A Beautiful Evening in Portland: National Night Out and a Festa at Good Neighbor Pizza

The blower sparked. I was in the middle of thinking about a case that needed some serious thinking. One Rocky Fell threw my way. Someone snatched a fur from a chiquita banana down The Valley and he figured it might've ended up in Stumptown. I was on it. I thought about letting Thelma get the blower, but by then my train of thought was on a Union Pacific siding across from Lupita's down in Woodburn. "D'Mestiere Investigations. Go." Dolly-girl. "Jack, National Night Out. Kitty's on it. I gotta go read some verses to people who need to be versed. I'll meet you there. Follow?" "OK, we'll be at Good Neighbor for a cold one by the time you get back to our side of the river." Click. Dolly-girl wasn't much for chit-chat once the plans were laid.

Kitty and I perambulated over to Woodlawn Park and did the once around on what was happening there. It was a slow night. A few hawkers were set up, trying to pedal either BBQ or blood pressure screenings. Didn't seem to me like either one did much for the other's business. Well, maybe a good shot of BBQ would give those screeners something to look at. A small crowd was gathering to watch The Wiz--we passed.

We headed on over to Good Neighbor, a joint that makes a good pizza pie and is known to have some cold ones to wash it down with. Me and Dolly-girl have them bring it by where we set the brake from time to time, and Kitty likes to stop in the joint on the way home from her 9 to 5 and wash the dust out of her mouth, if you know what I mean.






It was a nice night to be out. Old Mister was feeling good on our backs and people were in the sort of mood that means the pop you hear is from a bottle of suds preparing to head downtown rather than from some punk's heater. We took a table outside, near the street, where I could keep any eye out for trouble just in case it decided to get up, scratch its butt, and start something. Like I say, I wasn't expecting it, but when you're in a place that sells Old German for a clam a can, you never know when some hot head full of cold brew is going to think he might just have some of what he calls fun but what the Stumptown Police Bureau calls felony.




Missy was working the joint by himself. Me and Kitty nursed a Walking Man and a Bull Run waiting for Dolly-girl and then decided to go ahead and get us a festa on a tile--run it through the garden and pin a rose on it. Oh, and give some zeppelin a ride through the oven too. "On it. Do it again?" "Never think twice." Kitty was thirsty. Missy was back in a while with a round and a little while later with a pie that made him look like he knew what he was up to. He makes the sauce, starting with seeds and soil, so it may take a while to get the feed bag, but when it comes, it's one of the best in Stumptown to my way of thinking. Dolly-girl's roadster squealed to a stop, she set the brake, hopped out, and got there just in time to shoot a look through the wave and grab a slice. Purrs from the two chiquitas told me that Good Neighbor was just the neighbor they were hoping to run into.


We settled up. It was a breeze, mostly 'cause Kitty paid, "I owe you from the other night, it's on me", but the damage wasn't much considering a couple of beers each and the festa. A chiquita's bag on the bar said it all--there's plenty of reasons to be a Good Neighbor...

A Quick Trip To Ashland: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Doorbell. Then "Telegram." Dolly-girl opened up, tipped the kid, and took the yellow envelope. "Javier. We're on for the weekend. He booked us into the Blue Moon--that OK with you Jack?". It was. Dolly-girl and me like to take in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Dolly-girl likes The Bard--got interested when she was at finishing school--so at least once a year, we pack up the roadster and head south from Stumptown to see what there is to see on the stage. Mostly they put on the old ones, but every once in a while they come up with something the guy just wrote. I ask Dolly-girl about whosis, like how come I never hear him interviewed on the Zenith, but she just laughs at me. I told her he sure isn't from our side of the river, I know that from the words he uses. That got me an "Are you serious" though the wave. Who knows, but I know that I never learned about any guy named Bard when I was studying up for my private ticket. And I don't know what this festival has to do with fishing tackle.

Javier Boleyn is a pal-o-mine of Dolly-girl's from back before I knew her. They were in the same business back then and met learning to be bookies. Good thing I met her. You just can't tell where making book is going to land you. Javier is still in the business after all these years, but he lives in Frisco now. Claims to like the fog. Even though there's been big advances in what some call technology, Javier is old-fashioned about some things--telegrams, for instance--instead of just picking up the blower. Go figure. Anyway, he's an all-the-worlds-a-stage sort of guy so he meets up with us down south, or up north if you're looking at the world from where he sets his brake.





