afraid to show himself. He still makes up his world as he goes along. My most treasured memory is of Clark dancing naked around a November morning fire, camped hunting elk in the Grande Ronde River canyon over in the northeast corner of Oregon. He’d just gotten up, and he ran out to the fire to warm up, utterly unabashed in his skin, big chest tapering toward the ankles, swinging his arms about and blowing frost. Father Christmas without the red longjohns. To tell the truth, I was stunned to learn Clark was willing to give up his sweet life to offer himself to politics. My image of Bud at his happiest is hosing maple leaves off the Goose parking lot, smiling in short pants, content in golden autumn. I’ve seen Bud as close as any but John Forsstrom, his best pal and business partner, or Sigrid, his symphony violinist, antique shop owner, tough-head wife. I remember Bud’s boyish, winning face from high school, when he and Joel and Frank were cheerleaders their junior year. He was in Hi-Y at Lincoln, the best club then. All the rich kids from Portland Heights belonged. Clark may have been the poor latch-key boy who had to stoke the apartment house boiler in the morning before he went off to school, but he hung around with the in-crowd once he got there. You’ll already have read that he tried Vanport College and Oregon State briefly, then joined the Marines for the Korean War. Perhaps his being a jarhead but never having to kill anybody is important. On the tavern matches there’s always been a slogan about fighting with words, not fists, “...dedicated to extremes of opinion hoping that a liveable marriage will result. If physical violence is your nature either develop your verbal.ability or leave.’’ Yet, I’ve seen Clark physically throw guys out of the place. Peacefulness and a temper vie in that chest. After the Marines he worked for a ship chandler, went to Reed for a couple of years, tried this, tried that, ran away from home once, got married, was an exterminator for an outfit called Doc Kilzum, worked as a waiter at Jerry's Gables, started his own exterminator outfit (called it Aardvark). Finally he and Joanne opened the Spatenhaus. Right away the place picked up a fine city-wide clientele. Beards rubbing elbows and ideas with suit-and-briefcase types, thus creating the best graffiti in town, a lot of good-looking men and women flowing through and the regulars trolling for whatever interested them, sex or money, arguments or ideas. Bums and brahmin from all over Stumptown. When the city notified him they were turning his block into the Forecourt Fountain, Clark agonized for months over where to move. He asked everyone, consulted us Ijke sages, then bought the joint he’d wanted in the first place, Ann’s Tavern up under Suicide Bridge in Goose Hollow, a somewhat overlooked clot of old houses and low rent just west of downtown, snuggled against the green mother hills, nuzzling the cleft of Tanner Creek Canyon. A little two-room shanty with a leaky roof—Clark and I spent a lot of rainy hours on that damn roof—and plenty of free parking. When he moved, his clientele moved with him. He lost no more than a good bartender would spill. You want to know what kind of a guy Bud is? For years he’s been allowed to stay open until 2:30 but has chosen to close at 1:30 a.m., which seems to him a reasonable time for people to go home to bed. Closes the taps at 1, and gives the people another half an hour to finish their drinks and go home. Sells beer and wine, never hard stuff. Lets the staff decide whether to stay open on major holidays. The staff are in a class by themselves. Each unique, attentive, utterly your equal, well paid and willing to earn it. The worst you could say is that Clark is sometimes a trifle slow to recognize a bad apple. That is probably less important in He'd just gotten up, and he ran out to the fire to warm up, utterly unabashed In his skin, swinging his arms about and blowing frost. Father Christmas without the red longjohns. a beer joint than a city government, but his old friend George Lee will take care of the nuts and bolts, and trust the ever- modest George to remain clear headed. At the tavern, Clark has always worked a shift or two a week. At city hall he’ll ride around in the squad cars and taste the cafeteria chow, he’ll know the janitor by name instead of just the lobbyist, and listen to whoever has something worth hearing. Did I mention that Clark is utterly honest? He uses, repairs and possesses a mountain of material goods, but doesn’t care a fig for them. If he has greed I’ve never seen it. Fundamentally, he wants to feed the people, offer them good nourishment and help them to be happy. That’s what running a pub is all about, after all. But Clark also has spent more than a decade doing meals on wheels every week. I watched him go into the seedy slum rooming houses across the street from my place, carrying plastic trays of steaming food up the narrow stainways and down the dark corridors, to feed the old and sick and lame. I knew some of the old men in those smoke-yellowed, crud-encrusted