By now the only left over from St. Patrick’s Day is your lingering hangover. Sit back, pour your Guinness breakfast and take a fast paced jaunt into the world of Leprechaun fashion. From the runways of wherever the mischievous Leprechauns hold their secretive fashion shows, I got to see what isn’t working at the 45th Shamrock Run held in Portland on Saturday, March 12th. This was a great reason to leave the house, for a good cause and I suppose the fashion faux pas were an added bonus.

I’m sure there were real Leprechauns in attendance monitoring the Shamrock Run event. They may have been hiding behind the graffiti strewn pilings under the Steel Bridge as we made our way towards the Tilikum Crossing Bridge. We took the path of least resistance–a brisk walk. The event included competitive running events like a 5K and a half marathon with the stride walk. Taking it slower allowed us a chance to enjoy our surroundings.

Other signs that people were trying while putting their own spin on Leprechaun fashion featured some of the efforts I spotted:

Green Lipstick

Shamrock sunglasses

Leperchauns on socks peeking out of rain boots

Green Wigs

A green beard

Traditional Hats–the Pilgrim variety with buckles

The Hats

Leprechauns are persnickety about their hats. There is really only one kind of hat that earns their seal of approval and yet those celebrating and marketing St. Patrick’s Day fashion and decor insist on trying to make any form of headgear acceptable. Fedoras with blinking lights were one attempt at subverting the Leprechaun hat rule. There were others, pork pie hats and bowlers and people thought that as long as they were green, they could get away with this being an official celebratory hat.

Size matters and it’s a very standard size. Miniature hats are adorable but they fall into parody because they don’t fit the strict size standard of Leprechaun headgear. These miniatures may not even be as fun to wear when paired with see through plastic ponchos. Mini hats are much cuter than they are water proof.

Mixing mythologies can make things even more confusing. Viking Leprechauns? This could be referenced on a page deep in a Norse mythology book. Scottish? You’re really going to make me research whether the Irish or even Leprechaun’s wear kilts? At least this kind of fusion makes an event like the Shamrun really interesting adding spectacle to fashionable fun. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what the Leprechaun’s think.

The Shamrun offered a wide variety of t-shirts and other souvenir gear for sale, including these rain absorbing, but warm knit hats with pom poms. When you’re at the back of the line for the striders walk you going to need head protection and warmth until the mass of people starts moving.

The Jackets

Leprechaun fashion shows are typically boring affairs. Due to stringent dress codes, the Spring collection is always exactly the same. People go rogue thinking they can wear what they want as if it won’t anger the Leprechauns. A shiny green jacket paired with a Leprechaun Seuss Hat while accompanied by someone wearing a tutu too, had the feel of a couple headed to the green carpet for a Leprechaun film premiere.

If you run with dogs of an Irish variety, you better break out the right suit. Shamrocks of many colors dipped in green is the sleek look that Leprechauns might appreciate, if they appreciate anything. You can get it right off the rack if you can find the right store. Perfect for Shamruns and Pogue shows.

Walk Into The Mystery

The undetermined attempts at unauthorized Leprechaun fashion are only obvious due to the Shamrock. The what and the why of it all doesn’t matter. This is what you’ll see sported on a Shamrun/walk and I’ll take it even though I know it miffs and mystifies the Leprechauns.

As far as anything I can tell you about the 3K walk that equaled four miles, we reached the halfway point where we were greeted by a middle school band playing The Final Countdown. Some of the trumpet blasts were sweet–and sour!! but it motivated us to battle back despite hip flexor issues, hot foot and toe blisters. I sometimes feel bad for today’s youth having to take on their band director’s nostalgia trips but these kids took it on with relish and maybe even a bit of mustard.

