Portland, Oregon

My boyhood home

I was born in Portland, Oregon, in the era when streetcars still covered the city and the
tallest building was the Power and Light building. I went to Catlin-Hillside, a private elementary school for nine years in northwest Portland, torn down long ago.

It survives as the highly regarded and very expensive Catlin Gabel School. Today, were I to send a grandchild there for nine years the tuition would be $150,705.

I went to Lincoln High. You can reach the alumni registry through this link. I went for three years in the building which is now Portland State, and was in the first graduating class of the "new" Lincoln on Salmon Street. I had the usual kid jobs, delivering papers, and parked cars on what was the Farmers Market Building, on the river, before it became the Portland Journal Building and was then torn down. As a child, I visited the battleship Oregon before it was scrapped. Now all that's left is the mast, near where the Journal Building was. I went to movies at the Paramount, the United Artist, the Music Box, the Mayfair, the Newsreel and Blue Mouse theaters. I ate at the Original Coney Island, which had the best hot dogs and french fries in the world, I've since discovered.

I worked as an assistant window dresser at Nicholas Ungar's, an upscale women's store, on Broadway just two doors down from a little shoe store called Nordstrom's. Little did I know; it was 1953. I also worked for a time as a deckhand on a large tugboat (an LST cut in half) for the Russell Barge Line on the Columbia River. A good and unforgettable experience.

I went to college at Grinnell, Iowa, at a time when men and women lived on separate campuses, no alcohol was allowed, and we couldn't own a car until our senior year. I was an English Literature major, and active in theatre. Walter Koenig was a student when I was there, but he was in only one production before he took off for Hollywood and fame as Ensign Chekov on Star Trek. I was also in Air Force ROTC which was mandatory for the first two years (I told you it was a long time ago). I stayed in ROTC and went into the Air Force.

My graduation picture at Grinnell.

For more about my Air Force career, click here.

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18 January 2008