The day broke, we packed the roadster, and headed out. Kitty was keeping an eye on our joint for us in case someone I'd had my eye on decided to pay a visit while we weren't looking. We meandered south, stopped for an hour where I could dial a blower and talk with some people that needed talking with, and ended up at the air field just in time to see Javier's clipper touch down. He stepped out, turned and waved to the stewardess, and walked across the tarmac, valise in hand. Dolly-girl ran to meet him (she's like a kid at Christmas when it's time to start trading barbs about this guy Bard with Javier). They started doing their catching up on what needed caught up on while I pulled the roadster around. We loaded Javier's trunk and headed to the Blue Moon, one of those what you used to call Tourist Houses but now people call them beeandbees for some reason. Anyway, this one's a nice place to stay. It's got art on the walls and there's always some sort of snack. Dolly-girl tells me it's fresh baked pastries. I guess. Dean--he's in charge--even gives you birdseed in the morning. You don't get a whaddaya-want, you take-what-comes-out-the-door, but you don't have to pay or leave him a tip or nothing. Go figure.








Dean told us birdseed would be on the table at nine sharp but that we'd be able to get a couple cuppas earlier than that and it's a good thing because if Dolly-girl doesn't get her blondie by punch-in time, she's looking for my heater and a chance to light a fire under someone's schedule. Not many things set her off, but waiting for joe to show is one of them.



Javier and Dolly-girl picked some seats that left me at the end with my back to the wall. She knows what I like in a seat: if trouble's joining us for a sit-down, I want to be the one who see it set its brake and walk in the door. Everybody else staying at the Blue Moon showed up too and I listened to people chewing the fat while they waited for the hash slinger to load up the feedbags. Dean started bringing plates out and telling us what was on them.


I'll tell you, this was no birdseed joint like me and Dolly-girl go to, you know, the places with your-call cackleberries--wrecked, flopped, Adam and Eve on a raft--and Noah's boy in the alley. No, Dean said we were getting a fritater, but the murphies looked baked to me. He said the fritater was eh-talian (he pronounced it like Dolly-girl does) but I'm telling you, Mama D'Mestiere never put nothing that looked like this in our feedbags, so I'm guessing it's one of those things like Chef Boyardee makes. It looked real pretty and Dolly-girl and Javier gave it the eyeball and dug in.


It was good alright and pretty soon 16 jaws quit jawing and started doing the up-and-down, tending to the business they were made for. Dean said everything was fresh from the garden, but I didn't hear any cackles, so I'm guessing if I'd said anything Dolly-girl would have shot me a "Suspend reality, Jack" through the wave so I kept my yap lined up on the food. I could taste tomatoes and basil and oregano and Parma's wax on the top and I'll take Dean's word for it having hen fruit. Speaking of Eve's goof, there was a big plate of it and it went along like a Sunday drive with the fritater.


We had some time to kill before we had to load the roadster and head north, so we saddled up shank's mare and headed into town for a look see. Ashland ain't no Stumptown in my book. There were people learning a goofy dance near the place where we'd seen Henry VIII, one of those stories by the Bard guy, the night before. It was a good enough yarn about this Henry guy (never did get the vee-eye-eye-eye part) who had a perfectly good chiquita banana, but decided he wanted a different one from a newer bunch so he dumped her and took up with the new one. Nothing new in that story, at least not around Stumptown. Maybe Ashland is different.


Yeah, well it is different. One of the watering holes claims to specialize in drinking chocolate. That would get you some raised eyebrows on our side of the river, I'll tell you. We're more of a shot-and-beer town than a kiss-and- marshmallow place. Dolly-girl and Javier were talking the odds of this joint lasting. They decided: not good.









Javier spied a bookie joint and Dolly-girl's greenies lit up. "I'd like to lay off a little in this town before we hit the road, let's see if they got a couple numbers I've been wanting." They had a lot, but not the horse she was looking to bet, I guess. She finally found some cards to play and that put her teeth in front of her lips. Something about independence. I didn't catch everything she and Javier were yapping about.
















I saw this one but decided against it





Anyway, it was time for us to head back to Stumptown; Javier was staying on. I think he was trying to meet that guy Bard. Maybe get his autograph, who knows. If you ask me, he should take him shopping, update his clothes, follow? Then, teach the guy how to write like people talk. He'll never pass what they call the test of time if he can't do that much...