Everywhere there are signs whispering their suggestions. Go slow. I’m usually going slow. I try not to rush. Reminders help. Variations on the theme keep this important and ubiquitous message interesting. It serves the one or two children still allowed to play outside. Slow hysteria rages. You can’t drive a hundred yards without seeing a sign. SLOW is burned into my driving brain. These dire warnings, whether store bought, homemade, mass produced or one of the bad puns do their due diligence getting out the word. Accidents happen in a flash, out of nowhere. Speed decreases reaction time. Slow is the safe bet, but people don’t always care. I’m the wrong audience and yet I am the audience. People whizz by, unwilling to participate in this reading while driving form of multitasking that I enjoy. People also don’t like being told what to do. They aren’t slowing down, missing the chance to embrace the word as a lifestyle choice. It’s time for people to take their feet off the gas a tiny bit, inhale deeply and get slow.

The Store Bought Signs

In the Crestwood neighborhood, this plastic kid sign holder, gets his toothy grin from a picket fence. It’s not distracting enough to miss the message. His grimace might be from the thought of a child getting run over. On average, I’d guess, people with kids drive a few miles per hour slower when they drive where their kids live. I’ll have the research department look into this as soon as they respond to my memorandum.

Drive like your pets live here, yes, I get it. Slow down for pets. If your pets are in the street I’ll want to be going slow enough to slam on the brakes. I don’t want a roll over crash ending in rolling over someone’s pet. This sign was posted nice and low at pet perspective. We all know that pets don’t usually drive but it never hurts to warn them too.

The theme continues. Cars are getting in the way of kid’s and pet’s fun. This reminder in West Portland Park, shows a child, helmeted for safety, chasing after an off leash dog. People driving fast, after blazing past this sign, are risking creating a scene straight out of Fast and Furious 6.

Billboards & Church Signs

This billboard on Barbur Boulevard in SW made the slow message hard to miss. It also seemed to be shouting at me. A nice enough guy is offering a common sense message. Don’t speed in construction zones. You might run over the poor guy in this billboard. I could imagine his hard hat and slow sign flying as he tumbles along the highway. This all depends on whether this is an actual construction worker and not an actor/regular guy billboard model.

I was elated to see a church marque getting in on the slow act. This gentle reminder manages to work in two buzzwords, especially one required for all church marque postings. I don’t quite understand the message. Are we supposed to walk by slow enough to allow Jesus to jump on our backs to catch a ride.?

The Semi-Official

The semi-official category fits the signs that make a statement through placement and their mimicry of actual traffic signs. I’m no expert but details like the use of metal and certain colors make these signs seem real even as I remain skeptical because anyone can buy and display a sign. Attaching this kind of sign to a street sign may have it’s challenges so it seems likely that some of these are official traffic department displays. Ultimately, never forget, it’s about the safety of the kids. They are playing, keep them safe, don’t ruin their fun with your speediness.

Because, well, it’s not a real road out here in West Portland Park. It’s mostly a dusty surface when it isn’t a river of mud.

I guess if you consider forced marches play then this sign is accurate. Heading through this area of West Portland Park, you won’t find masses of children parading in the streets or dogs chasing their tails. Streets are mostly frolic free zones these days. Outside play has been lost to the high tech realm. Driving slow makes car travel a kind of safari where you might have the rare experience of spotting a child in the “wild.”

There’s something that seems official about a sign framed in wood and planted in the ground. The slow word in all caps makes the message serious. Slow is bold, manners are included and once again it sticks up for children and animals. Be slow so the young ones and their pets can prosper.

This sign seems to serve as a beacon in the Kenton neighborhood. I was enthralled as I caught sight of it while driving down the street. The official slow sign is in such a humorous location it practically begs to be heeded. It had me slowing then stopping to get a photo.

The Home Made

I’m saving my favorite category for last. I only wish I’d spotted more home made signs. I need the creativity that inspires people to post their form of protest even if it’s only against people going above the speed limit. The stenciled snail, seen in the Crestwood neighborhood, points out that slow animals symbolize how people should go through life, especially on the roadways. Snails want to cross at their own pace hoping cars let them pass. The sign started to make sense. I realized it’s not really marking a snail crossing but more like a place where cars should slow down, or stop to allow anyone to cross the street.

