Hot Summer Nights in Portland

The thermometer reached into the mid 90’s F today and it is still hot. I lucky have a window AC unit for the office, so it stays nice and chilly in here. Around 7 p.m. (Mondays are long days for me) I wandered into the upstairs oven in hopes of catching the last few innings of the Cubs destroying the Braves. WGN did not have this one so I crawled back down to the cool office. Bored with checking email etc, I went for a walk around my neighborhood, the Sabin/Irvington District.

Most mornings I go for a walk during my 1st cuppa coffee with my pops, but the hot summer nights had the whole neighborhood out.

Acadia was packed across the street. $10 entrees on monday nights had that place filled and parking around the house was jammed. Every other house had folks outside, sitting on the porch bullshitting, watering the flowers, watching the kids play.

I strolled down 1.5 blocks to Irvington Park as I usually do. The basketball courts were virtually empty (unusual) but the part where dog owners and dogs hang out was packed with about 20 couples (Dogs and dog owners)

The tennis courts were full. The path I was on approached the courts head on and I was able to watch a glorious point of a doubles match. 40 something year old males were going at it and the 2 players were volleying back and forth at the net about 7 times. Finally the point was won. The team that lost the point congratulated the other team on the effort. The player who made the sensational shot grinned slowly. As he got ready for the next point, I was passing near him and he smirked and acknowledged me in that quiet confident way and “you saw that point, didn’t you” look. I smirked and nodded back – yes I did.

I continued down 7th street and took a quick left and the streets were still jammed. A group of 11 to 13 year old boys and girls were talking on the corner, bouncing a basketball and riding there little scooters around. From the look on their faces and interactions, it looked like they were thinking, “maybe the opposite sex doesn’t have cooties”. Subtle interest in each other…Remember 6th or 7th grade?…girls/boys (depending on your preference) were more interesting than they were a few years previous…

Finally a few blocks of not much going on…but at this point it is getting late…I get back and put the garbage and recycling out for tomorrow morning and start to water the flowers that I chucked in the front over the weekend…people starting to leave the restaurant and 2 kids that were playing backetball at the park walked past and kinda looked up at my.

I said, “Hello”

In unison brother and sister (age maybe 8 and 10?) say “Hello”

“How are you?”

in unison, “Fine”

“Are you my neighbors?”

“Yes and we live 1 house down”

“My name is Sean”

“I’m Brittany” and “I’m Anthony”

“Cool, see you around the neighborhood” I said.

“Yeah” they said.

And that was it. I decided to come back in a write this up in the cool of the office before bed. This area reminds me of Chicago neighborhoods I grew up in. Though I enjoyed living in Eugene, it does lack that neighborhood feel and ethnic diversity that Sabin/Irvington has.