Illustration credit Martin Droeshout

A Beautiful Evening in Portland: Dinner at the Lincoln Restaurant

The blower sparked. Dolly-girl rolled over and elbowed me. "Jack, the blower, it's gotta be for you this time of the day." Tootsie. She and Slim were planning a check-it-out trip to Stumptown to see if they couldn't find a piedatterra. The Valley wasn't doing what they needed done in terms of keeping them busy doing anything but busy work on the weekends, follow? Slim was pushing Stumptown as a get-away from what needed getting away from. Anyway, they wanted to know if we wanted to tie on the feedbag. We did. Dolly-girl reads about joints in the broadsheet. She stirred, figured what me and Tootsie were talking about, said "Lincoln Restaurant," and rolled over. It was set.

Slim and Tootsie rolled in about an hour after the olives line up for their bath. Tootsie brought her niece, Bluebird, who lives over in the part of Stumptown me and Dolly-girl call hectic, but it's still on our side of the river. Slim was shaking his head as I handed him a shot of something from South of the Border. "Missed a turn. Ended up across the river. Tootsie and the kid were yappin' and I just plain missed it. Here's salutin' your serape." We did a do-it-again and then piled in the roadster and headed for the trough--it's not far away, but too far for shank's mare. Turns out it's in a part of Stumptown that would like to be a gourmet gulch but isn't Gourmet Gulch if you know what I mean. Beans were hitting the plates in a new-fangled building--jane from the outside, but a great layout and lots of sunshine pouring though lots of glass roll-up doors. You might think it had been a Ford agency at one time, but the only grease there now is what they use to cook up some mighty-fine cornmeal onion rings.












"D'Mestiere--five of us, may be under Fiora." "On it. Right this way." We sat down next to an open door/window and Missy was quick to us with Bull Run, the whaddayas, and a smile. Slim ordered us all some skidrow and we raised glasses to whatever needed it. I checked the inside out. No one behind us but a wall and a hallway that left me a little jumpy, not to mention Old Mister shining in my eyes. The sunshine felt good but I'd wouldn't have seen trouble coming if he'd been dressed in pink and wearing a Stetson, get it? Dolly-girl gave me a little squeeze that let me know she voted for calming down, but still, this part of Stumptown
makes the broadsheet for more than just feedbags, with me?

Still, it was a nice night, people were having fun. I sat back and forgot about the week of talking with people who needed talking with, except for giving the group the high points of the low down from a swimming session I had at local gin mill in The Valley with Dixie and the Slider. They introduced me to a guy I needed to meet, name of Rocky Fell. He runs a high wire act when he's not eating hot meat and pepper seed.



I looked around the place. Pretty standard table except Mike was in a little tin cup and Ike was no where to be seen. There was a little jeannie burning oil on the table. I snuffed it. You may think of me as a tough guy, but I got a soft spot for Planet Earth and didn't think we needed to be burning fossil fuels in the sunshine. Dolly-girl gave me a quick one though the wave and the next time Missy came by, she popped a lit one on the table and took my work away. I held back on the urge and that got me another little squeeze from my chiquita banana.





Missy took the orders and was back by the time we'd raised another glass of skidrow. "Here are your kick-it-offs: cackleberries swimming through the oven in cream, steamrolled doughboy with tonnato and your bruschetta. The hash slinger keeps an eye on you and he'll start your whats-up-next when he sees you stop chewing your cud." It didn't take long before I gave the slinger the high sign and Tootsie and Dolly-girl's cowfeed showed up. Dolly-girl was looking at quite the bale and Tootsie's had some kind of tropical delight cut up on it. The two of them were purring like a couple of half-Siamese I know when those plates hit the boards. And I'll tell you, they were a couple satisfied kitties (but not the real Kitty) when they chewed through that field.







The joint was jumping and the Missys were running so fast they were a blur by the skidrow glasses. The slinger had feedbags lines up like shots on the bar at the VFW.





Another nod in the direction of the Tappan and the main attraction arrived. Slim went for beef from the hanger, asleep on some of that cave-made frog wax, Tootsie and Bluebird were doing fin flips over Charley, gnocchi so good Dolly-girl tucked the wave behind an ear and dug in. I was looking at a chop from a porker that was raised with me in mind. That plus yellow green beans left me singing "I'll be seeing you..."










