David Matthews Portable Bohemia

Oregon City is about an hour and ten minutes south of my residence near Laurelhurst Park. I took the number 75 bus down 39th (Caesar Chavez Blvd) to Milwaukie, then the 33 McLouglin to Oregon City. The trip is anything but scenic, especially the stretch along McLouglin Boulevard, a wasteland of car dealerships, fast food joints, strip shopping centers, and at least one adult entertainment establishment that caught my eye when I looked up from my book, H.D.F. Kitto's The Greek

Lents International is Portland's only internationally focused farmers market, offering fresh produce from Hmong, Latino, and Russian farmers. Open Sundays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. June through October, the market is located on SE 92nd Avenue a block north of Zoiglhaus Brewing Company. It is an easy shot up Foster on the 14 Hawthorne bus. The market is small but lively and inviting. A few people were already on the scene checking out produce and flowers and hitting the Dovetail Coffe

I took the MAX east to the end of the line and landed in Gresham for a bit of flâneuring on an afternoon that lent itself to it. Octoberish light, softened since summer's end, played on the dazzle of the season's leaves gone yellow-gold, ochre, maple red. Nothing in particular drew me there beyond beyond the perhaps curious fact that I had not ventured that way before despite having resided in Portland some eighteen years. Historic Downtown Gresham lies way the heck beyond th

Yesterday afternoon I took the number 14 bus deep into the heart of Lents, almost to the end of the line at SE Foster and 94th. At first blush the heart of Lents did not offer much. In fairness I made only a cursory walking tour of the business district without venturing into the surrounding residential neighborhood. In typical Matthewsian fashion I set out on something of an impulse upon finding myself at loose ends and with an urge to be out and about after a productive mor