In what is likely another fit of eternal optimism, I am planning for a few things I want to do in 2021. There are many ways to describe the things I want to do the day when we no longer have to lock down, shelter in place, mask up, stay 6 feet apart, and deal with the threat of viral death or life long disability during routine activities. I am especially anxious for the day that we no longer have to deal with backward morons more concerned about their convenience than the health of their fellow citizens.

In what may be MORE eternal optimism, I think that 2021 and life post virus is going to be an explosion of life. I am sick of just surviving. I want to LIVE, so here are my Goals, Resolutions, a to-do list, or future plans for when that day comes. You can call it whatever you like–I’m calling it a hit list. Here, In no particular order, is my current list:

Survive the plague
…and the idiot hordes that threaten to kill us all; get vaccinated at the FIRST possible moment!

Move out of the suburban wastes and back into Portland
I want to find an affordable place with character somewhere South of Powell Blvd and East of I-5. South Portland, Sellwood-Moreland, Milwaukie, and adjoining areas get first dibs.

Embark on a quest to visit every independent book store in Portland (Not Powell’s)
Drop in to “Title Wave Books” at 216 NE Knott St

Continue my quest to have an Old Fashioned at every bar/pub I visit–especially the dives
Drop in to a few places or go for a tasting in the Distillery Row area of NW
Check out “The Rose City Book Pub” at 1329 NE Fremont
Check out “The Library” at 3433 SE Hawthorne
Drop in on The Basement lounge at 1024 SE SE 12th st
Go back to “Gold Dust Meridian” in Hawthorne
Go back to “The Conquistador” in Belmont

DO a LOT of tourist-y stuff, both in Portland and out
Go soak at Kennedy School, then have a cigar in the Detention Lounge
Go to the outdoor/night market in the Produce Row/Mural District area
Do Dinner/Drinks at “Saphire Hotel” on 50th @ Hawthorne
Take a drive out to Silverton and Mt Angel

Catch up with other Utah escapees over pizza and beers
Refreshments are grand, but much better with stellar humans like Laura, Peaches, Pam, and Steph (AKA Messenger).

Travel!
Check out Mcminnville’s “downtown” area
Go to Bend and goof off for a weekend
Take a trip to the Coast (Seaside, Canon Beach, Astoria) that DOES NOT involve work
Do SOAK?
Go home and to SLC for a weekish

Meet people (when it’s safe)
Get involved with SOAK or KF and the PLA (if you know, you know)
Find a concert or 4 that doesn’t suck

I’ve been jonesing to get eyes (or boots) on the remnants of the old Fairview Training Center in Salem, OR for years, after a former partner showed me some photos she’d done there a while back. Sadly, after a trip there one summer day, and then some more research I learned that it was near completely GONE. Another trip down there was MUCH more fruitful–though not in the way that I had hoped.

I woke at a heinously early hour on the appointed day and peered out a window. IN the pre-dawn light, I could make out…….nothing. The fires consuming large swaths of Central Oregon had combined with some cool weather and fog to produce a WONDERFULLY spooky day outside, so off I went to meet up with another explorer–we’ll call him Mr B.

Mr B and I drove to the area where out shenanigans were to transpire, and dismounted our vehicle in the area of Fairview’s few remaining buildings. As previously noted, Fairview–with the exception of the laundry building, adjoining water tower, the powerhouse, an awesome brick smokestack behind the power house, and some now overgrown foundations–is gone.

As we softly trekked across the now bared earth on an active construction site, we were greeted thusly:

One of the places we revisited that day were where the debris piles left from the demolition of the foundations of the original ‘cottages’–medium and large buildings where patients lived; all are now torn down, but foundation and debris remain…..

While I don’t generally like to collect things from abandoned places I explore, as we moved through the ruins and discussed the history of Fairview, I recalled my friend Kate’s mother, who I had learned was employed at Fairview in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As we walked and talked, we came upon the remains of the floor under another cottage, which appeared to have been a bathroom or shower space…

Other adventurers or scavengers has selected a small pile of the tiles from the building’s walls and the smaller floor tiles, and set them aside. I thought my friend might enjoy a physical reminder, in the form of a part of a building her Mother may very well have worked in. Gingerly, I selected some of the nicer seafoam colored tiles and still more of the smaller grey tiles and squirreled them away in my camera bag, before we moved on.

We wandered the remnants of Fairview for about an hour….the combination of fog and smoke from the massive wildfire a mere 20 miles away made for a number of superbly spooky photographs.

