It’s illegal in Oregon to:
--Pump your own gas;
--Feed canned corn to fish;
--Strap a child seat occupied by a baby to the top of your car and drive down the highway.
Our "Secrets of Portlandia" walking tour guide vouches for these and other fascinating snippets of local trivia going back to the city’s earliest days.
Among the few explorers who arrived to this location in the 1800s, two in particular thought it a practical location for a town. One hailed from Portland, Maine; the other from Boston. Each wanted to name the new town after his East Coast home, but in the end, the Maine resident was more persuasive.
The site of the new city was heavily wooded, save for a clearing that is now Pioneer Square. Cutting down massive trees to build a city was one thing; but removing the stumps a far more difficult task, so city founders left them rooted in place, giving rise to the name "Stumptown," a nickname that endures today.
Early Portland was a rough-and-ready place where men outnumbered women six to one. When two brave women answered a call for teachers at the newly-built school, they were greeted by dozens of randy lumberjacks running eagerly toward their ship, a sight that drove the terrified women back onboard, never to re-emerge.
Portland today is a young city, heavily pierced and tattooed, welcoming hair of all hues and residents of all genders. Residents are unfailingly cheerful, even chipper, with servers and shop clerks greeting customers like friends.
Women own 50% of the businesses and there is a feminist bookstore where parents can purchase fairy tales rewritten so the princess is the heroine who comes to the rescue. Seniors can ride every form of public transit all day for $2 with a ticket stamped "honored citizen." Dogs are highly respected beings, with their own block parties, Halloween bash and Santa Paws party.
The city boasts both the nation’s largest city park – Forest Park at 5,000 acres – and the world’s smallest: tiny Leprechaun Park in the middle of a street, no larger than the lid of a garbage can. Unlike other cities which post "Keep Out" signs, Portland’s been known to design public fountains to accommodate both children and adults who might wish to take a dip on a hot summer day.
The massive statue of Portlandia holding her trident -- a copper repousse statue second in size only to the Statue of Liberty -- is not a city landmark, but instead is barely visible and scarcely known to most city residents. The sculptor who created it wants to keep it that way.
Portland was the first city in the U.S. to draft a climate change action plan, reducing its carbon footprint by 12% during the last two decades, a period when the nation’s rose by the same percentage. Solar-powered parking meters and compacting trash cans are found on city streets, and electric car charging stations are provided free of charge.
The city is green in all respects, with tree-lined streets, verdant parks and shady neighborhoods of shingled bungalows. Farmer’s markets are well-established, organic produce plentiful. Twenty-five percent of commuters ride bikes to work, a figure expected to climb to 33%. And yet, a Californian is struck by the number of people who smoke cigarettes.
Happy hour is revered, sometimes starting as early as 2 p.m. and offering foods such as truffle fries and water buffalo burgers for $4 and artisan cocktails with intriguing ingredients like cucumber-infused gin and smoked ice cubes for $5. Residents of Portland have long enjoyed imbibing and early pubs had floating bars to allow regulars to paddle by for a pint when the mighty Columbia river flooded the streets.
And beer? Portland is second only to Belgium and the Czech Republic in the number of micro-breweries relative to the population. My favorite brew was Mcmenamins Pomona’s Blush, a fruity ale flavored with 126 pounds of apricots. One carbon-neutral brewery has a bike bar with parking for 60 bicycles.
Quirky Portland is deemed such a cool city that its population has mushroomed like a northwest forest after the first autumn rain. Jobs, however, have not kept pace and the city’s unemployment rate is second only to Detroit’s. So strong is its siren song that college graduates move to Portland to retire at the age of 23.
Lack of employment opportunities and a lively entrepreneurial spirit have fostered the proliferation of the city’s latest draw for food enthusiasts: the food carts. Miniscule and mobile, the popular food shacks have grown in number from 100 to over 700 during the economic recession of recent years. Situated in pods on the perimeter of parking lots where they pay monthly rent and are subject to unannounced health inspections, the carts operate in a multinational harmony that would be the envy of the UN: Egyptian shawarma abuts Czech schnitzel; Vietnamese pho is a neighbor to Mexican burritos. The food is delicious, fast and inexpensive, offering both entrepreneur and customer an affordable alternative to a bricks and mortar restaurant.
For their part, Portland’s restaurants increasingly attract big-name chefs from across the nation, making Stumptown an exciting foodie destination. Winemakers are moving in from the Willamette Valley to set up wineries downtown.
It was this entrepreneurial spirit that created one of the city’s quirkier attractions. Weary of working until 2 a.m. closing time each night, two local bartenders were drifting down the river in fat inner tubes – a popular summer pastime – and pondering a new profession. Noting its resemblance to the pastry, one of them looked at his inner tube and said, "That’s it! Doughnuts!"
Thus was born Voodoo Doughnuts, a wacky city institution that draws Food Network celebrity chefs and long lines of customers for such creations as maple-bacon bars, voodoo dolls filled with raspberry jelly "blood" and doughnuts shaped liked the nether regions of the male anatomy. With its bawdy slogans and off-the-wall creations, Voodoo captures the spirit of Portland and brings in $8 million a year.
Waiting in line for Voodoo, a visitor can glance across the street at a sign on the wall that says it all: Keep Portland Weird.
Portland photos are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/Portlandia?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLmL6MfwmeyVfQ&feat=directlink
Click on first photo to initiate slide show.
