In the spring of ’77 dad was working at “the gate”, meaning he helped boarding and arriving passengers. Working “the gate” had it’s own rewards.
Now, before the corporatocracy, the citizen to citizen barter system was more regularly at use. The, “Hey, you bring me a pizza and I’ll stamp your hand at the door” sort of thing. Tit for tat. The personal grift. Dad’s grift was beautiful. He would simply befriend the arriving referees of the National Basketball Association.
The refs would generally fly into town and fly out the same night after the game and they always got two comp tickets which they almost never had any use for. Dad, and the other “gate guys” would agree to drive them to and from the game, saving the refs taxi fare, in exchange for two great seats to the game.
So Dad’s version of “free trade” afforded us, again, the luxury of “livin’ large” with out, of course, the expensive hot dogs and soda.
Those nights out with Dad are what really made me the basketball and Blazer fan that I am today. That is, rabid. I don’t care if they are the “JailBlazers”, the “FailBlazers”, or the (as of late) “FrailBlazers”, they are my team and I get juiced when the season begins every year.
Which brings me, (albeit in a roundhouse way), to my story.
My Dad and I- good lower level seats- Game four- Western conference finals- The Los Angeles Lakes v/s Your Portland Trailblazers.
Jerry West’s Lakers featuring Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a young Adrian Dantly (recently traded from the ABA’s Buffalo Broncos*) and future Trailblazer Kermit “the punch” Washington, had gone 45-37 for the season and had just beat the Seattle Supersonics* two to one in a best of three.
Home team coached by Dr. Jack Ramsey had finished the season 49 and 33. Because of the merger between the ABA and NBA that season, the play-off brackets were skewed causing Portland to play a longer post season, having bested both Chicago (2-1) and Denver (4-2).
The “Ginger Giant” Bill Walton was healthy and on fire, as were the rest of my heroes: Bobby Gross, Dave Twardzik, Larry Steele, and Maurice Lucas. With three wins behind them in this best of seven, Portland was looking at a sweep, and a shot at the finals.
Nearing the end of the second quarter, during a time-out, amidst dreams of victory and maybe a box of popcorn, the announcer began to bellow about the half time festivities and contest.
The NBA was not the circus that it is today. I can’t remember if there were cheerleaders, I think that there were, but every time out and end of quarter was not filled with contests and “entertainments” as it is today. Those “down times” were used by fans to flag down a vendor, or to, (gasp!), talk about the game.
Back then, there was one contest, at halftime.
The Memorial Coliseum holds at capacity 12,000 fans, so the odds of getting chosen for said halftime contest were roughly 12,000 to one. So I wasn’t paying attention to the announcer when he called my seat number.
My Dad heard it and I’m sure that he had to stifle a swear when he realized that they were calling his son’s seat number.
“Kevin! Holy….Crud! It’s you!” Instant terror engulfed me. “Quick Dad, change seats with me!” I pleaded. Before we could pull a switcheroo, a well-dressed attendant was in my aisle shaking his head as if to say, “no, it’s you kid”.
With that, the well-dressed stranger took my hand and led me down back stairways, empty underground hallways, and past numerous doors marked “NO ADMITTANCE- AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”. I was in heaven. Until, through a tunnel, we emerged to the game floor.
I stood next to the Lakers bench and watched the final minutes of the second quarter.
The contest was this- I would get three chances to make a shot from the top of the tip-off circle at center court. So I’m, basically to make a very long three pointer (the three pointer, of course not as yet, a part of the game), a difficult feat for anyone, but astronomically more difficult for Mrs. Riggs’ seventh grader who hadn’t hit any sort of growth streak and stood all of four feet tall. I looked more like a third or fourth grader than a budding teen. “This contest is rigged”, I thought, “they just picked the smallest guy in the building, so the prize is safe until the next game.”
The prize was the use of a new 1977 Ford Bronco, not a new Ford Bronco, mind you, but a year’s lease of a new 1977 
Ford Bronco. Being too young to drive or even to safely reach the petals, the prize was kind of a moot point to me. This wasn’t going to be about winning a prize; this was going to be about not looking like an idiot in front of 12,000 people. No wait, are those national TV cameras? The sweat ran colder. For an added bonus both teams had emerged from their respective locker rooms and stood on the sidelines and were watching.
I was led to center court, the sea of people surrounding me in the stands was dwarfing. Dave Twardzick catches my eye and gives me a thumbs up. I was not comforted.
The crowd quieted some as I was handed the ball for my first shot. And…….Air ball-way air ball-The ball coming down at the free-throw line.
The “Ahs” from the masses were mixed with discernible laughter.
Shot number two was also an air ball, but closer, the ball landing, this time, in the middle of the key.
For the final shot I geared up and threw the ball as hard as I possibly could, over and behind my head, like a caveman throwing a boulder. The ball left my hands clean and strong. The crowd really hushed as the ball arced towards the bucket, clanging at the end, off the front of the hoop’s rim.
The crowd erupted for me anyway and a handful of players from each team walked to center court to congratulate me. Jabbar mussed my hair, Lucas somehow found a way to shake my tiny mitts with his impossibly large hands, and Twardzik said, “Wow! That was really close.”
So I didn’t get the use of a Ford Bronco for a year, but the consolation prize was far better as I was handed about the biggest Hickory Farms gift pack that I’d ever seen.

