Remembering Portland

(Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Southern Cross. This came in later years but one of my CSNY favorites.)
I've been thinking about our time in Portland lately. Especially my flights back and forth from SeaTac to the Portland Airport. Even after we had later flown all over the country, there was never a more beautiful trip than from Seattle to Portland, flying above unbelievable white clouds, you could see the snow covered tops of the three mountains. I remember listening to CSNY and Steve Miller on those flights through the stereo headset provided (my first real listen with a headset), looking down at the mountain tops, so out of sync with my old life, scared to death of not knowing where I was headed, in my new life.

On one trip I came off the plane into the Portland Airport (I remember I had on zebra print high heel knee boots, and a mini-skirt with a matching sweater, OMG what was I thinking?) to find you cooly leaning up against the escalator rail twirling something around on a shiny silver chain. A necklace for me. Most people who knew you then would never believe what a corny romantic you were and I ate it up.

We spent a lot of time in Portland and traveling back and forth from Portland to Seattle. Those trips by car brought some of our most serious discussions about our situation and some of our most trying times.

I remember one trip in almost complete silence because you got mad at me for something and wouldn't talk to me (a regular occurrence in the early years). I broke the silence by asking you if you wanted a Wintergreen Life Saver and you wouldn't answer. Thirty minutes later you said "Give me a Life Saver." I had to answer with "Oh crap, I ate all of them." You said "You ate a whole damn roll of Wintergreen Life Savers?" And then we both just burst out laughing.

Of course there was the famous short cut during that period, where I talked you into going over one of the passes to get to Seattle and the one and a half lane road was snow and ice packed with a 9000 foot drop off on one side. I finally said "You better stop where you can and put your chains on." Chains? You didn't have any chains in your trunk, you were from Alabama.

What I remember most about Portland is the night before I left to go to Salt Lake City for the company. We went to a very nice restaurant for dinner, had a table next to the fireplace and I cried all through dinner and couldn't eat anything, because of course I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again.

In those early times it seems our relationship had nine lives. The times we thought we would have to call it quits were too many. I know we were meant to be, because God brought us together and kept us together.

Portland was good.



Tweet