Not Cool Things About Where I Live

When I moved to Forest Grove, Oregon more than 10 yearw ago, I embraced it immediately, completely and enthusiastically. I felt like I was correcting a big mistake: when I moved to Oregon, I first lived in Canby. And it was horrible. This town felt so different and much better and I celebrated how much better it felt with 100 tweets over our first months here, each one focusing on something specific I loved about the city. I then turned those tweets into blogs.

And now? The shine is off Forest Grove. Majorly. Why? Some things have changed, and many things were not at all what I thought they were when we first moved here.

So, a decade later, here are 54 things I don’t like, even loathe, about this area – and about half of this is related to the first lists (so you need to read those to really get what’s changed):

• Ravi Shankar – the neighbor’s cat, not the singer, that I loved so much and said was one of the terrific things about living here – got killed by a car. My morning walk immediately became sad and not nearly as much fun. It’s never really recovered from that loss.
• The firefighters no longer have that annual pancake breakfast that I said was one of the terrific things about living here.
• The cool 50’s styled soda fountain on the corner downtown is gone – the one I said was one of the terrific things about living here.
• The annual fireworks show doesn’t happen anymore – one of the terrific things about living here in previous posts.
• Instead of little kids hugging me on my walks, which I adored 10 years ago, larger kids regularly destroy things in Roger’s Park or at the church across the street from us, and have called me some rather vile names when I’ve asked them to stop destroying stuff.
• My plum tree gave us 11 plums last year, total. This year, we got maybe 50. In years past, we got GALLONS.
• The gray cat that came to my back door regularly and made me love living here so much, that I named Max and then finally, formally, adopted, complete with vet visits, disappeared one day. I guess he died. I still mourn.
• The local Sake Factory no longer has the Annual Pacific Rim Festival – – the one I said was one of the terrific things about living here.
• The local police department had an off-duty officer who harassed a neighbor flying a Black Lives Mater flag twice in 24 hours and other members of the force tried to cover up what that member did and it resulted in NATIONAL press coverage – and the police chief was not only NOT fired, but honored with awards.
• That same police chief said there’s no systemic racism in police departments in the USA.
• That same police chief said to a woman who was harassed by a man in a car, “Maybe you reminded him of a girlfriend.”
• The local police just laugh when teenagers jump on the roof of one of the neighborhood churches, ring the bell, try to break in via the roof, etc. When I called to report, they caught the boys as they climbed off the roof, believed their story about how they were looking for a ring one of the guys threw on the roof (an act which would be impossible to do unless you are super man) , and all but said, “Boys will be boys.” I no longer call the police, no matter the level of destruction I’m witnessing.
• People like to stop when I’m out in my front yard gardening and tell me what I’m doing wrong. One, a total stranger, made fun of me for listening to a portable solar powered radio. “No one does this anymore” he chuckled. “Don’t you have a smart phone?”
• Two people stopped one day to tell me, per my Ukrainian flag out front, that Putin is the “good guy.”
• The local newspaper publishes just twice a week and is super light on local news. The other local newspaper closed.
• The current fire chief seems to be doing all he can to get rid of volunteers in the fire departments. He even commented that he can’t believe volunteers here are “allowed” to do all that professionals do (even though they have the same training and, often, much more experience). He has never gathered them together to ask them how they are doing, how HE is doing from their point of view, for their ideas, etc.
• The local Fred Meyer no longer has a German food section.
• Neighbor I thought was cool in my first year has regularly mocked my accent and loves to tell me all she feels I do wrong in my job as a marketing person for a local nonprofit. She even tried to get me in trouble at work – I thanked her all over social media for a donation, but she resented that she didn’t get a thank you card and blamed me.
• I never see bald eagles anymore.
• My next door neighbors sold AK 47s out of their house. Legally. The police chuckled when I asked if there was anything I could do. The neighbors finally moved, thank goodness.
• Venice the dog died – she was part of the original list.
• Daisy the dog, who howled in delight whenever she saw me, died. Also part of the original list.
• Jackson the dog died – we walked him every weekday for seven years. He stayed over many nights. He taught Lucy to talk on a leash and enjoy greeting people we encountered. He was not a part of the original list, because we didn’t have Lucy then.
• In more than 10 years living here, one politician has stopped at my house and asked for my vote. ONE.
• My accountant fired me as a client. I have a dreadful fear regarding taxes, I freeze up about them every year, I get totally flustered. I explained all of this to them, said I need a lot of support and explaining, but when I couldn’t understand one document they were asking for, I got insulted (because why not humiliate me too!!) and then jettisoned (tip – use Turbo Tax instead. It is MUCH easier to understand and won’t belittle you).
• The Church of Christ minister that lived and worked across the street from us wished everyone a “Happy Festivus” on Facebook? He moved. Next minister was unfriendly and we never met the entire time he was there. Church was sold to a Latino mega church (very cultish) that likes to have the bass on their keyboards up to 11 and when they play, our house vibrates. Literally. No use watching TV if there is a service on. Sitting outside in our backyard in good weather means hearing THUMP THUMP THUMP for at least an hour. Sometimes they play well after 9, even 10.
