I'm Here For All The Neighborhood Tours
Here's mine, in northwest Portland
I would totally lead a cat tour of my neighborhood
Imagine my excitement when I read about this guy in Minneapolis who started a cat tour of his neighborhood. What began as a goofy idea grew into a wildly popular community happening in which:
We’re about to take a 2 mile walk around the neighborhood in order to look at some cats. They will be in windows, on porches, and in other spots nobody could have predicted. Many of these cats are pre-registered and expecting us. Some of them have no idea we’re coming and will take us by surprise.
I love this beyond measure and immediately thought of the cats I’d include on a tour of my neighborhood, including that beautiful longhaired grey cat who comes and goes from a basement window and has never so much as looked in my direction, and those two cats who lounge in a window down the street, apparently all day and all night, and kind of wink at you when you walk by, like they’ve discovered the secret to a happy life and now you know it, too.
But what other kind of neighborhood tour could I offer? Here are my ideas:
Telephone pole tour
We have some fine telephone pole art in our neighborhood. Portlanders still believe that the best way to promote anything, from a podcast to their band’s next gig to a tutoring service, is to put up a good old-fashioned flyer on a telephone pole. People staple their artwork, including actual paintings and sculpture, to telephone poles, and put up the most ridiculous missing pet fliers you’ve ever seen. (One flier, featuring a photo of a fierce-looking tomcat who, we were told, answers to Chakra, led me to think, “That cat isn’t lost. That cat left.”)
I would take you to all the best telephone poles and we would admire not only the new arrivals, but the weird collage of burned and rain-soaked remnants that are their own art form.
Tour of places where things used to be
I’m sure everyone has a tour like this. Why are we driven to tell people, on their first visit to our hometown, about all the places that used to be here? The better places, the ones they missed?
Everyone in my neighborhood stops their visitors at the end of my street, where a construction worker hit a gas line and the explosion blew two buildings to smithereens but miraculously thanks to the efforts of fast-moving firefighters and other public servants, killed no one. A fantastic old Victorian that had been carved up into tiny awesome shops (including a bagel shop that I miss desperately) was completely destroyed. Across the street, the building-in-progress was blown up and construction started over.
My addendum to this story is that before the building-in-progress went up (it’s an RH, which is a bloated, bland, soulless showroom of obscenely-priced sofas), something much better stood on that corner: a Plaid Pantry.
Plaid Pantry is a Portland-based convenience store chain. Is there anything more convenient than a convenience store at the end of your block? No, there is not.
Are you out of milk? Plaid Pantry. Do you have a last-minute need for batteries, toothpaste, tampons, or cat food? Plaid Pantry’s got you covered. Did your mom run out of cigarettes? Did you forget to buy your lottery ticket? Beer run? Bag of ice? Plaid Pantry. Do you have the munchies? Welllll…
….Let me introduce you to Plaid Pantry’s remarkable candy program, in which they not only offer deeply discounted or free Snickers bars and the like—but they also get limited runs of new candies the purveyors of sugar are trying out. No fanfare, no big deal, just sometimes you pop into a Plaid Pantry and there’s a weird new kind of M&Ms at the counter that you may never see again. It’s like a portal to another dimension, a wormhole into other, better, different candy.
I am forever furious that Plaid Pantry had to give way to a big dumb overpriced sofa store, because how many sofas will I ever buy, compared to how often I’d buy EVERYTHING at a Plaid Pantry.
Oh, and in the parking lot of that Plaid Pantry? A little local flower shop. Also gone.
Maybe this is really a tour of Amy’s Outrages. I’m sure you’re all eager to sign up.
The swifts of Chapman Elementary
Longtime readers of this newsletter know that every September, a migratory population of Vaux’s swifts descend upon an enormous unused chimney at the local elementary school. Their dramatic nightly dive into the chimney draws a crowd: we all bring our lawn chairs and our snacks and we cheer the swifts on and boo at the hawk that hangs around to snatch one out of the sky for dinner. This spectacle lasts about a month, until they head south for the winter. (I’ve written about them here and here.)
I walk over to watch the swifts as often as I can in September. If you happen to come into town when the swifts are around, this will definitely be on the tour, probably more than once.
What’s on your walking tour?
Tell me about the very particular walking tour you’d give of your neighborhood, and I’ll pick a winner and make a silly little illustration of that thing and mail it to you.
I’m giving a virtual talk next week
The Arnold Arboretum has invited me to give a live virtual talk about my new book, The Tree Collectors, and I’d love it if you’d join us. August 20 at 7 PM Eastern. Register right here.
Hey look, I made a survey
Would you like to take a survey? It’s just a chance to talk about yourself, and who doesn’t like that? Substack created these readers’ surveys and I changed all the questions and made them more interesting. No pressure, no hidden agenda, this is just for fun! I’ll report back on the results.
Supporters of this newsletter are painting WATER
Hey, wanna keep a sketchbook? For much less than the price of a sofa at RH, you can have very simple art lessons sent to your inbox weekly, and you get access to the full archive right here, plus the satisfaction of supporting this little operation. This week, by popular request, we’re painting WATER and it feels GOOD!
The Bit at the End
Order a SIGNED copy of my new book, The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession, from Broadway Books in Portland, OR.
Come find me on Instagram, or see paintings for sale- Right here
Order signed copies of some of my books from my husband’s bookstore, or order my books and many books I love at Bookshop.org
Take one of my online writing or art classes here
Leave a comment! I love to hear from you!
My neighborhood is what you might call depressed, which is depressing. But hidden away across the main drag is a fire road. This is where the goat/horse/other critter tour begins. First is a field of goats and sheep. Then a yard that sometimes contains a horse that has little braids in its mane. Then, a ways down, a flock of peafowl fluttering around a parking lot. Soon, we reach a proper trail, at the head of which is another field of goats watched over by a single horse. The trail passes little ranches. Sometimes we'll see goats and their kids hopping around with endless energy. More sheep, with a single alpaca. A horse and a donkey who are lifelong friends. Then, the best part of the tour, the horse rescue. This is a ranch full of horses who have been saved from malnutrition or worse. Signs on the fence say not to feed them, that they're on a special diet. We will just marvel at their beauty, check on the ones who last time were too skinny, and feel relieved all over again that they are somewhere safe where they're getting the care they deserve.
That is utterly fascinating, and makes me want to do a sketch tour plus walking tour. I think I would love to do one of the free libraries in my neighborhood, and another for bus stops.