This placard, near the snail sign, explains what may be at issue here. People seem to want to cross the street in this area. This home made has official elements like referring to the state ordinance, providing the numbers so anyone can look it up. This has to be a spot crying out for a crosswalk. The bumper sticker, included on the sign, breaks out a pun about braking. Let’s face it, cars should give people a break and slam on the brakes whenever they’re around. This slow movement could save a life or two. Besides, slow is cool, slow is safer and slow is probably something even our pets would prefer if they could conceptualize it.

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We’ll be back with part two where we’ll talk about bad pun slow signs, roadside slow signs, animal slow signs and hopefully a quick, not slow, quote from artist Mike Bennett.

More and cooler slow signs:

I’ll save the canned speech about how The Portland Orbit has to write an obligatory year-in-review column. Is it in the contract? By now it’s a habit. I expect the Pittsburgh Orbit will be doing it so if I hope to survive in the blogging game, I have to emulate my nemesis. The competition ends here. I’m just trying to get something done. This year I’ve just tried to get by. I’ve had to reconsider my outlook on life, maybe that’s what we all do this time of year. I’ll spare you the list of calamities. With luck, we can hope no year will be worse than good old 2022.

Looking back, I wrote some obituaries–fine subject matter for a blog, but there’s no shame in honoring loved ones. I wrote about mannequins and conducted a longish interview with Jeff Dodge. I managed to compiled images for blog posts of lawn deer statuettes, Mt. Hood images used in advertising and stop sign defacement which makes people stop to decipher the message. Sure I was a bit defensive when I wrote a whole post about an nasty comment someone sent me, but hey, I am always looking for material. The rest was holidays, Halloween, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and a comprehensive, overlong Blues Fest review. Then there was my election primary literature rehash and a second run in with my guitar hero Peter Buck along with a report from out of the area. For as much time as I spent hiding in my house wondering if I was agoraphobic, I did manage to get out a bit.

The Hit

I thought I had a story, but I found another. That’s serendipity that anyone can get behind. This blog is inspired by random displays of creativity. Here I discovered, way outside of Portland, handmade signs that made me realize Portland hasn’t cornered the market of unbridled creativity. In Neskowin, cute, sometimes clever and what seemed like kid created signs did double duty. Folk Art combined public service. It sprang out of a tiny neighborhood on the coast. The signs cried out to me making me appreciate the outsider art begging people to drive slow.

The Miss

The significance of 2/22/22 didn’t dawn on me until Willard Simmons, from the Pittsburgh Orbit, pointed it out. It was easily the most significant and amazing date of the year. Willard challenged me to write a post involving 2’s. I had to seize this date. The opportunity wasn’t going to arrive until 3/33/33, ah, 3/3/33, I mean, when we’d be writing about threesomes, I guess. There was a problem. Instead of getting the research team into a google car to drive around photographing everything and looking for examples of two things or pairs or whatever, the researchers stayed home googling stuff. The resulting compiled cubicle listicle was fun and Willard seemed pleased enough but I couldn’t help wondering what I missed. In desperation, I seized on Celine Dion’s two Portland show cancellations and learned that Celine fans were called Celiniacs. There’s probably related fan art but I can’t dedicate six weeks of my life to go down that rabbit hole. One Celiniac seems to have turned fandom into high art creating the movie Aline. Sadly, the retirement of Celine Dion, due to health concerns, means there will be no more shows to cancel.

My Celiniac fan art parody wound up in the Silver Apple Gallery in Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Photo by Kirsten Ervin.

See Willard’s double doubles from this year’s historic date:

The Sleeper

I’m a collector. When I collect images I want to share them. My lawn deer obsession must have started with my feeble attempts at painting ceramics animals as a kid. Lawn deer call to me in their tacky splendor, their cement bodies and bad paint jobs substitute for the real thing. It’s all about the elevation of a wild animal into cartoonish ceramic caricatures. A deer on the lawn indicates that a homeowner likes deer and loves to decorate. I had my chance. Right there at a store, years ago, where a man cradled a lawn deer. Asking why seemed confrontational or crazy. I can barely understand why I like lawn deer myself but I was happy to have a format to display the images I’ve collected over the years.