Back at my seat my Dad actually sprung for cokes as we gorged on crackers, beef stick, weird mustard and cheese, and watched the home team win the Western Conference.

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Included are the Meier & Frank Santaland Monorail, Broadway at night in January 1961, Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul Jabbar duking it out on the court at a 1977 championship game, the violet colored Rajneeshee dance club in downtown Portland, Rose Festival Ships with the Oregon Journal Building in the background, Rancho Flowers, an aerial view of Zoo-Omsi when it was up near Sylvan Hill, and plenty more!

The picture to the left is featured in the month of May. It was taken for Time Magazine on May 14, 1977. Bill Walton was the subject of the photo shoot in this Blazers-Lakers Game. Walton and the team swept the Lakers in the conference finals under the tutelage of new head coach Jack Ramsey. They then went on to win the NBA championship against the 76ers. Walton was named Finals MVP.

Many Portlanders had a tradition of taking their kids downtown to Meier & Frank’s Santaland during Christmastime to ride the monorail. While there, you could also see a few of Santa’s workshops, a miniature train, and of course, Santa. Sadly, the Meier & Frank monorail was taken down after the 2005 Christmas Season. It is now a Dead Memory, featured in the month of December, of course.

On the left is Broadway at night. January 1961, when cruising was popular. Beautiful theater lights line the strip. The Paramount, Fox, and Orpheum signs are in view.

The picture below appears in the month of June in the calendar. The photo shows the ships on the West bank of the Willamette during the Rose festival. The date, June 1959. You can see the Oregon Journal building in the background, along with other details of the city, as well as the West hills. You will love this calendar, we guarantee it! Or, in true Tom Peterson tradition, Your Money Back. The high quality beautiful photographs of Portland are accompanied by memories of Portlanders.

It’s May 1979. I had just closed my first play, “The Birds” by Aristophanes. I was into Blue Oyster Cult and Blue Oyster Cult only and I have a big game of Dungeons and Dragons waiting for me after school.

It’s seventh period, algebra with Mr. Erdahl (sp.) It’s hot and I hate math (still do). Halfway through class the fire bell rings. Mr. E stops us all in collective Pavlovian retreat by saying something like, “Everyone please sit back down, this is just a drill and I will finish what I’m saying before you all file out.” Mr. E then continues to lecture on for about forty-five seconds or so, until some kid in the back (I think his name was Steve C. but I may be wrong) raises his hand says, in a nasally prepubescent voice, “ Mr. Erdahl—Mr. Eeerrrdahl, there’s black smoke in the hall.”

Appropriate unnecessary panic ensues. One kid, (I think his name was Steve C., but I may be wrong) just could not let the opportunity pass him by and picked up a chair and broke out the window, “so we could escape”. The rest of the class exited through the door at the end of the hallway, our safety twelve feet away.

A couple of buddies and I walked up to 7-11 singing “I’m Burnin’, I’m burnin’ I’m burnin’ for you!” With big gulps in hand (a new thing at the time), we sat across the street and played Dungeons and Dragons as we watched our school burn down.

The fire was said to have started in the gym mat room; a couple of kids smoking. Once the fire started there was no way to put it out. Because, as one fireman was quoted, ‘the mat material just liquefies like rubber’. The fire was so hot that it boiled all of the water out of the swimming pool and melted the mortar holding the bricks of the three story gymnasium.

I remember, (and this is for all of the nerds out there that get it) I rolled a “ONE” just before we watched the gym wall collapse, so, I blame myself.

