CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

  I  stood looking at the wedge shaped piers that held the Fremont bridge in place. Only the industrial land beyond. You could hear the traffic above and feel bridge moving to balance it all. It was the farthest place you could walk in Portland, Slabtown they called it. Laying between the tree lined NW district and the river, west of the tony Pearl District. The long walk from downtown left one tired, but happy for it. The Cities unfinished edges were here. The walls not yet sanded and painted nice into restaurants and shops. The name, Slabtown, coming from the discarded pieces of wood after the sawing of timber. The city left unfinished space here, perhaps to sort out what it had done. Space to pause, reflect and think. There were already the first signs of development attempt. The Montgomery Ward building, came and went quickly. The rest of the district still just torn edges. The walls carrying half messages, scrapes and it’s own form of art. I turned to look at the bridge...

  New horizons rise on the hopes of a small town. Murals are painted on the wall, history brought back, small shops reopen. But, not all horizons last, the town slowly falling back to the way it was. Still it has stories to tell if you listen and colors rich if you stop. I wandered the streets, hearing soft jazz coming from around the corner. I did not need to turn and look. It was Terry who fixed things and detailed cars, a personality that knew no small town bounds. Still he stayed here mated with the way of life, still looking for horizons...

Frank wore worn blue overalls, his strength defied his older years. Most just knew him as the metal man who owned a scrap yard under the freeway. The yard full of metal, some in barrels, leaned against the wall and larger pieces on the ground. They came from every source imaginable, dismantled ships, demolished buildings and factories gone.  He grew accustomed to the roughness of the material and his life, even fond enough to attach a name to some of iron pieces. Names like waterfall, desert lines, sand storm. He sold the iron to scrap buyers, contractors, architects and the occasional artists. Frank favored them the most. Their study of the metal pieces led him to think they saw the same specialness in them that he did. Frank kept to himself aside from the occasional stop for a beer at Stellas. Most evenings he would head back to the small house on the River. The one with the garden in back. His wife gone from the cancer five years now. Still he worked each evening in her gard...