Bonjour! No, wait. That was nine time zones ago. Um, Howdy! Here’s the reappearance of the wandering Drip for Tuesday, September 3, 2019! We’re all taking a cold plunge back into the swift waters of reality today. Schools in Beaverton, Tigard, Gresham, Hillsboro, Oregon City, and lots of other towns are ringing the beckoning bells for the first time, just as Portland and Vancouver did last week. So watch for lurching buses and sugared kids and time-stressed carpool parents, and folks like me who may not remember how to do whatever the heck it is we do. Portland’s weather will be sunny with highs of 80, once the morning clouds boil off. Sunrise comes at 6:34 AM, and sunset goes at 7:44 PM.
First thing: an update on Hurricane Dorian, which is imperiling a good section of the American map. As of this morning, the storm’s been slightly demoted to Category Three, with winds whipping at 125 MPH, and it’s still nearly stalled over the Bahamas, where at least 5 are known dead. It’ll begin its march up the Southeast US coast today; there are hurricane warnings from Jacksonville north. I know that a number of our Daily Drip community have family members in the hurricane zone, and we send our very best wishes to your loved ones. Keep us up to date, please?
Found alive!–a 59-year-old California man who came to Oregon for his daughter’s wedding, then wandered off his brother’s Polk County property and got lost a week ago on a Christmas tree farm. Some farmers found him yesterday morning, dehydrated but in good spirits. He survived by eating berries.
This is the first working morning of some changes to TriMet’s schedules, like bumping all MAX trains two minutes later, to somehow improve connections with the struggling WES. The downtown end of bus 19, which gets tangled up in traffic snaking onto the Ross Island Bridge, is shifting off the Sheridan Curves (did you know they had a name?) and onto SW Lincoln. Several lines have added weekend operations, and a handful have minor adjustments to speed things along.
We’ve learned that Newport’s Undersea Garden is shutting down. That’s the one where the people are behind glass, underwater, and the fish are outside looking in at us aghast, no doubt, having read the news.
The Eagle Creek fire started on this date in 2017. A whole bunch of hikers were trapped on a trail when the kid torched the Gorge, and they were led out on this day two years ago.
Nice to see that Channel 6 is back on DirecTV. Hi, Jeff and Jennifer! Hi, Sixty Minutes! Now, come on DirecTV suits, get us the Pac 12 network already. KOIN-TV, by the way, just started playing the Star-Spangled Banner at the beginning of its local programming day, at 3:59 AM, on orders of its parent company. It’ll be performed by “emerging artists.”
Look who’s at the Sunlight Supply Amphitheater in Ridgefield tonight: Heart! Seattle’s Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy, have reunited after a squabble between inlaws in 2016.
Happy birthday to Portland native Damon Stoudamire, the hometown hero of the Portland Trailblazers who veered from the path during the weedy Jail Blazer days, but is now a respected Division I head coach for the men’s basketball team at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. He’s 46 today.
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So what good news can I find? And do I remember how to post the links in the Coffee Cup?
–“Oregon Woman Turns School Buses Into Tiny Homes for Working Homeless Families”
–“Jonas Brothers surprise fan in hospital after she missed concert for chemotherapy treatment”
–“Stranger Buys Shoes For Kid After Overhearing Single Mom’s Conversation”
–“Officer searching for teen after witnessing his incredible act of kindness”
–“Washing Machines Are Learning to Play the Harp”
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It almost feels good to be awake before dawn on Pacific time and writing the Drip and getting set for a morning on the radio with my partners Bruce and Janine! I’ve had my fill of faraway travel for a while. Eternal flights, customs hassles…and though the river cruise experience is relaxing and interesting, we’ve been mainly hanging out with Americans for the last couple of weeks. I wore a Portland Timbers cap with a T on the front, and people looked at me curiously. What does that T stand for? One winegrower in France looked at me directly as he told our group to tell our president that climate change is real, and it’s hurting his vineyards. I ended up accidentally leaving the cap on the Lyon-to-Paris TGV. I really love lurking around foreign lands, we’ve covered a ton of them, treading historic ground, meditating in musty old churches with heavenly stained glass, sipping wine over timeless afternoons in quaint cafes, people-watching in the town square and chatting in broken high-school French with local folks whose facility with language isn’t confined to their own native tongues. We’ll do it again! But not for…maybe a year.
Portland's Daily Drip 