I could not think of a more fitting backdrop to the end of Fairview. Some of the fruits of the background research I did on this were dated, though interesting. Still others were just ….horrific. I’ll invite you to google “Fairview Training Center Oregon” and form your own conclusions. After investigating all we could within the remains, we headed a short distance down the road the the site of the former Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility.

After some brief fence repair (we, of course, had to do our good deed for the state), we were able to enter the 15ft tall perimeter fencing…

Not only was the smog providing excellent spooky visuals, but it also accentuated the forgotten, abandoned feeling that permeated the location and underscored how nature is slowly, surely reclaiming a campus that has been in use for over 100 years.

As we crept through the common areas around the various buildings, we were unable to locate an open door–until Mr B rounded a corner of what appeared to be the Maximum Security unit…

Naturally, we entered, as one does having just come upon an open door to one of the units at kiddie jail…..

And then we came to steps leading to what we were certain was a basement….We went one way and found an entirely unremarkable HVAC and Mechanical room….which was warm and felt wet. I looked up and spied steam pipes. Mr B looked left and exclaimed “Holy shit!”. He had found this…

We wandered further and further into the tunnels, making for about 100 yards of additional progress–until the tunnel ended in a dank stairwell leading into another building….

After a while (I lost track of time about a second after we entered the steam tunnels), we had crept through the notable parts of the building and descended back into the basement and tunnels–where we discovered another tunnel that led further into the complex and, what we surmised, was another building.

The tunnel eventually led us into the basement of…..a high school?

With a few exceptions, like a LOT of locks on drawers and cabinets, It almost looked like a normal school. Almost.

Slinking through the smaller rooms adjoining some of the above pictured spaces yielded gold….

A large mural ran the length of a hallway….

At the end of that same hall was an auditorium….

Far and away, my favorite space in this building…..was under it: The tunnels. The library was a close second:

A second floor observation area provided a more interesting view–and a window into the history of the building and some of the changing technology that it has born witness to:

As we looked out over the empty shelves, Mr B found an empty projector room, obviously meant for a large movie projector, that could have easily thrown light at a screen all the way into the next room (that auditorium). Upon examining both rooms more, he hypothesized that the wall dividing the library and auditorium was an addition after the removal of the projector and installation of a small library….

Shortly after this, we were interrupted by a roving security guard, driving slowly through the parking areas. While they never saw Mr B or myself, we decided it would be a good time to take our leave.

The third floor of the high school, one more building, and a number of exterior areas still have yet to be explored…..

Thanks to a mild corporate mishap (or mischief), I had a free rental car this weekend. I blasted off to my favorite cigar bar in SE Portland Friday evening, did some people watching, stuffed a tasty burger down my neck, burned a nice 10 year old cigar, and plotted evil.

The next morning, I woke up at stupid o’clock in the morning and decided I was going to enact revenge on the corporate overlords by using said rental to drive south and checking out the ruins of the Fairview Training Center (FTC). FTC was Oregon’s state hospital for mentally ill people for about one hundred years, and is/was every bad thing that comes to mind when you picture mental health care in the US from EVER until the move(s) to community based care in the mid 1908s. If it’s backward, inhumane, neglectful, or just plain horrible and occurred in and asylums built in the late 1800s/early 1900s, it likely happened at FTC.

I have always wanted to check this place out, and recently learned that the entire site (the size of a small college!) had been sold off to a developer in 2000. During the research that yielded that tidbit, I also learned that demolition of the smaller housing units (FTC Called them “cottages”) and other outbuildings was recently finished…so I wandered google earth a bit while I was at the cigar bar last night.

So after rising at an unholy hours this morning, I hopped in the car and sped through dawn’s early light toward Salem. After securing something that barely qualifies as food for a mobile breakfast, I drove the road the handful of remaining buildings are supposed to be on and……..nothing. Demolition had indeed been completed, with work on new housing and other developments proceeding earnestly. Beige condos were spreading like a stain on the land, and I was in no mood for…..new construction. As I prepared to leave, something on a hillside down the road caught my eye. Shrouded in 100 year old trees what did I spy, but buildings!

Given that my rental was a BRILLIANT orange Dodge Challenger, I decided against parking right in the open driveway and walking up to the facility whistlin’ dixie or humming my favorite nickleback tune. I drove about 1/2 mile down the road, pulled into an office complex parking lot, and secreted the corporate avenger among a handful of other cars (presumably belonging to those poor souls working for the weekend). I got my camera bag out, checked my gear, and headed back up the road and for an access trail I had seen heading up the hill and into the trees at the edge of the site.