We did a do-it-again on the skidrow and settled down to business. Up and downs all around the table told me what I needed to know--no one here wished we were there instead of where we were. In fact, I'd been to a bunch of theres in the last couple weeks that made me wish I'd been here instead. Missy kept us in her thoughts and we didn't want for a thing.




Finish-it-ups had Slim shaking in his shorts over a slug of fudge on some ice cream they'd cranked up in the back room. Dolly-girl and Tootsie split something baked with berries while Bluebird had something light, I think she called it sore-bay. Go figure, but it was ringing her bell.

A couple Grants plus a Jackson got me and Dolly-girl out of the joint and left a smile on Missy's mug. That ain't bad for top-notch feedbags and our share of two bottles of rosso. We hooked arms, strolled into the night, and put Lincoln Restaurant on our list of places that ain't seen the last of us.

A Beautiful Afternoon in Portland: Umbrellas in the Sun at the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival

Sun poured down on me. It couldn't get better. A cuppa, a comfortable chair in the garden, and a Friday Rex Parker that was giving up to me--grudgingly, but still, giving up.

I heard her inside, talking to the cats and working at something on the Tappan. She was humming along with some big band that I could hear was playing on the Zenith in the parlor. I had an idea.


"Dolly-girl, let's me and you mosey over to St. John's and take a gander under the bridge. I read in the broadsheet that there's music over there and it could be worth a hear-see." "Jack, do you have any recollection of me telling you about the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival?" "Hmm, I thought it was my idea..." "Sure, Jack, who's the social director around where we set our brake, anyway?" OK, so I do get distracted from time to time.

We packed up some of this and some of that, loaded the roadster, and headed over to east of North Stumptown, north of where people pay through the noses they look down to see the bridge that leads to where we were going and they don't want to be, follow? We didn't have to take the bridge because it's on our side of the river. Good thing 'cause I've got a thing about bridges.

Sure enough, the skinny Dolly-girl had given me and that I'd remembered after I read it was straight. There was a torch singer playing a stand-up bass (go figure) and some others backing her up. I had to hand it to these folks; they didn't seem to be worried about anything except singin' and swingin'. In my line of work I'm generally looking for what trouble's left behind when I'm looking up at the bottom side of a bridge.

We ran into a hipster that Dolly-girl does some work with from time-to-time when there's some writing that needs re-writing. He and his chiquita--she was Jane, I mean her name was Jane--were all Christmas morning over a guy that was going to be beating this and whacking that--what you call a percussionist--when the next act, a salsa slinger, and I'm not talking burritoville here, took the stage. We said our how-do-you-dos and our nice-to-see-yous and then found a place in the shade where we could listen to the salsa being slung.


It was a great day to just sit and take it easy. Dolly-girl and me settled in and she pulled out a copy of the latest Movie Mirror and a beat-up Hollywood she borrowed from a dentist over in Hollywood, to catch up on the latest in scandal from the silver screen. Her toes were tapping to the music and I could tell this was hitting a spot. I shifted around in my chair and finally pulled out my heater and tossed it in her bag. "Honestly, Jack, you'd think we lived in the old west or something. This is Stumptown.Today. Relax!" "Yeah, yeah, one of these times you're gonna be glad I've got her with me Dolly-girl. Stumptown isn't called Stumptown for no reason, you know." "Jack, that's gibberish--listen to the music." She was right. It was. I did.



I tried to forget about being under a bridge, even if it was daytime. I mean, how many bad stories do you know that took place under a bridge? A lot if you're with me. Of course, not many of those things happened with a couple thousand people laying on the lawn, tapping their toes, with a big band playing in the background. I'd have to give you that one. Dolly-girl hummed and tapped along.

To take my mind off what might happen if those couple thousand people weren't around tapping their toes, I pulled out the Kodak and snapped a few for the album me and Dolly-girl keep to remember the good times we have. It was a good day to have an umbrella to keep Old Mister Sun from giving your nose that I've-been-hitting-the-sauce look.










After the music was over, me and Dolly-girl packed up and headed back to where we'd left the roadster. This scene reminded me why I pack that heater. I patted it and pulled Dolly-girl close so she wouldn't get jumpy over what might be in the trunk of that auto. She purred, "Oh Jack, you take such good care of me...there are so many Swedish gangsters who recycle!" I made like a beet while she laughed and laughed and I guess I sorta had to chuckle myself. But then, who would want to sleep with the lutefisk?