My wife and I just learned that one of Portland's true characters, "Tin" Welch, left us on September 11, 2004, at the age of 75. "Tin" was short for his middle name, Quentin; his "real" first name was John, but we never called him that, except on the rent checks.

We had the great pleasure of knowing Tin in the early '90s, when we leased a house from him and his wonderful wife, Carol, in close-in SW Portland. They lived next door. You couldn't ask for better landlords, and we became fast friends.

The houses were both heavenly slices of Old Portland, down in the old Jewish part of Lair Hill, below where the infernal OHSU aerial tram is going to be built. The Welches had a great reverence for history, and an eclectic taste in art and furnishings, the likes of which I'd never seen before and haven't seen since. The neat old features of the homes were lovingly preserved -- there was still a mazuzzah on our threshold -- and enhanced by the many fine antiques and perfectly oddball decorations that Tin lined them with. You might not think that half-buried bowling balls would make a good garden border, and in most yards you'd probably be right, but at the Welches', they were positively works of art.

My now-wife and I were just starting out living together. We had little furniture, no curtains, and no rugs. But in the first of what was to become a long string of kidnesses, the Welches graciously loaned us surplus items from their huge collection of antiques and stained-glass windows. It really went a long way toward making that little house a home. Eventually we bought a couple of the items that we liked the best, and they're still prominently displayed in our current home, a couple of addresses removed from our renter days.

At the time we were next door to them, the Welches were heavily into buying and selling antiques, both as an agent for estates and on their own account. They owned a funky store up in North Portland -- open only on Saturdays, as I recall -- where they would re-sell tons of stuff that they had picked up from various sources during the week. It was a popular spot, and when it closed, many of the regular customers mourned.

Tin taught us the fine art of garage sale-ing. Stick to the estate sales, he'd say. Most of the rest is junk, and you'll be wasting your time. Moving sales? Forget it -- if the stuff were any good, they'd take it with them. And beware the "huge" garage and yard sales -- that word was a sure sign that junk was all you'd find. As we tool around to weekend sales these many years later, Tin's sage advice still rings in our ears.

We even bought a car from the Welches. They were selling off the estate of a friend of theirs, who had died unexpectedly, and included in it was a like-new Ford Taurus that was guaranteed to go to the highest bidder. We put in a bid, and a few days later, we had a new grown-up car, which we got at a relative steal.

It wasn't until many months into our friendship with Tin that he mentioned casually that he had been an actor in a prior stage of his life. He was very nonchalant about it, but as we demanded more information, we found out that Tin had been a stage actor in Portland for many years. Toward the end of the conversation, he remarked that he had even been in a Hollywood movie once. Just a small part.

Maybe we had heard of the movie? "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Governor Ted has kicked Lady Diana Goldschmidt off the Oregon Investment Council while the state conducts a further investigation into her vote to invest state funds in Texas Pacific Group, allegedly just as her husband was going into a lucrative partnership with TPG.

Well, it's about damn time.

Although the media accounts aren't saying so, I'll bet the governor's action was taken in response to findings of investigator Ted McAniff, a retired L.A. corporate lawyer and professor at the University of Oregon Law School. McAniff was brought in just a month ago to take a look at the situation, and it looks to me as though he didn't waste any time saying what he thought.

Good for him.

It's ironic and sad that Oregonians need an L.A. lawyer to point out the ethical lapses in government up here. But if, as I suspect, that's what happened, we owe McAniff a debt of gratitude.

Sometimes, living in Portland, it's hard to believe one's eyes and ears. I'm flabbergasted to see that the city is still pursuing an expensive, disruptive plan for a Euro-style "reunification" of the North and South Park Blocks. Mayor Vera Katz held a big party outside the Brasserie Montmartre bistro yesterday to unveil her revised "vision."

Let's see. When last I heard, the "reunification" plan was being pushed by Neil Goldschmidt and Tom Moyer. That's as in, the disgraced former governor / statutory rapist, and the fellow who's currently under indictment, charged with felony campaign finance fraud in the current mayoral election. And I seem to remember reading that Mr. Goldschmidt and his cronies own at least one of the properties whose value will greatly increase if the millions of dollars in public money are spent as planned on the "improvements" in the area. Not to mention that Mr. Goldschmidt's long-time lieutenant runs the Portland Development Commission, through which all the public money would be funneled.

Mayor Katz seems to think that since they're no longer talking about demolishing buildings, somehow people will fail to see whose pockets are being lined. Maybe she actually fails to see that herself, I don't know.

But in any other town, you would expect the local government to back off for a while, under the circumstances. Not in Portland. We put the Gold back in Goldschmidt, and we do it with pride.