After I crested the hill, I saw the remains of another facility spread out before me

I spent a few minutes hunkered down under that huge tree to the right, just to be certain that I wasn’t going to walk into any imperial entanglements with bored secur-i-goons or homeless people annoyed at curious wandering souls. After making sure I was alone, I ventured on…

The complex–which I later learned was the former Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility–splayed out before me, enclosed in a massive chain link fence. Unsurprisingly, the fence was quite secure, and yielded no access points or easy breaches even after 2 trips around the entirety of it. Denied access to the heart of where I wanted to be, I settled for viewing how nature is slowly reclaiming the land.

Curiously, some of the buildings still had power, including the unit pictured above, that is still running HVAC. I understand that the Oregon Youth Authority (among a few other state departments) had operated Hillcrest from the late 1890s until 2017. Exploring a 100+ year old correctional facility just added to the surreal feeling of wandering a now abandoned place that formerly teemed with life.

While parts of the facility were still in serviceable condition, the area I wandered had obviously not been touched for some time. I wasn’t sure what to expect coming over the hill on that trail, given the dark history of the Fairview site, correctional institutions, and of psychiatric care in the US (especially that in the early to mid 20th century). Owing to this and to their not wholly inaccurate portrayal in some great (and horrifying) movies, I did not expect to find…….peace and tranquility?

But there I was, walking around a piece of the decidedly dark history from the golden age of cruel jails and scary asylums, appreciating trees, flowers, and wildlife, and gobbling plump, sweet Oregon blackberries fresh off the vine.

I was also contemplating ways to get in the perimeter… All the power was off to the maglock’d vehicle and reception gates just behind the Administration building, but their lock cylinders were gone. Simple chains with padlocks held many of the gates I had encountered shut! Since I was ill equipped for any adventures that the Legal Department would require I redact, I had to settle for peering through the fences and longing…..to break INTO a fancy jail?

In the process of leaving, I passed a clearing and spied a water tower adjacent to a portion of the FTC site undergoing construction (and stained by those Beige condos I mentioned).

After some quick google fu, and an encounter with some other explorers, I learned that this area was once home to half a dozen of the “cottages”. Another segment of this area held the old laundry facility and power house–the only 4 remnants of so much history, and likely so much pain:

Here again, serene nature is taking over land that has seen so much tumult, replete with vegetation retaking foundations and wildlife milling about unmolested.

Once again, so much beauty and peace on land that has seen…..so much. This all reminded me of something my grams asked me while we discussed my weird hobbies before she died. Read about that right here and enjoy some more history lost. I’ll be back here soon, so stay tuned before it’s all gone.

It’s about a 3 hour run up I-5 to Seattle from where I live; a little less if people have been being good about NOT achieving wet stain status and Washington State Patrol isn’t hiding under/around/behind anything they can whilst blasting away with LIDAR.
Seattle also happens to be home to the popular takeover of a few blocks in the funky Capital Hill neighborhood, known as CHAZ, or the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone. (The name CHOP, or Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, is also used).

Unless you have been under a rock the last week or so, you’re aware that the media has been pumping out all kinds of dopey, inaccurate, or plain FALSE information about CHAZ as well. Everyone’s favorite very stable genius got in on the action with the requisite tweet or two, faux ‘news’ has photoshopped phantom armed persons into photos of barricades, and the rumor mill has spouted things that are dumber than the shit I took just now. (Google and find examples of this idiocy for yourself).

I wanted to see for myself, so I set off for Seattle armed with a camera, some lenses, water, snacks, and a fresh charge on my Ebike’s battery. Traveling at a rate swifter than several unladen african swallows, I arrived in Seattle late this afternoon and began dealing with the most serious and virulent threat that ANTIFA has yet posed to the west coast of the good ol USA: They took up all the close/easy places to park!