Read what Kevin has to say about the Big Bang in the 2012 Calendar, then share a Big Bang memory or comment of your own below…
Located on Park Ave. in the late eighties and throughout the nineties, the Big Bang was a favored destination for all your rock, punk, and new wave needs. From hair die to piano ties, from tutus to leg warmers, band buttons to bongs, the Big Bang was like a Halloween store that was open all year. An upstairs annex referred to as “the bins” featured second had and vintage clothing haphazardly arranged. On a good day, you could find leather half-gloves, aviator glasses, and a dirty top hat, and usually for ridiculously low prices.

January – The Pagoda – NE 39th & Broadway

February – Farrell’s & The Speck
on NW 21st and Burnside

March – Corno’s Food Market 
on SE MLK Blvd. 

April – Hamburger Mary’s on SW Park Ave.,
Rock n Roll Fashions, Crocodile Records, Wyland Mural

 May – The Heck Harper Show
KGW 1961
 June – Let’s Go Bowling
Grand Central Bowl’s Lost Mosaic
SE 8th & Morrison 

July – American Legion Convention 1965
Old Bus Depot Sign, Western Airlines, Meier & Frank
SW 6th St. Looking North, Downtown Portland

August - Blitz Weinhard Beer Explosion
NW Burnside

 September – The Big Bang Rock, Punk, New Wave Store
SW Park Ave., Downtown Portland

 Oct – Hung Far Low’s “Stairway of Drunken Death”
Chinatown, NW Portland
 

Nov – The Carnival Drive-In Restaurant
SW Sam Jackson Parkway

December – Rusty Nails, Human Cannonball – G’ Bye Folks!

I have bounced in a number of directions as to what this blog should be about and came up with this. Portland stories. Just that, stories about life or an incident that sets its feet firmly on Portland soil. So I’ll start things off with this one, and this one is an honest to god Portland event.

In 1978 my dad worked for Western Airlines (dead memory). Dad had called home to say that he was staying late at work, a plane was having trouble dropping its landing gear and it might have to make a crash landing. I turned on the news, and it was on every channel, all four of them. Flight 173 had been told by the PDX control tower to circle the airport until a suitable solution became apparent. A suitable solution never became apparent.

My father, when he chose to speak, could not be faulted for his wit, and he knew everything about air travel, and I mean everything. So I believed him every time he said arbitrary things like, (pointing to an airplane high in the sky) “See that plane, Kevin? That’s a Hughes Airwest 737 (dead memory) coming from Seattle and heading to…um…Ixtapa, Mexico.” I’m not so gullible now, but I have to say that I’ve tried the same trick on my five year old nephew, and it works.

Anyway I had gotten good at recognizing airline travel paths and was sure that my sister and I could track down flight 173 from Denver to Portland. I leapt into action. I turned to my sister and said, “We are going to find that airplane.”
And find it we did.

It’s December, it’s raining. I’m aboard my green metal-flaked Schwinn bike. I’m soaking wet. I’m fourteen years old, and my posse (my eleven year old sister Cheri and three or four other kids her age) and I are tracking an airplane that is doomed to crash less than 200 yards in front of us.

Under the direction of PDX, flight 173 began to circle at about 5,000 feet in a triangular pattern twenty miles southeast of the airport.

We lived on 162nd and NE Everett Ct. The beast touched ground in the intersection of 162nd and Burnside.

6:15 PM we turned the corner of Everett and 162nd and were heading south towards Burnside. As I said, it had begun to rain, hell it was December, and we were all soaked to the skin by the time the big bird came down, smack-dab into the center of our white, middle-class neighborhood (dead memory). We collectively watched in horror as the speck in the sky became a three-story building falling to earth.

It was the loudest sound I’d ever heard; it was the loudest sound I never heard. All sound was sucked away, and everything went to slow motion. I could see the panicked faces of the passengers through the windows of the plane while strobe-like cabin lights flashed on and off and the plane zoomed past us on Burnside through the miraculously empty (at rush hour) intersection.

A wing takes out a couple of power poles, and the sound comes back. Power-lines snap on the wet pavement, and the big bird is gone. Things quiet for a moment; then I hear the screaming. Fourteen-year-old science tells me that live wires and wet is intrinsically dangerous. I tell my sister and her friends to go home. They do. I take a trail into the woods (dead memory) and watch for hours. The emergency vehicles arrive. The bodies are carried away. The injured are tended to, and I watch. Out of 189 on board, 10 die, and 24 are seriously hurt. It changed me. Lesson learned. Mortality is real.
It was the loudest sound I’d ever heard; it was the loudest sound I never heard.