Featured Story

Citywide: Integrity Testing In The GIMITY Lane

Told by ParatransitTodd

As a recovering Californian, I was pleased to discover evidence of actual honor among drivers up here that is substantially lacking south of the border. In the Bay Area, Darwinism is applied directly to etiquette on the highways and never will you find a scenario where a lane which is soon to end is unoccupied. Down there, they stack up from past the end of the dividing line.

Latest Stories

Southwest: Washington Park
Told by Peter B Barker

We all lived near Washington Park, and our growing up was in great part attached to the park. The first I can really remember of the park was when my brother broke his arm on the swings.

Downtown: Love On The Tide
Told by Jim Sinclair

The Cold War was raging, the hot war in Viet Nam was not yet to a boil, and the Rose Festival Fleet numbered over 20 ships. We were young in years and yet on the trailing edge of the pre-hippy generation.

Downtown: Square Bubbles
Told by Paul Turner

We often make the urban pilgrimage to Portland where my wife loves to shop at Nordstrom. I, however, am more comfortable waiting across the street in Pioneer Courthouse Square, watching the cross-section of humanity in flux at this crossroads of city buses. Many of these people are aloofly itinerant, transferring from one bus to the next. Others seem to take up residence on the brick square.

Southwest: Terrorist Attack In Burlingame!
Told by Jessica Sweeney

In May 2001, my husband and I moved from our cramped apartment on Vista Avenue, near NW 23rd, to the family-friendly Burlingame neighborhood in SW Portland. Although we were sad to say goodbye to the happening-hipster feel of our old downtown 'hood, we were ready to start a family and move on to the next stage in our lives. We bought a station wagon, loaded up a moving van and headed for Burlingame.

In Transit: Double Shot
Told by Kathleen

William hurt. He walked in impeccably dressed, but with a sadness about him I recognized as a long night spent drinking or not drinking, and wanting to. Or maybe he was having a tedious morning on the phone but not really talking to anyone. No one had asked him what he'd dreamt about, or remarked how everything tastes better with pineapple. Maybe the day was simply slipping away from him before he had his morning coffee. "Double shot, please."

Northeast: Old Hollywood Theatre Trained For Mickey Mouse Club
Told by Leo Campbell

In about 1957 when I was 12 years old, you could go to the Hollywood Theatre at 10 am. You got in for 25 cents, it was one big theatre area, and it soon filled up with kids.

Southeast: A Walk Between Storms
Told by MissKris

I'm definitely a sunshine/hot weather/sitting out on the porch freak, but there's something about the storms of November that urge me outside.

Downtown: City Dive Hotel And The Season For Frenzy
Told by Lex Loeb

This is a second hand story. I do not live in a flop house in downtown portland and never did. Well maybe for a couple of days in the distant past but nothing like the one in this story.

Southeast: The Canvasser
Told by The One True b!X

So a canvasser for Defending Oregon was methodically dialing apartments on the call box at the door to my apartment building at the tail end of a long day.

Site News

News: 'Portland Stories' In The Paper Today
Posted on November 17, 2006

In today's edition of The Oregonian, Steve Woodward names Portland Stories the website of the week. His article appears in full at the bottom of the Living section, and details a bit of what appeared here when the site launched in 2001 under the original auspices of Stephen Voss, from whom I took over the site just under a year ago.

Credits

Masthead photograph provided by Portland Ground. St. Johns Bridge by Old Sarge. Hollywood Theater by Peter Merholz. Cinema 21 by Nicole Martin. Peacock by Stuart Seeger. Design inspired by Urban Sprawl from dreamLogic. Powered by Movable Type. For further information see About Portland Stories.

Maintained and edited by The One True b!X, who tells these stories: The Canvasser, The Distressed Cat That Wasn't, The Saga Of Agitated Man, Santarchy Now, M. On The #75.

There is no Portland Stories without you, so learn how to Share Your Story. Above all else, be honest, because the best stories are the ones that are true. If you have no stories to tell, but you've been eavesdropping, check out the unaffiliated Overheard in PDX.

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