The Multnomah Villager

So today I walked up to the Village, to stroll along the main drag with my Mom, who is in town for a few days. We stepped into Annie Bloom’s Books to pick up a copy of Sunset Magazine, which is a must read for an ex-Oregon-resident like my Mom. So anyway, we poked around in the bokstore for a bit, but of course, we both had to stop to pet the cat.

Annie Bloom’s has a cat, as several bookstores seem to. However, the cat at Annie Blooms is as much a Village fixture as the store itself. On the way out the door, I noticed that the cat, Oscar Wilde, was recently profiled in the Portland Tribune. This is the level of celebrity we’re dealing with here.

A link to the story is here - it features several working cats, scroll down to read about Oscar.

Next time you’re in the village, drop in to Annie Bloom’s and say hi to Mr. Wilde. He’s 13 years old.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Multnomah Village. Since I moved to Oregon, Multnomah is one of the places that has struck a chord in me. I realized some time ago that it’s probably because of the similarities beween the Village and the town in which I grew up.

The Villager is from Leonia, New Jersey. Leonia is a small town just outisde of New York City (like the first exit on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge). It’s a little older than Multnomah, having been settled in 1668! But the main street through town, with shops on either side, and the community events, the residential streets just out of “downtown” - very similar to Multnomah.

I really enjoy being able to walk to things like coffee shops, bookstores and the like. Yeah, it’d be great to have certain suburban perks - like a driveway - but having to drive everywhere would be a hard trade. I remember during the big snowstorm several years ago, the one on Christmas Eve I think, Mrs. Villager and I walked up to O’Connors for breakfast and then wandered down the street looking in shop windows before watching a Tri-Met bus slide back-end first through the fence next to the antique store on 35th and Capitol.

Or the other day when I threw on some shorts, and grabbed Jr. Villager’s scooter, and walked up to West Hills, then let him scooter home along the sidewalks, stopping to pet dogs at Starbuck’s and Village Coffee, as I walked alongside.

No, even though he asked, we didn’t stop into the toy store to buy something - but just knowing that we could have, is part of the reason I like living here so much.

So I’ve been at this for three weeks now, or something like that. Early this morning, this ‘blog had it’s 500th hit. Fittingly, it was Mrs. Villager. Now she wants a prize. I promise, not all of the 500 hits (well not more than half) have been me.

Onward - this is pretty fun. Thanks for reading!

So I was just surfing through the August issue of the SWNI Newspaper (PDF) and came across the feature regarding the upcoming National Night Out parties.

There will be on in Multnomah Village on Tuesday, August 2nd, 6:00pm-?, at SW 33rd & Carson. For information, you can
contact: Chris at 503-245-4014. Now I’m not sure exactly where this location is. Sounds suspiciously like the Multnomah Center or environs. I’ll have to take a wander this afternoon and locate Carson Street. I’ll update with a specific location later - perhaps I should just call Chris.

FYI - National Night Out is a drug/crime prevention event. Information about the event is on this page of their website. This is along the lines of “take back the night” kind of events that you often see on college campuses. The idea of NNO is to promote the idea of neighborhood watch, get neighbors to know each other, etc. At the time these events began, neighborhood watch participation numbers (according to their site) were around 5%-7% of the population, increasing that number shouldn’t have been hard.

Here’s a quote frtom Matt Peskin, who came up with idea of “America’s Night Our Against Crime” in 1984:

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for communities nationwide to promote police-community partnerships, crime prevention, and neighborhood camaraderie. While the one night is certainly not an answer to crime, drugs and violence, National Night Out does represent the kind of spirit, energy and determination that is helping to make many neighborhoods safer places throughout the year. It [NNO] is a night to celebrate crime prevention successes - and to expand and strengthen programs for the next 364 days.”

Might be an interesting event to stop by. Heck, Target’s a sponsor - maybe there will be fabulous prizes!

And I should mention that the Portland Police’s Sunshine Division will be collecting canned food at this event, so bring some along.

So, as you may or may not have noticed, provided anyone has read more than one entry on this ‘blog - I link to the Wikipedia for definitions and biographies. Well, thanks to my Sitemeter, I found out this morning that Multnomah Village has an entry in the Wikipedia! Nothing you don’t know, but still pretty cool.

Multnomah Village Wikipedia entry

In other linking news, a ‘blog called Disc Golf Craze has picked up my entry about the Portland Luncthime Disc Golf Course from last week.

That’s enough of that for now. Time to go out and do something I can post about.

One things you’ll notice when you come to Multnomah is that we like wall murals. Nearly every available space is colorfully painted. Today, I happened across another ‘blog called Our Murals - Art for the Love of Art, which features several of the murals around the village such as the ones on Acapulco’s and Thinker Toys. Visit the site and check out the list on the right hand side of the page - oh, what the heck, I’ve got some time, I’ll link ‘em, but visit the site anyway, ’cause there are lots of other cool murals, not just “ours”.

Fat City - well, it’s the pig, not a mural.
Acupulco’s Southwest Gold
The Ship
The side wall of John’s Market
Lower side wall of Thinker Toys

Those of you that have been here may notice that these are all pretty much in the same block. We have a few more - this is a pretty throroughly painted village we’ve got here!

Yeah, OK, I always say “Frisbee Golf” too. And actually, I rarely say either since my choice of disc sports is Ultimate (definition). But Disc Golf (definition) is today’s topic, inspired by a question over at Jack Bog’s Blog, where a lot of my hits have been coming from lately. I saw this question and said to myself…. “Hey! We’ve got one of those near Multnomah Village!”

Yes indeed we do. You might notice the odd-looking poles with baskets and chains hanging from them, among the trees alongside SW Capitol Hill Road, or see them from the parking lot of the Greater Portland Bible Church. You may have wondered what those things are for. You may have witnessed guys stalking around with multiple small frisbee-like discs in their hands (although, unlike the traditional frisbees, Disc Golf discs are more solid, more like a discus).