As I say, it's breathtaking.

The latest campaign contribution disclosure reports are out here in Oregon, and the contrast between Portland mayoral candidates Jim Francesconi and Tom Potter couldn't be in any starker relief. While Potter lists 126 pages of contributions -- virtually all of them moms and pops who gave him $100 or less since the primary election -- Francesconi's reports are full of contributions from the usual big-money suspects, who are doubtlessly hoping he'll become mayor and insure the continuation of business as usual at City Hall.

Among Jim-Bob's bankrollers (all figures since the primary):

And there's lots more, including some people with notable last names whose spouses or other relatives are part of the local power elite. Guess the real shot-callers didn't want their names mentioned. Careful, folks!

With this list, any hope Francesconi has of passing himself off as an agent of change seems almost laughable. As Granny Bogdanski used to say, "Show me your friends, and I'll show you who you are."

I'm tired of living in a city where all the big decisions are being made in secret by folks like those on the Francesconi list. For that reason alone, I'm more enthusiastic than ever to join the 126 pages of small donors in backing Tom Potter.

One last point about the campaign disclosures before signing off for now: Last night I posted some very complimentary comments about City Council candidate Nick Fish, even going so far as saying, "Trust me. When it comes to breaking the stranglehold that the developers and the West Hills Old Money have on Portland, he's the real deal." Looking at his list of campaign contributors today, however, I'm very surprised, and not in a good way. More on that later.

From today's "Back Seat" column in The Oregonian:

In a perfect world, we would all drive with your philosophy in mind. But commuting courtesy went out of style about the time The Turtles released "Happy Together" in '66.

I missed this eBay auction, but the description of the goods is still a work of art.

It's been a big day for Portland City Council candidate Nick Fish. He's been endorsed by The Oregonian, which today changed its mind from the primary, when it backed his opponent, Sam Adams.

It's a big deal to be endorsed by the O -- especially when you've also gotten the nod (at least so far) from Willamette Week. And while scoring the vote of an editorial board is always a coup, having a newspaper reverse field and withdraw an endorsement of one's opponent is sweet indeed.

It couldn't come at a better time for Fish. Although his campaign is displaying extreme confidence at this point, my own intuition is that the race is very close, and that Adams has closed the sizeable gap from the primary to virtually nothing. The talk I'm hearing is all of Adams, and while the Fish lawn signs appear to have dwindled in number, the Sam signs keep popping up wherever I drive. And the ballots will be hitting the mailboxes any time now, won't they?

The new Adams signs are funny to me. In the primary and all summer, the font and format of his lawn placards was totally West Hills chic -- stately and dignified, like something out of a Rejuvenation catalog. All of a sudden, the new ones are straight outta 82nd Street -- "We trust Sam to SHAKE UP City Hall!" in a font reminiscent of an early Superman comic.

Apparently Adams's camp has finally figured out that the voters of Portland are sickened by the junk coming out of the Council Chambers the last few years, and that the only way to win this race is to disown all of it. Of course, for Adams, whose years as mayoral aide has earned him the title of the "brains behind Vera Katz," to tout his "outsider" status is ridiculous. But that's what he's selling this month, and I think people are buying. (BTW, if you put those brains in a bird, it would fly backward.)

Everybody says what a close call it is between Adams and Fish. Both would be worthy of the seat that they're seeking. And if Adams were to run against Dan "Nemo" Saltzman, I'd vote for him in a minute.

But this is Fish's time.

The O also endorsed Jim Francesconi today, a hopeless cause if there ever was one. (Oh yeah, I hear there's a poll that that race is suddenly close, but there was also a poll before the primary that gave James Posey 10 percent of the vote.) Interestingly, the editorial supporting Fish based its rationale in part on the more likely outcome that Tom Potter will be elected mayor. Apparently, the O prefers Potter-Fish "chemistry" to Potter-Adams. Potter-Adams would be two "insiders," and the O would rather have one "outisder" in the mix.

I agree. As much as Potter's backers see him as an agent of change, that's a doubtful proposition. As the Willamette Week suggested the other day, if Potter is elected, there's a good chance that Commissioner Erik Sten, Mr. Consummately Inside, will be the de facto mayor. Potter doesn't know his way around most city bureaus at all, and he'll likely count on Sten, whose endorsement propelled his candidacy, to sweat the details. And so to me, a vote for Potter is only a mild statement of displeasure at the current state of affairs at City Hall.

All the more reason to try to say something with a vote for Nick Fish. When it comes to breaking the stranglehold that the developers and the West Hills Old Money have on Portland, he at least looks as though he may be the real deal. He and Randy Leonard have the potential to be the most dynamic duo that the council has seen in decades.