Once I found parking (horror or HORRORS, it was 4 whole blocks away!), I hauled the bike out, tossed my camelbak over my shoulder, plopped my helmet on my head, and zoomed off to infiltrate CHAZ. After navigating some traffic on the narrow streets and some construction (Yes, even ANTIFAs have to deal with that), I arrived at one of the scary check points the talking heads have warned me about:

It wasn’t very secure….or scary. Most of the barricade consisted of an easy-up and some repurposed bike rack…and art. LOTS of art. Immediately upon entering, I was approached by some ANTIFA goons! A happy, bubbly woman in her mid 20s or early 30s nonchalantly said hello as I navigated the barricade, and asked how I was. I told her I was great and was just here to see the truth for myself and support everyone there. She said “Great!” and politely asked I walk my bike so I didn’t crash or risk hitting any of the thousands of people there, then said “If you need anything, just grab it out of the hospitality tent behind me”. (You can’t see from my photo here, but that easy up is full of snacks and water and had some street medics hanging around in the shade.) I locked the bike up and walked on.

It looked like a party–a slightly tense party. Contrary to some media reports, Businesses were open and enthusiastically serving, with lines were coming out of their doors. Other than the woman at the barricade and street medics (volunteers who are from the crowd or organized volunteer groups), there was no organized presence or “staff”. This is very much a DIY undertaking, including emergency response and traffic control.

While it looked (and in some places even felt) like a party, A number of people had taken pains to make it VERY plain that having a dandy time on a summer Sunday was NOT why this was going on.

Streets were filled with people-thousands of people. They were talking, making speeches, listening, teaching, learning….and just relaxing. For me, and I think most of the crowd there that afternoon, we were awed and quietly walked on, taking in the fact that we were all there, together, and seemingly united at this one historic place and time.

There was a bit of obvious partying too, but most people appeared not to be interested in having a beer or smoking a joint in the middle of the street merely for the sake of doing so without getting annoyed, accosted, cited, or arrested. The few places I DID see a large knot of people drinking, smoking, or enjoying the pots were in purpose built relaxation areas–and there were a LOT of conversations going on, with a few people who did not look like they’d normally hang around seated together.

While social distancing was NOT possible, perhaps 75-80 percent of people I saw were all wearing masks. Several of the hospitality and street medic boots were selling or gifting masks to those who did not have their own as well. PSAs to wash or sanitize hands, wear a mask, and avoid the ill were all over, courtesy of poster artists, grafitti painted on walls and the boards used to cover some store windows.

Speaking of those windows….
So many stores were boarded up, but still open. A great many of them had signs supporting the protesters and inviting them into retail spaces for water, bathrooms, or shelter. Some signs were smaller handwritten or typed papers taped in windows, but many of them were large poster size pieces of purpose built poster stock. There was even a (small) billboard.

Many windows were covered with full size sheets of 1/4 – 1/2″ thick plywood, nearly all of which had been taken over (or, I imagine, given over) to serve as canvas for a great deal of art, of all kinds.

Art had crept onto other surfaces and into other mediums as well; one a street corner a man stood and played slow and mournful jazz in front of a store covered in painted, postered, and chalk’d window coverings.

Closer to the heart of the Zone, the atmosphere changed, from tense party into reverent celebration. A block long stretch of stores, all boarded up, had been transformed into a massive public memorial to those killed by police. In front of the Seattle Police precinct, where protestors had forced the city to retreat, a funeral service was being held (Bottom photo).

Then someone yelled FIRE. I looked around and saw no smoke, and thought “Oh shit, I left my gas mask at home…is this the cops come to take their house back?” Then I remembered I left my gas mask and any sort of medical supplies at home. I saw a scrawny kid in the prototypical punk rock outfit coming toward me, asking people to move to other side of the street. I asked what was going on and he said “Gas leak at the cop shop and we need to get the gas company in”. A few more prototypical punk types came by, again ushering people to the opposite side of the street.

People started telling each other the news, and an ad hoc perimeter formed. Several minutes later, several gas company trucks drove effortlessly up and street and entered the building, exiting about 20 minutes later. The punk rock prototypes and people who had helped them form a line on the street to keep onlookers back disappeared into the crowd and the afternoon went on as if nothing special had happened.

I circled back toward where I had locked up the bike; a park had become an outdoor yoga studio, the entry to a campground, and a workshop space. People, art, and more people were EVERYWHERE.

I always wondered what it would have been like to live in the 1960s and see the mass civil upheaval and movements that fomented so much change. I wandered toward the barricade I had entered the zone from, hopeful. As I neared the barricade, two more punks asked for my ID and passport, sporting huge grins. I searched my list of weird replies and said “I can’t, I ate it”; they laughed and said thanks for visiting.

The reality, as compared to the media hype, is……wonderful and boring all at once. It’s also a wonderful example of human resilience and unity.