You’re looking at part of the amusingly named Portland Lunchtime Disc Golf Course. A short walk from the Village, the course curves around the Church’s parking lot and through the woods and farm area behind the Church. It is a 12 hole course.

Here’s a link to a course map

Here’s the website of the course, although I must say that since I am posting this post from my Mac PowerBook G4 and surfing with Safari, the layout of this page is not resolving correctly. It probably looks OK in IE, which I will check later.

Disc Golf is probably a sport that I would like. I love to throw frisbees, and I love getting my hands on new sets of gear, much to the chagrin of Mrs. Villager. We discovered this cource by accident one weeknight, as we were walking from the Village up to Baskin Robbins on Capitol Highway, and found ourselves traversing the course. There were a couple of players on one of the tees, and we watched a few throws. I’m not sure where a person goes to get Disc Golf discs locally, maybe someone can turn me on to that.

Last week I posted about my recent discovery of the Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. newspaper.

Amanda from SWNI hit me with an email, saying:

The SW News is the publication of the district coalition of the Neighborhood Associations in SW. You may receive a copy mailed to your home every month, free, by calling 503-823-4592 (the SWNI office in the Multnomah Center) and asking to have your name and address on the mailing list. The newsletter gives you information about neighborhood and citywide events, and is a great way to keep informed on local issues

And then a further email a day or so later with some additional info.

When I said “free”, I meant, “part of the services you pay for in your taxes, with no additional cost if you choose to request home delivery”. The SW News, and the staff who pull together the contributions from volunteers providing much of its content, receives funding by the City. It’s part of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement’s annual allocation, paying the nonprofit, citizen-run SWNI (Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc.) office to coordinate citizen involvement in SW. So you’re already paying for the SW News, all you have to do is ask for it.If everyone in SW requested delivery of the monthly newsletter, the budget allocation from the city would be insufficient, but as Sylvia Bogert, the outstanding executive director of SWNI says, that would be a wonderful problem to have, because the goal of SWNI is to provide neighborhood information and promote citizen involvement.

Thanks, Amanda, I appreciate the info. Now, can you do anything about the blue link text on a blue-green background? That would be a valuable neighborhood service!

Anytime we have 90 degree weather, the Villager begins to think longingly about sleeping at the office, or a nice air conditioned hotel room. I’d consider a tent in the backyard, but traffic’s kind of heavy down my street at night, and our neighbors have been in a party mood lately. So other means of cooling off are required.

Enter Wilson Pool. We were out of town when the Grand Re-Opening happened, and that sounded a little crowded for our tastes anyway. So today was the day. After waiting impatiently for the noon opening time, we headed up the hill to Wilson High and approached the parking lot. This is when we were remiminded that the Hillsdale Farmers Market had recently relocated to the same general area. This made parking somewhat of an adventure. In fact it’s a good thing the pool doesn’t open before noon, or there would be no place to park at all.

We headed up the path behind the end zone of the football field and took our place in line. We were a little suprised at such a long line so early. Little did we know. That’s Jr. Villager there in the hat, having discovered one of his favorite school friends ahead of us in line.

The pool has two main areas, the “regular pool” where a person would swim lapes if there had been maybe around 600 fewer people there, and the kids area seen above. The kids area is split into sort of four “themes”. There’s the shallow end with a large umbrella over the water (cool) and the little froggy slide, which Jr. Villager would not go down, since it sprays water at you at the top. There’s the big water slide - not as big and fast as the one at the Southwest Community Center Pool, but good enough for today. And then there’s the “current channel” and this cool vortex which was great at first, until too many people clogged it up. And last there is the deeper end of the shallow area where buckets periodically pour water onto the carefully positioned heads of “unsuspecting” parents.

Thoughts:

• We should have come for the grand opening, it could not have been more crowded than today
• The shallow end under the umbrella could stand to be about 6 inches deeper
• The water is VERY warm, since the pool is so shallow - however, this is also a result of the run of sunny days we’ve had in a row, so you know how that goes
• The entrance/exit process to the vortex is not graceful. Especially with four or five 12 year old kids thrown into the mix
• Apparently, you’re not allowed to take the rafts that they have into the “current channel”. I think there’s been some false advertising here.
• Did I mention there were a lot of people there? We saw LOTS of people we know and the kids area of the pool became so crowded you literally could not move freely.

Apparently the best time to go is around 5PM on weekdays. It ain’t cheap. You’re looking at the standard fee of around $3 something per person (exact details on the site). Good news is (sarcasm) that a family membership can be bought, giving you all-you-can-swim until September for $163. Given that this is July 17th, you better prepare to swim a LOT, if you want to get your money’s worth on that one.

According to Portland Parks & Recreation, Wilson Pool is the most popular outdoor pool, and the only one on the west side of Portland. I think we’ll stick with the Southwest Community Center Pool though, which is more our “home pool” anyway, but Wilson Pool made for a fun Sunday field trip to Hillsdale.

One last note: This would be a pretty cool pool to have at your high school. My school had this whirpool bath in the guy’s locker room that one football player at a time could sit in. Kinda looked like a cattle trough. That’s the closest we got to a pool at school.

I would be remiss as a neighborhood blogger if I didn’t mention the Harry Potter Release Party put on by Annie Bloom’s Books beginning at 10PM tonight. The party’s actually in the parking lot of John’s Market, so if you’re driving down Multnomah Blvd and see a bunch of people standing around in capes and witch hats with wands and stuff, that’s what’s happening. If you go - be prepared to stay a while, the book (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, if you’ve been living in a cave) doesn’t go on sale until 12:01 AM.