(Elsewhere in municipal election news, the latest campaign finance disclosures are reportedly due tomorrow. It will be interesting to see who pungles up the dough to finance these races -- or has their secretaries do so.)

UPDATE, 9/27, 10:25 p.m.: Nick Fish's latest campaign contribution disclosures really worry me. If he's going to shake up City Hall, you couldn't tell it from the many moneyed interests here in town who are bankrolling his campaign in the general election. I've toned down some of my high praise for him in this post accordingly, and I'll have a separate post about this shortly.

A while back, I said I'd probably vote no on all the ballot measures in Oregon this fall. It looks like Governor Ted agrees with me.

Portland City Council candidate Nick Fish has proposed a great use for the gigantic rolls of unwanted plastic (the subject of the recent eBay scandal) that was supposed to cover the city's reservoirs. As b!X has reported it:

[Fish] reiterated his oppositon to reservoir burial and to filtration at Powell Butte. He then offered one idea to make money: Take the reservoir covers recently embroiled in the eBay fiasco and turn them into a "slip and slide" for Marquam Hill instead of building an aerial tram to OHSU.

If Keats could write an ode to a Grecian urn, then surely a blog tribute to my Weber grill is appropriate.

In the driveway I've got an old black Weber grill that I love. And I do mean old -- I picked it up from my friend "T-Bone" the Mailman 20 years ago or more, and he and his wife Connie had used it for a year or two before he sold it to me. Moreover, I do mean love it. I'm not much of a cook -- my beautiful bride takes care of most of that -- but when I set my mind to it, I can make good things happen out there.

I started in the very early '80s with a mini-Weber -- the "smoky Joe." It fit right in with my mindset at the time. Go small. Stay portable. Save the earth. But when I got a great deal on T's larger model, I said yes, and the rest is barbecue history.

After a while, you get to know this appliance's ways, and if you're not too busy fixing drinks, watering plants, playing with kids, or programming the backyard boombox while you're grilling, you can pull some mighty fine eatin' out of it. Whole chickens. Even turkeys. Big slabs of fish. Baskets of grilled vegetables. Corn on the cob wrapped in tin foil with a little butter. Occasionally burgers, pork chops, or even steaks. Oh yeah.

Guys my age have gas grills. They also play golf.

Hell, no. Not me.

You get the coals to red, load up the grill, put that lid on top, leave the air holes open just a little, and dang, it gets hot in there. What a fantastic design. Bravo to the wonderful inventor -- a Midwest American, I hope -- who came up with something so elegant. They ought to have one of these babies in the Museum of Modern Art.

My old soldier's gone through some replacement surgery over the years. I think I'm on the third upper grill (where the food sits), and second lower grill (on which rests the charcoal). The little rails that keep the coals to the sides when I'm using the "indirect method" (which is most of the time) are not original. And I think I replaced the ash-catcher pan down by the wheels once. But the basic kettle is original, including the wooden handle, which is one tough piece of wood. There's a funky little appliance repair place up on NE Columbia Boulevard that sells replacement parts; I managed to score an official Weber cover for the whole setup there a few years back, and it's probably extended its life a little.

There are a couple of rust spots on the side of the old Weber, and they're starting to open up to the point where there may be only a couple of years left. Then the temptation will be strong to switch to gas. When it's raining and I wish I could grill, that temptation is strong. But there's something about doing it with the wood, just like grandpa, dad and the uncles did, that's irresistible. I'll likely be a charcoal man until my dying day.

Hey, I'm getting hungry writing about this, people. Time to trek over to City Market and pick up some sturgeon or halibut. Maybe a couple of oysters to throw on and cook in the shell. Bon appetit.

Tony Pierce, genius behind the busblog, goes on a job interview.

Another student athlete with an inspirational message for today's youth.

O.k., this blog has gotten much too negative again. Time to lighten up. For the next 48 hours, no negative posts.

Of course, that could mean no posts at all -- oops, does that comment count as a negative in and of itself?

There are quite a few folks being referred here as they search for the Jack Armstrong beheading video.

For them, a public service announcement: It's not here.

Nor do I have photos of Joey Harrington nude.

UPDATE, 9/24, 6:50 p.m.: If you want to see it, it's here. But before you go, ask yourself why you want to view this. I'm past horror and revulsion at these sorts of displays. What they leave me with is profound sorrow, and extreme anger. If given the power to flip a switch and take the lives of the butchers, I would surely do so. God help me. If that's what you want for yourself, go ahead and click.

