The Portland Years (part 1)

When I was in my early twenties, I had an epiphany whilst shoveling snow:  I don't have to live in Minnesota where it snows 6 months of the year.  I eventually came to realize that this was wanderlust as much as anything;  I need to live somewhere new and experience something new.  I first looked to the East coast cities (New York, Boston, etc.) but thought better about it when I researched cost of living.  Also, still have to deal with snow. Changing my sites to the West coast, I identified Seattle as my choice of new cities (this was, after all, right as grunge was starting to break).  As fate would have it, our friend and co-worker from the Dakota, Maureen, had decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest where she had been raised.  She had settled in Portland and in the summer of '92 I took a road trip with three friends (well, two friends and one "other" - the story of the trip could be its own blog post) to visit her and use the opportunity to hop up to Seattle for some research.

We ended up having a really great visit and saw so much of Portland and the surrounding areas that even though I really liked Seattle when we visited, I felt at home in Portland.  I spent a year working my butt off (I took every shift I could including lots of catering work on the side) and in the early summer of '93, Kristina and I moved to Portland.

First priorities were to find a job and to find a place to live.  Since I had a good amount saved I focused on the apartment search*.  We wanted something that was in Southeast Portland (which is where Maureen lived) because we liked the funky flavor and there were cool places available for pretty cheap.  What we ended up with was so awesome I ended up staying for four years.  It was right above a record store (I had always wanted to live above a shop front, it seemed so urban) and right in the heart of SE.  Some people expressed concern about the neighborhood but whatever the rep it had before we moved there, it felt safe when we were there.

Anyway, the place was huge with tons of windows and beautiful, just re-done, wood floors.  Here are a few snaps:

The main living area. 
The adjacent dining room.

Awesome back deck (Hi, Donna!).


Kristina and I lived there on our own for the first few months before I met Ned.  We dated for a couple of years and he moved in shortly after we met.  She stayed for a year and when she left, much to my chagrin, we needed to find a third roomie because Ned, being a student, couldn't afford half the rent.  So we found Mike which was a really lucky break.  Mike was a friend of a friend and was moving to Portland from Las Vegas.

We had a great place for parties and we had people over all the time.  And in all the years I lived there there rent only went up by $75.  When I moved in it was all of $550 per month. 

Built in buffet dressed for Autumn brunch.

The friends gather.  I can only name half the people shown here.  And I'm one of them!

Only know one of three here (Hi, Amy D!).

Eventually I found a job waiting tables (my experience at The Dakota turned out to be helpful as the assistant manager was from the Twin Cities and knew that if I worked there I could certainly sling hash - he literally pulled my resume from the trash heap) at a breakfast and lunch place called Zell's.  While the food there was great for what it was, and I made plenty of cash to get by, it was the connections I made that turned out to be the true benefit.  Along with two of my co-workers, I helped create and open a new restaurant called Wild Abandon.  That, however, is a blog post for another time.


*As an aside, related to finding a job, I feel so lucky to have been young at a time when the country was doing well and was full of optimism (we had Bill Clinton!).  There's no way I would consider moving halfway across the country without a job waiting for me in the new city in this day and age, but back then?  It didn't seem like a problem to hop in the car and go.  And, naturally, we found jobs almost as soon as we started looking.