Hey, kids, shake it loose together–it’s Friday, yes Friday! And beyond that–we’re at the edge of June! Today is May 31, 2019, with a customary gray morning following by sunbeams full-dazzling in the afternoon, and highs of 78. Nice! Sunrise 5:26 AM, sunset 8:51 PM.
Downtown Portland’s biggest food cart pod, at SW 10th and Alder, is weeks away from closing–to make way for construction of a hotel. Vendors were given word yesterday they have until June 30th to pack up and leave.
PSU students are being told to be on alert for a guy trying to record peeping-tom videos of people on stairwells.
Two Tigard 5th-graders, a boy and a girl, have been found safe, hours after they ran away from the Twality Middle School track yesterday afternoon.
Break out the sparkly clothes and the sidewalk chalk…the Starlight Parade is tomorrow night! A third of a million people form the crowd Rose Festival organizers are ready for, and they’re damn good at running parades. Tomorrow night, Bruce, Janine, and I will be strapped into the K103 float, and, well…there’s a plan…who knows what will happen? And when you see members of the One More Time Around Again Marching Band holding up the peace sign…true Portlanders know what’s coming!
And…while we’re thundering down 4th and up Broadway…the Portland Timbers and their Army in green will be tearing the shrinkwrap off their better-than-new home stadium in a 7:30 PM match against Los Angeles FC. Along with thousands of new seats on the field’s 18th Avenue side, other amenities include dramatically-expanded food offerings at last year’s prices, renovated restrooms, hundreds of TV screens so you won’t miss the action if you make a dash for the loo or the sudsmonger, and closed-captioning of the PA announcements. By the way, any fan wearing Timbers gear who attends CityFair after the match will get free admission!
Then the Portland Thorns home opener in that very same stadium–which their players describe as “a work of art”–is 3 pm Sunday against Chicago.
The Oregon State Beavers, led by the best player in college baseball and surefire #1 draft pick Adley Rutschman, begin their playoff run tonight at 7 against Cincinnati in Corvallis, which is hosting a regional tournament. And…the college football openers are exactly three months away.
Toronto wins Game One of the NBA Finals….
Hey Portland folks, have you been around long enough to remember when the new Oregon license plates were blue on gold, and the Portland Trail Blazers connected with every one of us through the jungle drum of an AM radio? Who could ever forget Bill Schonely performing like a Pavarotti on a stage, leading us swooning and exultant with every fast break, every turnover, every Rip City Baby? Well, those gold plates are long gone, but Bill Schonely’s voice is still powerful and his eyes sharp as a hawk’s, as he turns 90 years old tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Bill Schonely!
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By the way..we hear that when the Navy Fleet arrives in Portland next Thursday, there will a spectacular downtown Navy jet flyover by four Growlers from Whidbey Island.
Latest from the Fun Center on the Potomac…this tweet from POTUS has sent Dow futures plunging hundreds of points….”On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase [to 25% on October 1] until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied.” That’ll raise prices Americans pay on anything from Mexico…avocadoes…cars..
The TSA tallied up all the loose change they collected last year from travelers forgetting them in the checkpoint buckets at airports around the US–and it totals almost million bucks! Portland’s total was a little over $8000.
There’s a tricked-out jet black Camaro prowling the Portland streets with a Batman logo in place of the Chevy bowtie, and the vanity plate is PDXBAT.
Concert announcement…Melissa Etheridge will play Ilani on July 31. Tickets go on sale at 10 this morning.
The Elton John movie that producers hope will be this year’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” opens wide tonight.
True story: Composer Jimmy Webb’s wife was out for a bike ride in the country the other day, and she discovered, by the side of the road, that someone had actually left a cake out in the rain. Oh noooo!
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Stories to hit the F5 key on your spirits…
–“Baby in her arms, mom jumps from 2nd floor to escape raging fire”
–“Barbershop Owner Pays Off Debts for 14 Students So They Can Graduate”
–“The BBC covers a Portland man who creates wooden cutouts and hides them around town for folks to find.”
–“Faculty members tie the knot in gym on last day of school”
–“Bride Has Her Bridesmaids Carry Adoptable Shelter Dogs Down the Aisle Instead of Bouquets”
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“Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.”
“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.”
“Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.”
“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”
—Walt Whitman, who was born 200 years ago today.
Portland's Daily Drip 