It's also about hood(lum)s. Here's a photo of Sly and some of his neighborhood friends when he was young. I wouldn't give him no lip 'cause this was their required tattoo https://cdn.improb.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/rib-cage-side-tattoo-design.jpg
Interesting thing is, I have more in common culturally and speak like my son and his HS 17 year old friends than I do with all the Lake Oswego soccer dads on my daughter's team that are my EXACT age. Completely foreign people to me in all regards of life, other than the car I drive.
I grew up in Oswego and we had a mix of different types. My best friend's dad had a small motorized fishing boat that he kept in his garage and was constantly doing fiberglass patching. His grandfather worked as a gardener in Dunthorpe and his grandmother was a fry cook at the Cove on State Street. Another best friend's dad sold heavy equipment for Caterpillar Tractor company. They had plenty of money. My father was a bricklayer and my uncle was a stone mason. We had next door neighbors who did remodeling. My friend down the street was the son of the mayor and owner of the Dairy Maid ice cream store and the Pinafore restaurant. Yeah, we had a lot of doctors and lawyers in the town but we also had our share of working class families and I can still recall their names.
My class was the first on to go through all 4 years at Lakeridge. All I can say is, the pretentiousness was off the charts there! And the cliques between teachers and students made me sick. Oh, yeah....I forgot to mention...I quit school after my Sophomore year and got my GED @ PCC.
I was on the other side of town, now called "First Addition". I went to Forest Hills grade school. We moved to Portland right before I was to go to Oswego Junior High School in it's second year of operation. That was in 1959 right before Oswego merged with Lake Grove. My paper route included the news stands and bars and taverns all along State Street. Learned to play baseball at George Rogers park. Also flew my two gas engine model airplanes in that same park. Fished and swam in the lake and fished all up and down Tryon creek where I saw my first trillium. My cousin and I caught a couple crawdads and cooked them in some creek water that we boiled in a stream side fire in an empty coffee can. I ate the tail of mine and my cousin ate the tail and then sucked the thorax, ugh. I raided all the neighborhood fruit trees mostly apple and cherry. Went strawberry picking every summer and spent it all on junk food and swimming gear which I used every day after strawberry picking in the lake. Used my paper route money to buy my wonderful three speed bike. It sure beat the hell out of my one speed bike that my mom got at a garage sale for $3. It had brakes attached to the pedals. You would pedal backward to stop the bike. I went to Christ Episcopal church where we also had our boy scout meetings. My mom was the den mother for my cub scout pack. One little boy in our cub scout pack got polio and required an iron lung in his home. We all went to visit him and then he died shortly thereafter. My dog was so huge that he controlled half the town. The son of the chief of police, officer Solso, had an extremely large great dane and he controlled the other half of town. They both would come to Forest Hills grade school so they could be near us kids. They then split up the playground fifty fifty. My dog would stand on his hind legs and look inside the window of our classroom so he could get a glimpse of me. We used to go to the Rexall pharmacy and sneak a look at the new playboys which just came into publication. They had to keep them under the counter because of us kids looking at the naked women on the magazine rack. I used to go by the five and dime store on First street right near the original location of Safeway. They had a gas airplane called the "Fire Baby". I would go in the store and stare at that airplane and dream that it could be mine if only I had the $10 purchse price. Never got it. My parents were poor. Had an uncle that kept promising to buy it for me but he was a bad alcoholic and preferred to squander all his money on drinks and buying drinks for other drunks. Never got the Fire Baby. The library, then located near first and 'A' avenue had a reading contest. After you read so many books they would advance your rocket ship from Earth to moon to Mercury to Venus to Mars to . . . The rocket ships and the planetary bodied were all on the wall near the ceiling. I won the contest going away. No one came close to me. I read everything I could. I've always loved to read and have a nice library. Sadly, I'm now blind in one eye and have failing eyesight in the other eye so my reading days are over. We used to have these neighbors who had what turned out to be a gorgeous daughter. We were both about 8 and I had no interest in girls who couldn't climb a tree, run like the wind and ride a bike like it was an appendage to their body. She and her two younger sisters used to try and catch me and pin me so they could kiss me. I fought like the devil. Then, they enlisted the help of my younger brother and the four of them pinned me down and kissed me profusely on the cheek. I was so disheartened. That was the Eglys. Are you near the same age as HomerLovesKookAid? He too grew up in Lake Oswego, although I think he went to Lake Oswego High School. His dad was the golf pro at the Country Club. You might also have known the Halversons who lived on Halverson Island, aka Jantzen island. The most expensive home in Oregon. There was another guy my age who grew up in a house on McVey. He used to ride the VA bus with me to the hospital. Great guy but had a heroine problem developed in Vietnam. He recently passed away from complications from a fall that landed him on his head. Broke my heart. I loved my days in Oswego.
Nice write-up, Lanny! The only Halverson I knew was Ms. Halverson, my 5th grade teacher @ Palisades Elementary. Hmmmm...I grew up off McVey....Maple St. The bowing alley I referred to was Palisade Lanes....which is since LONG gone! LOL I did have my fun days in LO, as well. Upon quitting high school, I was a checker at Keinow's, and quickly worked my way up to management. I then signed on as an Unrestricted Free Agent to become Assistant Manager with Thriftway (now Albertson's, I think).
