Though I creep closer every day to being an old-timer, and some of my so-called friends would ungraciously and squarely place me there already, there are still others who are even more old-timey than I am. You gotta’ hand it to old-timers: they have experience. They’ve seen a lot, for good and bad: they’ve lived the history–they were there in person, and boy do they have stories to share, sometimes unsolicited, sometimes merely not wanted, which is a shame, because often these stories are rambling, even if coherent, and it’s a good way to pass time if you have nothing else to do, which is a hallmark of our modern life as we all know.
Here is a sure-fire way to find out if an old-timer is a Portland Old-Timer: just say the phrase, “Columbus Day Storm” and that person will light right up. Guaranteed.
“The Columbus Day Storm! Of course I remember–I was there! Lord, It was blowing somethin’ fierce. Trees were swaying like crazy and I kid you not, my neighbor’s chimney blew right down, seriously, and took out my barbecue on the back porch! We had just got it at Sears, see, and…” I made that up, but it’s typical of what Portland’s Old-Timers have to say on the subject. Nineteen sixty-two, but still feels like yesterday, god bless ’em.
I tried this out with my colleague, who I knew to be a Portland Old-Timer. “The Columbus Day Storm!” she exclaimed. “Of course–I was there! It was crazy! Let me tell you about it!”
But now we have a contender: the “Big Blow of ’15.” Today the winds came howling through Portland just as they did on that other memorable day sometime in the prior millennium. It was crazy! The trees were blowing and everything! My family went off late morning to Target for a bit of routine shopping. We began collecting the necessary items, then…the lights unexpectedly flickered, and we were like, “Whoa, what was that?” But they immediately came back on because we live in America and can’t be inconvenienced for too long. We continued shopping and proceeded to the second floor which is only accessible by elevator or escalator with a special, matching escalator for shopping carts. We strolled and shopped, and then it hit again: the lights flickered, and this time we were like, “We’ve seen this before, just be calm. It will pass.” And it did. The lights immediately came up. America is so great about these things. But then, the lights went off yet again. And this time–they stayed off.
I pause here to let the enormity of this situation sink in.
Us. In Target. Second floor. Cart full of goods. Power out. Elevator non-operational. Escalator stopped. Hunger setting in.
Got it?
Let’s continue. Emergency lights came up and employees’ walkie-talkies began crackling with communiques: “We have no lights on the first floor.” “Roger that–we have no lights in baby goods.” “Produce section reporting in–no lights here.” The situation had been made brutally clear through these tense exchanges: there was no light.
We made our way to the escalator and stood with a crowd looking with quiet desperation at the immobile escalator–our path to freedom, now frozen. However, this crowd of Americans trapped on the second floor behaved splendidly. Panic was checked and tempers were under control while we patiently waited for emergency directions from trained personnel.
My own family is famous for behaving like a well-oiled machine in times of crisis. Like the time we scored last-minute tickets to a Broadway show when the situation looked hopeless, or when our toddler (many times) lost her binky at two a.m.–we always find a way to win through to victory, and now we were faced with yet another crisis: we had a cart full of goods but no elevator or cart escalator. What to do?
People were now being allowed to walk down the regular escalator–the migration to freedom had begun, but what about us and our merchandise? And here is where we showed our true colors. We could have left the cart there, abandoned, but we wanted that stuff and were determined to help the economy along, so–we took the merchandise out of the cart and among the three of us bodily carried it down with the help of a hand basket. Boo-ya.
You’ll be pleased to know that the cash registers were the first to have power restored. For my part, I was prepared to barter for our purchase, but it wasn’t needed. We paid with a piece of plastic, as always, and exited the Target of Terror.
We arrived home to find no power. I may joke around about Target having no power, but it was a different story twenty minutes later at home. Now it was personal and not so funny. What was I supposed to do, just sit in my peaceful and sunny living room and enjoy a cup of tea and a good book? Not likely!
Curse you, Big Blow of 2015!
In thirty years, ask me about the Big Blow of ’15, and boy will I ever will have a hair-raising story for you. “The Big Blow of Fifteen? Of course–I was there, right on Target! Now that’s a joke, because we were actually at Target just minding our business doing some shopping when…”
And now a few Scenes of Devastation from the Big Blow of ’15–
I opened my bedroom window, and this paper holder thing on my dresser actually was blown over–crazy!
This is a branch from a tree on my street that actually snapped off in the wind and was just lying on the sidewalk. Wild!
K-blog 