I was last in Portland in the summer of 1965. At the time, it was a vibrant, prosperous and safe city.
I was stationed at Fort Lewis 1966 & thought of moving to Portland after my service. Glad I didn’t.
Not anymore. Call it Seattle South.
I was last stayed within Portland city limits in 2013 for the 38th Annual Military Vehicles Preservation Association Convention. We stayed in sort of a seedy motel near the horse racing track. It felt like an area that you wouldn’t want to leave valuables or a gun unattended in your car for very long, but it wasn’t particularly scary feeling. And the food at the Elmer’s Restaurant next door wasn’t too bad.
My wife normally puts on a display and does a presentation for the 8th Air Force Association for their 1st quarter meeting. We were actually scheduled for that event yesterday but had an unavoidable conflict come up.
There are a lot of good conservative people in Portland. Unfortunately, they are outnumbered by the leftist nutballs. Still Portland is not like East LA where if you get lost you can end up in some pretty scary situations.
One of my friends was telling me how he grew up in a scary inner city. So I asked him where that was. When he said Portland Oregon. I couldn’t help myself, I just started laughing. This was in the 1960s. But he told me stories of problems he faced growing up that most of us would not normally associate with Portland Oregon during that time period.