rooms too. Year by year Bud and I watched them die. His populism is genuine, not just doing the “right thing.” One of the guys who hangs around the Goose calls himself Coyote and claims some people have totemic spirits. Coyote labels Bud Chinook Salmon. In the Indian myths, Salmon is chief, he has a big chest and leads the fish up to feed the human beings. He bestows rewards on those who serve the people. Salmon always goes upriver, as does Clark, who prefers poling his canoe upstream to down. Bud and John Forsstrom—who Coyote calls River Otter—love to pole up the Owyhee River, deeper and deeper into Oregon’s farthest desert. Marriage is very big with Bud. The matchbooks mention a “liveable marriage.” Sigrid his second wife is a case in point. Don’t let the first violin position fool you, that dame was trouble when they first got together. Just off a bad marriage, had a kid, talked dirtier than a longshoreman, and challenged everybody in sight. But smart, good looking and real female. Come to think of it, Bud was having his ups and downs in those days too. After they’d been- hanging around together Bud Clark is probably the most natural mature and successful citizen I know. He's made a fine life, yet remained unbroken, uncorrupted and unafraid to show himself. awhile he suggested she make dinner. She gave him a couple of candy bars. Said that was dinner. Am I telling tales? I hope not. Long since Sigrid took over cooking dinner, while Bud does breakfast for himself and the kids. They are the meat and potatoes of the earth, these two. So, they got married and had three kids. Bud always did want to be a father. And they worked it out. When Bud didn’t smoke, Sig chain-smoked. Then she quit. A while later Bud took up puffing on a cigar. Back and forth. Two utter individualists, finding a way. You could see they had some bad years, but neither of them backed down, or off either. I think they’ve got as good a marriage now as any two people I know. Chinook salmon are powerfully perseverant. You've got my drift by now. I know a lot of other wild yarns too. They all describe a guy full-grown and tender-tough, a compassionate pagan who practices the real Christian virtues instead of the public kind. A hard-working, utterly unpredictable fellow, securely himself and well disposed toward human beings. When Clark decided to run we all backed him, but nobody dreamed it would happen so slick. Clark made what sounded like blunders; calling himself a born again pagan, admitted he didn’t know everything, made earthy jokes. But my friend who teaches at Roosevelt High School reported that another teacher, who goes to the Presbyterian Church every Sunday, chuckled and said that when she heard he was a born again pagan she decided to vote for him. And I heard a shopkeeper on Hawthorne Street say that nobody had been out to talk to him since Goldschmidt’s time. The polls moved from a starting 19 to 49 steadily upward. Ivancie never gained a single vote, and lost some of his blue- collar old-line Democrats too. Almost every bar, tavern and restaurant in town sported a Bud Clark for Mayor poster and collection jar. They all knew Bud. When Frank finally realized what was happening about a week before the election he , smote Bud hip and thigh with television spots and a flyer charging that Clark wasn’t a Christian and thought being mayor should be fun. You want that kind of person for mayor? the flyer demanded. I guess we did, because the final count was 54 to 41 in favor of human spirit against stale bureaucracy. The mayor of a town can be its tribal leader, an individual through which it projects a communal identity. He can be a wise community father and a memory of ancient harmony. Mostly we don’t even hope for so much, but when we have a real chief, the city comes alive. Neil Goldschmidt gave us a taste of that kind of city-wide laughter. Goldschmidt is part of the reason Clark won. We wanted more. Clark will try to be the nurturing father of our town, and I am prepared to believe that he will succeed. Become, perhaps, a really great mayor, a civic icon. Heaven knows the Maiden Lady of the West could use one such. Not that I agree with a lot of Bud’s opinions. It is his reaction to the world and people that I trust. You know what’s funny? He made it up himself. His old man disappeared too early for Bud to even remember him, and his mother never took another husband. Buddy crafted a manhood of his own design, out of ethics and appetites, high school cheers, Reed College eggheads and the Marine’s hymn, car accidents, customers' opinions, goodness and mercy and a nice hot lunch. I look for surprises, starting in January. Rick Rubin is published extensively in the national and local markets. His last CSQ piece was “Coyote and Wildcat Went Canoeing.” Michael Cacy is an artist living in Portland. LYNDA BARRY 1385 CALENDAR Send $9.95 for eoch calendar plus $1.50 for postage and handling. (WA state residents, odd 79* sales tax.) Send check money order or VISA. MC number to. 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