Here's an especially sleazy tale I missed as I was going out of town.

"Reunite the Park Blocks! It will be like Barcelona!"

Sure, Neil. And we taxpayers can buy them from you and your power lunch pals. What did you think -- if you demolished the Virginia Cafe, the ghosts that live there would stop haunting you?

Man, these people have no shame whatsoever. It's time for Oregon voters to get rid of them and all their lieutenants. Starting with Mr. Moyer's good buddy.

Then maybe the decent people of this state can take a good, long shower.

Have you caught this guy's act yet?

The Tucson archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church has filed for bankruptcy protection, joining the Portland archdiocese in an effort to have claims related to priestly sex abuse of children dismissed or paid cents-on-the-dollar. In the Tucson case, plaintiffs are complaining that the archdiocese has been transferring assets to related entities on the eve of trial -- in their minds improperly attempting to avoid liability. In all the wrangling about the Portland archbishop's institutional wealth, I haven't heard that kind of charge, at least not yet.

I used to try to hold out 'til October 1 each year before turning on the furnace. But when we got home last evening and it was 63 degrees in the house, I headed right over to the thermostat and flipped the switch from "Cool" to "Heat."

Summer sure took off early, and in a hurry.

Of all the rogues and scoundrels on the internet, there are few lower than the eBay deadbeat. Someone who would put an item up for auction, and snatch it back when it doesn't fetch a good enough price -- even though it was a no-reserve auction. They're every bit as bad as people who would win an auction and then skip out without paying.

I am totally ashamed that the government of the city in which I live is this very brand of lowlife. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

I hope somebody sues their a*ses off over this. I'll contribute $100 toward just such a lawsuit. Who'll join me?

UPDATE, 9/21, 3:36 p.m.: It just gets weirder and weirder. Now it turns out that the high bidder for the reservoir cover was a group of Water Bureau employees who had apparently figured out a way to re-sell it for more than they bid. Now there are some selfless public servants for you, eh?

You know, I wouldn't mind letting the Texas robber barons have PGE if they would also promise to take the Portland Water Bureau, too, and clean house. Especially firing the commissioner in charge, What's-His-Name.

Just got back from a fine four-day trip that showed how great the Northwest can still be. Flew to a small city, where it seemed like only 20 steps from the arrival gate to our luggage, which was already on the carousel waiting for us. And then another 20 steps to the car rental counter, and another 20 to the car itself.

An hour's drive from the airport, you hit the place where the urbs and suburbs stop, and the mountains, forests, and lakes begin. From there you could go many more hours before serious civilization was encountered. We stayed at a rustic, family-run resort, so friendly and well managed that it felt like you were staying at your grandmother's house. No phone service of any kind, no TV. We ate the trout right out of the lake, some smoked, some battered and fried. Huckleberry pancakes with the local fruit. The air was crisp and clean, the water clear and very cold, the northern night sky filled with stars beyond counting.

I couldn't help but think, This is how Portland used to feel to me, 26 years ago. And for the first time in all those years, I felt more at home on vacation than I did when I returned to PDX.

One of the resolutions I made on my recent five-week sabbatical was that when other aspects of my life got hectic, I was going to take a few days off from blogging here and there, without guilt and without worry that I was losing readers.

It looks like this is the first of those times.

To paraphrase the old comedian's cliche -- "I'm here all week; try the veal" -- let's just say, "I'll be back in a few days; try the blogroll."

It's been six years since we closed on our current home, where the Irvington and Alameda neighborhoods meet in Northeast Portland. And in that time, the neighborhood grocery store has virtually disappeared from sight.

Upon our arrival here, we had not one but two smaller groceries less than three blocks away, both at the corner of NE 24th and Fremont -- Nature's, a whole-food, bulk-product, low-packaging, earth-friendly market which at two storefronts wide was still pretty small; and Alameda Foods, a more traditional small grocery with all the plastic corporate American fare you could ever want. Both had fresh meat, a deli, and produce galore. The lines were short, and the convenience was incredible. If we needed a lemon, some maple syrup, a loaf of bread, or a bottle of wine, it was an easy walk and a quick errand. There was no thought of taking the car. The fresh air was good for the soul.

But it started to slide downhill soon after we arrived. Nature's packed up and headed nine blocks west to expanded quarters at NE 15th and Fremont. It was great for the new neighborhood, but not so hot at the old location. In its place there, after a substantial vacancy period, came a restaurant and a high-priced garden store. They both folded after very brief runs. Since then, another restaurant has come and gone, and a second garden store -- not as ritzy, but still not at all down-to-earth -- is hanging in there on the site.

