PSU Magazine Spring 1998

BY SUSAN HAUSER After many years ofdescribing our fair city to the world, freelance writer Susan Hauser has a notebook fall ofinteresting, fanny, intriguing, but mostly just quirky stories. She is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, but you will also find her byline in Sunset, People, Parade, the New York Times, and LA Times (to name a few). A PSU English grad, Hauser says instructors such as Dick Bakken, who always had extra pairs ofGroucho glasses on handfor silly students, helped to solidifj her quirky world view. ( s o you're the one who's given tion's temporary location. I wrote Portland this reputation!" I about how most of those people deliv- turned to see a woman glaring ered their books, turned around, and at me through narrowed eyes. "It's walked back to Central fo r more. because of you that the rest of the Peop le who didn't care to walk rode nation thinks we're quirky." I just a special library bus. In trip after trip, smiled at her. I figured she had never every seat on the bus was filled with stopped to think about just how lucky book-toting, book-loving Portlanders. she was to be quirky. A Wall Street Journal reader wrote The way I see it, we Portlanders are to me from Ca li fornia that she had shaped not only by our glorious shared my account with her five-yea r- natural environment, but by our old grandson. The lad had to rax his mental envi ronment, as well. Out here imagination to picture such a sight. we have a refreshing perspective on If the boy had been a Portlander, life, which I try to brag about as often surely the vision would have come to as possible in my articles. In the 12 him naturally. After all, as many and one- half years I've been writing people remarked, the library move wa about Portland for the Leisure & Arts "so Portland." page of the Wall Street Journal, it's been my plea ure to report on all sorts of oddball activities and to exalt the wonderfully quirky behavior of Portland's denizens. Mind you, I'm not ta lking about the activities of sp iteful skate rs and salacious senators, or about Portland's tenuous ties to the latest White House scanda l. I'm talking about everyday occurrences in Portland, Oregon, events that bare ly elicit a raised eyebrow from our own citizens. Among the unfortunate who don't live here, however, these events are incredible and amazing becau e they' re so ... well, different. For example, only in Portland would thousands of ordinary people pitch in to help move the library. I wrote about the day that nearly every downtown street had a stream of people pass ing through, each person carrying one or more loads of books from the Central Library to the collec- 14 PSU MAGAZINE SPRI NG 1998 P ortland was also the town where the po lice fo rce ce lebrated "Random Acts of Kindness Week." I was allowed to go on a "ride-along," to sit in the back of a patrol car and jo in a pair of police officers on the kindnes beat. Grim- faced and taking their responsibility very seri ously, they kept an eye out fo r people who were being kind, courteou and law-abiding so they could di pense kindness citations (actually, coupons fo r free beverages). When they spotted a kind Portlander, they tri ed not to alarm the person too much when they stepped fo rward, pu lled a book of coupons from the back pocket of their blue trousers and sa id, "On behalf of the city of Portland-would you like a latte or a milkshake ?" Early in my Wall Street Journal caree r, I reported on such phenomena as the Rajneesh reaction (when ordi – nary Oregonian stopped wearing red