Portland's Lost Waterfront

I needed to get this done so I could spend more time on my newest book (due in March). I still don't feel like publicizing the topic, since it is a little weird for me to show interest in such goings on. So, I wanted a string band, or a jug band, or a skiffle band to help me along, but instead it did it myself. I didn't practice, I just did it, and recorded it--in spite of having shattered my wrist some time back, and severing my left rotator cuff a few months ago, and having not sung since my early forties. Now I will stop making excuses and cough up the details. The new video: How the Flying Prince Got its Crew, has been uploaded and can now be viewed here:  For those wishing to sing along, here are the lyrics: The Ballad of the Flying Prince Come gather round you Portland boys And I will sing to you, How that low down Bunko Kelly Got the Flying Prince her crew. The ship was moored at Ainsworth Dock For six long weeks and more, Loading sacks of golden ...

In the days when the telegraph was the primary medium of information exchange there would be, in certain cities, saloons with names like, "The Turf Exchange" where bets could be placed on far off horse races. The sportsmen would then sit around smoking cigars and drinking until the results arrived via Western Union. As I was researching details on my latest book, my eyes happened to light on the following news item in the Morning Oregonian from October 16, 1883, which has to be one of the earliest instances of hacking for profit that I have seen: STILL A MYSTERY New York, Oct. 14. --The tapping of the wires of the Western Union Saturday, by means of which bogus dispatches were sent all over the country, announcing false results of the Jerome park races, and through which nearly $100,000 was lost by pool sellers throughout the United States, remains as much of a mystery as ever.

 --This is another in the continuing story of my adventures in the grain trade.-- Into the 1980s the Portland grain docks would occasionally see an old steamship. Only an expert in maritime finance could explain the reasons why these straggling vessels were still at work and not turned to scrap. But I do happen to know that at that time the U.S. Congress mandated that 25% of the grain that the U.S. was giving away to places like Egypt and Pakistan must be carried aboard American vessels. I assume that many a mothballed ship waiting for the scrap heap was brushed and polished and put into action at that time. . That was before Jimmy Carter embargoed the U.S.S.R. over its invasion of Afghanistan, when the Soviets and all the rest of the world were beating a path to Pacific Northwest ports to load up with grain. Wheat, barley, sorghum, corn (but mostly wheat) was coming into the elevators in anything that would carry it. I have seen belt unloading potato trucks and open top coal car...

I have been away from my beloved blog for many days. The story of why would be boring for you to hear, and painful for me to tell (involves--among other things--a new, titanium knee). So here, then, by way of apology: On Hawthorne Lane I have left my garden to grow alone, Like the god of the Unitarians, For you see, my dears, I have been away For a rest in the sanitarium. & while I was there I met a man, Who spoke of Joachim Miller, When Mount Hood was just a hole. He was a crazy kind of feller. There was an English lass—a faded rose— She said her name was “Lizzy,”    She had a heart of earth wrapped up in stone, But she’s still God’s little missy. There were dark men on shadowy stairs Ashamed to show their faces. So we kept the gaslights turned down low, One of life’s redeeming graces. The sun outside was mostly veiled, When the...

I spend more time reading old newspapers than anything else. I suppose I should moderate my obsession  at some point, but I keep being rewarded with stories that unfold in my imagination in a way that is better than watching Netflix. Today I read an account of an sailor with great memories of Portland. He was Commander Fairweather, an old salt who had risen in the ranks of the Royal Navy and was then retired and living in house on a high cliff overlooking the Land's End near the fishing village of  Sennen Cove. Here he was introduced to some visitors from Portland, Oregon, one of them a reporter who jotted down some tales from Fairweather's days as a merchant sailor. Sennen Cove, Atlantic Cable Crossing Why, I remember Portland quite well. I was second mate on the Dunbritton in '97 (how many old-timers remember her?) sailing out of Rotterdam to Java, where we took on the first load of kapok that was ever shipped--90 tones of it--for Melbourne and Newcastle. New...