Meanwhile, Nature's was bought out by Wild Oats from Colorado, and a new Portland-based chain, New Seasons, has sprung up elsewhere in Northeast, giving the new owners of Nature's a serious run for their money. Wild Oats has lost its pharmacy, much of its clientele, and whatever charm it may have had to go with its quirky attitude. It's not a very fun place to shop, and the help never smiles any more, either.

Across 24th from the old Nature's site, Alameda Foods reportedly had its rent abruptly jacked up, and the Arab-American guys who ran the place folded it. Now we have a commercial bank branch, which I can't believe anyone from the neighborhood ever patronizes, and a long-empty storefront that's apparently going to be a dentist's office. How cold is that?

From a comestible standpoint, then, what have we got left? A 10-block sojourn to the nearest fresh food place, and a somewhat forlorn scene when you get there. Except in periods of major ambition, the car is involved. And if you're in the car, why not drive 25 blocks to the New Seasons in the Concordia neighborhood, where the shopping is so much better?

All this is old news, I guess, but now the same thing is happening in the heart of Irvington, at NE 15th and Brazee. What had been a funky little food market for as long as I've lived in Portland, has recently been vacated and gutted to make way for what the landlord hopes will be a toney Italian restaurant and some sort of pricey clothing store. And so people down that way will be forced to deal with Safeway, Fred Meyer, Wild Oats or the new Zupan's (in the ghastly new condo tower on NE Broadway) whenever they need something as simple as a tomato. The old Irvington Market on NE Weidler is gone too, of course, displaced by a fast-food Chinese cafeteria that would be just perfectly appropriate for a bad shopping mall in Detroit.

How very sad.

A pox on all the landlords, I say. Fie on the toney new restaurants. Fie on the garden stores with the platinum-plated hoes and spades. Fie on the dentist's office where the Romaine lettuce is supposed to be. I won't patronize them until there's a little grocery store back in the neighborhood.

The livable city gets a little less livable every time an independent grocer is forced to close up shop. I really wish the Big Idea People down at City Hall would try to do something to preserve these small businesses, instead of embarking on all the misguided mischief that the bureaucrats are so good at. Instead they kiss up to Home Depot, who will run out all the mom-and-pop hardware stores, too.

Movie theater mogul Tom Moyer has been indicted, along with two others, on charges of making campaign contributions under false names to Portland mayoral candidate Jim Francesconi, according to a story in this morning's Oregonian. I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised that the Oregon Department of Justice has actually dared to do something about corrupt practices in public life. Here's hoping that the DOJ's ambitions in that regard don't stop there.

Even more surprising, the O ran the story on the front page (albeit with a small headline, and below the fold), even though Mr. Moyer is a heavy advertiser with that publication (or at least, he was for many years). You can bet the editors called the advertising department over there before that decision was made.

No one in the Francesconi campaign was charged, and so of course old Jim-Bob was in the paper pointing out how his office was "cleared." This is apparently the new definition of being "cleared" in Oregon -- the prosecutor decided not to indict you. Anyway, innocent though he may be, Francesconi takes yet another hit to his battered campaign, which reportedly even he thinks is doomed. I suppose this sordid tale will also boost City Commissioner Erik Sten's proposal to have the taxpayers in town foot the bill for public financing of local political races.

According to the news story, Francesconi admits he knew that two large donations to his campaign were made by an employee and relative of Moyer. But he says that neither he nor anyone on his campaign staff knew that the money was actually Moyer's, as alleged (but not yet proven) by prosecutors.

Francesconi is an energetic fundraiser who has even used an auxiliary office in a downtown law firm to dial for dollars for his campaign. As a guy who prides himself on raising money, what did he think when Moyer gave him $500, Moyer's secretary gave him $2,000, and Moyer's granddaughter gave him $2,500 (math majors out there, you see the total is $5,000) all on the same day?

I wonder if there are any other skeletons of this sort in his or other candidates' donor rolls. What, if any, duty does a political candidate have to check out the true sources of contributions coming his or her way from relatives of the wealthy and powerful?

I guess one could ask Francesconi, whose list of supporters includes both the wife and the ex-wife of You-Know-Who, but not The Man himself. You know, another unindicted gentleman, but one definitely not "cleared."

The New York Times had a scary front-page story on Monday about the rapid increase in absentee voting around the country, and the increasing number of instances of fraud surrounding the practice:

As both major political parties intensify their efforts to promote absentee balloting as a way to lock up votes in the presidential race, election officials say they are struggling to cope with coercive tactics and fraudulent vote-gathering involving absentee ballots that have undermined local races across the country.

Although Oregon was listed in a chart among swing states with loose absente