• I’d love to go hear the local high school choir at a public performance or a high school theater production, but the local high school has no idea how to publicize anything – unless you are a parent with a kid in the choir or the show, you won’t know what’s happening – and you will be looked at as creepy if you ask.
• Tried to volunteer at the high school or junior high school. Emphasis on tried.
• There’s no local radio station. No way to easily know what’s happening around town or even who died. And everyone is FINE with that.
• People from here not only won’t greet you on the street, they will look away or cross the street in order to avoid saying it. One local smirked when I said I miss people greeting me on the street, saying how much she hates it and how much she prefers Pacific Northwest “coldness” to the “required niceness” of the Midwest or the South.
• If you weren’t born in Oregon, you are not an Oregonian, and people born here will remind you of that regularly, and talk about how Oregon should be only for “Oregonians” (white people only).
• Neighbors let their underage kids zoom around without helmets the streets and sidewalks on very loud little unlicensed mini motorbikes.
• Neighbor whose house burned has never had anything but the windows repaired, now creepily trolls around the neighborhood and wants to have weird conversations if you greet her.
• Most people who had chickens don’t anymore. No more cheap fresh eggs.
• High food prices and bad live music mean I don’t go to the local farmer’s market anymore.
• Nonprofits here don’t talk to each other and often compete with each other, duplicating services, use the same Canva images for their galas (and they ALL have a gala) and actively try to entice donors away from each other.
• At least two nonprofits that should be doing essential work are run by founders that could be case studies in founder’s syndrome – and I listened to one express contempt for the homeless clients their nonprofit gets money to serve.
• The McMenamins Grand Lodge inside music venue, the Garage Door, has a dreadful sound system that makes it impossible to hear anyone playing if you are in the back of the room – and the room is tiny. It’s the nearest and best access to music that I like – but I can’t hear anything.
• McMenamins has really lousy beer.
• Stefan is now allergic to something in Forest Grove sushi and we can’t have sushi anymore. And we didn’t eat shellfish the night this happened.
• The tapas bar I was so happy that we were getting in 2014 has long ago closed.
• The Mediterranean restaurant I loved so much closed.
• Periscope Used Books closed – yes, the one I said was one of the 100 cool things about living here.
• Helmet John went to quirky and mysterious to cantankerous and scary and has moved on – yes, also one of cited “cool things” 10 years ago.
• Tried everything to get some kind of association with Pacific University – a job, a guest lecture, friends with faculty… no one would respond to emails or calls. It’s like a fortress.
• Neighbor that used to bring us elk meat now hates us because of our bamboo (which we did not plant) – he was also on the list of 100 cool things 10 years ago.
• People in this town, and surrounding areas, HATE bicyclists. Cars will drive as close to you as possible in order to tell you how angry they are that you are on the road. We also have those “throwing coal” trucks. The hate on social media for bicyclists is homicidal.
• The left-wingers here, the people supposedly committed to equity, supposedly committed to affordable housing, supposedly committed to action against climate change, will fight against Habitat for Humanity housing in their neighborhood, because they “like the open field there.”
• The city council was SO MUCH to knock down all the historic houses on 18th and let developers go wild with ugly modern homes built right on top of each other and ugly apartments (as opposed to lovely apartments appropriate for the area). They’d love to do it with all of Old Town, actually. Never mind all the empty lots and falling down homes along 19th and 20th.
• A large group – over 30 people – of wackadoodle people who believe in “Pizzagate” and other completely nonsensical stuff have demonstrated underneath a large flag pole in town and gotten enthusiastic honks of support instead of derision.
• Under that same large flag pole, a “memorial” to the people in the twin towers is observed with small flags planted on the grass all around – but only USA flags, no representation for the people from other countries murdered that day, and when this was pointed out to them, they said it didn’t matter.
• The historic downtown movie theater closed, and there are no efforts to restore it and make it into something like an art movie house – something that does not exist outside of downtown Portland.
• The Oktober Fest in downtown ends at about 6 pm and is focused on being “family friendly” – it has nothing to do with any festival you’ve ever been to in Germany.
• There’s no way to safely ride a bicycle to any of the five wineries within five miles of downtown.
• None of the five wineries near downtown have any outdoor entertainment – as in grab a blanket, bring some food, sit out on the lawn, hear some music. If they do, then they have no idea how to publicize it. One of the wineries used to – it closed.

What keeps us here? Our jobs, our beautiful house, the climate, the fantastic landscapes and roads for motorcycle riding, the great places to camp nearby, and, at least as far as state government goes, it’s a Blue State.

Where is better? We don’t know.

Are things so awful here? No, they aren’t awful. And some good things have happened: there are several neighbors here we really like. Lucy is adored by everyone here. We like our jobs. The landscape is still beautiful.

But lesson learned. Be careful what you declare your love for. That includes Twitter… oh how I miss Twitter…