Saturday, February 20, 2016

Walking in the Rain - Portland

“An economy run for a few only benefits the few, and the few, no matter how large their incomes, cannot consume enough to keep the economy growing.”  Paul Craig Roberts

My wife and I fly up to Portland to visit our son’s new school, the Pacific Northwest College of Art. We had planned to drive, but upon more sober consideration the thought of 30 hours on the road seemed too daunting and time consuming. The only reasonably priced tickets we could secure were on Spirit Air, described by a travel agent friend of ours as “a Greyhound bus with wings.” Spirit, it turns out, isn’t that awful though the airline gives meaning to the phrase, “no frills.” As one Spirit flight attendant put it, “Here at Spirit we charge you for everything except the air you breathe.” LAX – Las Vegas – Portland. Close quarters, uncomfortable seats.

Spend a few hours in any major airport and you confront humanity in all its varied beauty and horror. Vegas draws a particular crowd, what I would call, uncharitably perhaps, downscale, motley, common; not being at all interested in gambling, Vegas holds no attraction for me. I’ve been there enough times that I never need, or want, to go again. For me, Vegas is the symbol of what ails America: garish excess, faith in make-believe and spectacle, riches for a few, poverty for many. Vegas also makes me think of water, that most precious resource that is in such short supply in California, and thinking of water leads me to think about Flint, Michigan, and the crime that has happened with the water supply there. I’m reading Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin on this trip and my sense of injustice is heightened.  

Parenting is a hard gig in this hyperactive modern era; I don’t know if kids now grow up quicker or remain in adolescence longer. Our 19-year-old son is a complicated, somewhat tortured soul, who spent a miserable semester at Southern Oregon University in Ashland – not a terrible school or town – but not the place for him. Completely on his own accord, our son applied to and was accepted at PNCA. The kid writes poetry and draws and is happiest when he is engaged in making art. Poor bugger. I wonder if he is doomed to a lifetime of struggle and penury; by the time he leaves PNCA, he will be mired in debt that he may spend most of his lifetime paying off. And he won’t be alone.

What do I want for my son? That he be challenged and inspired and taught to think critically, and maybe have his talent – and he does have native talent – nurtured by a teacher rather than squashed. His high school experience was mostly about being squashed by what he considered “boneheaded” teachers; they never got him or bothered to get to know him.

Portland is a lovely city, growing, a mix of old and new, brick and glass. The city has a cool vibe. We spend some time in Powell’s Books, an enormous store that occupies a city block, four stories of books, books, books, and, pleasantly, shoppers, readers of actual books. I like e-books because of their easy portability and storage, but I love actual books, the tactile nature of turning pages.

It’s always good to get away from the routines and fixed patterns of one’s own life, to gain a new vantage point and perspective. In our case, one of the happiest aspects of the trip was walking around in the rain. The day we returned to Los Angeles it was nearly 80 degrees.


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