The South Waterfront in Portland is a neighborhood in transition. Formerly a heavy industrial area – the attendant pollution has supposedly been cleaned – it now features high-rise condominiums and newly-constructed apartment buildings. Although a couple restaurants have come and gone, in the last few weeks three, count ‘em, three new pizza shops have opened. There is also a gourmet ice cream shop and a place selling four-dollar donuts.
A free-pizza grand opening had people lined up all dayGrilled cheese and hand-dipped corn dogs!
Health care for our four-legged friendsWe take good care of our dogs
Haven’t yet figured out what to do about dog urine
The neighborhood’s first auto dealer is getting ready to open and sell their electric cars
Zidell is building its last barge. They have concluded developing their waterfront property is more lucrative than building vessels. Food carts are now adjacent to their barge construction.
Zidell’s Emery Apartments – in the shadow of the Ross Island BridgeZidell’s last bargeFood carts moving in on barge construction
Breitbach’s Country Dining claims to be Iowa’s oldest dining establishment, in business since 1852. (Breitbach’s, unlike Breitbart, won’t give you indigestion.) As you travel the Great River Road, you’ll find Breitbach’s in Iowa, high above the Mississippi River, about halfway between Guttenberg and Dubuque.
Breitbach’s until 2007
Jacob Breitbach, who worked for the founding owner, purchased the business in 1862. It has been owned and operated by the family since then. The building itself is relatively new. The original structure burned in 2007. The restaurant has hosted luminaries such as Jesse James, George (Norm from “Cheers”) Wendt, Madonna and Brooke Shields.
Why report on this now? They are featuring a Friday-night seafood buffet during Lent. If you have a desire for deep-fried fresh catfish, here’s your place. They also promise their soup du jour will be meatless until Easter.
Ken Kesey wrote the Great American Novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, published in 1964. Well, okay, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was pretty good, too. Twain was certainly more prolific. Kesey’s published works other than his first, and more famous novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, include the novel Sailor’s Song, the historical novel Last Go Round, set in the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up, plus assorted miscellany, some collected in Kesey’s Garage Sale. (Paul Newman’s first directorial effort was the film adaptation of Sometimes a Great Notion.)
Kesey is also famous – or infamous – for the Acid Tests of the 1960s, bringing LSD and the Grateful Dead to notoriety. Kesey was the ringleader of the Merry Band of Pranksters – “Too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippy” – and the instigator of their road trip, in the psychedelically-painted bus “Further,” to the New York World’s Fair. Tom Wolfe chronicled the excursion in his classic of “new journalism,” The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Ken Kesey eventually had enough of the lifestyle and came to the realization that Pranksters was another name for moochers. He took his bus back home to his farm near Eugene and spent a relatively quiet rest of his life. He died in 2001.
Further – also known as “Furthur,” after decades of deterioration on Kesey’s farm, has been restored. A feature-length film of the Merry Pranksters adventures, “Magic Trip,” has been released and is available on DVD.
Postscript:
Ken Kesey was a champion wrestler at the University of Oregon. His son Jed was also. On the way to a match in 1984, the team’s bus, previously used to transport chickens and lacking seat belts, slid off an icy road. Jed was kept on life support for two days until his parents, Ken and Faye, gave permission to shut it off. Twenty-year-old Jed Kesey had previously signed an organ-donor authorization. Twelve of his organs went to others. The Keseys sued the National College Athletics Association and settled for $70,000. They used the money to buy a new bus for the U of O wrestling team. Read Ken Kesey’s letter about his son.
Goodyear deflated its last blimp the other day. It took about two minutes for the Spirit of Innovation’s helium-filled bag, called its envelope, to crumple to the ground after a hole was ripped in its topside. After ninety years, the blimp era has ended. Not to worry, though. The familiar shape will continue to be seen hovering above sporting events. Goodyear has replaced all its soft-sided “gas bag” blimps with semi-rigid dirigibles.
The new aircraft are the same shape. They have a frame, so maintain their shape after being drained of helium. They are also faster, quieter, larger, easier to fly and more maneuverable. The new dirigibles can cruise at seventy miles per hour. They are quiet enough to not cause disturbances at golf tournaments, where a whirring sound makes it impossible for a champion athlete to accurately hit a motionless ball. The new floating billboards are fifty feet longer than the old blimps, and can take off and land like a helicopter, making life easier for ground crews.
The thing that is not changing is the popular reference: they will continue to be known as Goodyear Blimps, because, “Goodyear Semi-rigid Dirigible doesn’t roll off the tongue.”
The South Waterfront in Portland is a neighborhood in transition. Formerly a heavy industrial area – the attendant pollution has supposedly been cleaned – it now features high-rise condominiums and newly-constructed apartment buildings. Although a couple restaurants have come and gone, in the last few weeks three, count ‘em, three new pizza shops have opened. There is also a gourmet ice cream shop and a place selling four-dollar donuts.
