by taking it apart, but it's way too gestalt.

Seven down, 235 to go.