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Remember the new year is a chance to start off with a clean slate at least for a couple of days until all the resolutions have gone by the wayside. Happy New Year and keep reading!!

We never made it to see the reindeer last year. I made an email inquiry about the reindeer’s touring schedule but sent it to an outdated address. Months later I received a kind response from the folks at Timberview Farms, home of the reindeer. I have to admit I neglected to respond but this made me all the more determined to put “look at reindeer”on my 2022 Christmas season celebration list keeping their appearance schedule on my radar, a totally different radar than the one that tracks Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. 

This determination to make one seasonal/traditional effort this year meant getting up and getting out while convincing my better half, Ronna, to come along. Luckily, the overcast gloom of this Saturday was not including rain. The promise of a coffee drink was an enticement enough, not that it overshadowed seeing live reindeer up close. Reindeer are the holiday’s unsung heroes. They do the heavy lifting. They never ask Santa to diet or whine about the weight of the billions of presents they help deliver. So, after taking a right at Gresham, we found ourselves on the road to Boring for the reindeer appearance. 

Boring, a place that’s a straight line for joke opportunities, seems to be a patch work of farm fields with a quaint, yet brief downtown. It’s a place that rolls with its name, not taking itself too seriously. In fact, the joke went international when Boring became the sister city of Dull, Scotland. On the outskirts of town, we pulled into the landscaping materials store, Boring Bark, for the reindeer display. I was surprised to see the parking lot hopping with cars. A family with six kids headed out while a couple of people wrangled puppies. This was encouraging. We had arrived at THE place for a reindeer watching.  

To avoid the people, Ronna led me around the back of the store. There in a pen were the two reindeer from the team, Vixen and another reindeer. I couldn’t see the name on the collar but I spotted the letters J and O. Our research department is desperately trying to remember the names of the reindeer from the Night Before Christmas poem. The two were laying down either resting or nesting. This may be typical reindeer behavior. The pen was filled with sawdust and tree boughs. Later Jo stood up to eat an apple half. This was a more animated version of these real life reindeer. 

My bud tender mentioned the phrase “tourist trap” but it wasn’t quite like that. I needed to see a reindeer to compare it to every other reindeer like creature, the moose, deer and elk of this world. It was good to compare these reindeer to the animated version, Sven, that I had just seen in the movie Frozen. Note: real reindeer don’t talk. This was yet another of many possible events to get kids excited, as if they needed more holiday excitement and yes, they do. We can never forget that Christmas is for kids. They will grow to dislike it in time. Live reindeer viewings, meetings with Santa and looking at pretty lights provide the delight that will someday turn into cynicism. Choice overheard quotes jumped out, “Please, look happy for just one second,” a woman said to the reindeer while taking photos. Someone else said, “Reindeers don’t typically like carrots and that’s what people leave out.” This year we’ll leave out apple halves and pine boughs for the reindeer when they stop by our house.

Expectations and imaginations will get you in the end but it wouldn’t be life without them. Who needs a low expectation imagination? I expected to see a herd of reindeer frolicking in a field, maybe playing reindeer games. Free admission was a fair price to pay for dashed expectations. It was really about an opportunity to see real life reindeer. We took the long way home where numerous signs begged us to turn right to Gresham, a metropolis in these parts. We continued on our little highway heading towards Oregon City basking in our visit and enjoying the rural, small town vibe knowing the reindeer have a busy December with their appearance schedule and the big night but they’d have most of the following year to rest and relax.

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Post Script: I got a gentle chiding from Willard Simmons of the Pittsburgh Orbit for working on Christmas Eve. Then I made a threat against Tiny Tim and ran out to run a few more errands in the slush. There was a huge technical fiasco–unsaved drafts. Thanks WordPress!! This may result in more typos or misplaced commas than usual. Happy Holidays everyone!!

O Turkey of St. Johns whose memory is so great, so strong in my mind, so prompt before the Throne of the All-Knowing-Turkey, I place in you all my interests and desires.

O Turkey of St. Johns do assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your divine memory all spiritual blessings through Turkeys everywhere, Our Turkey memory; so that having engaged here below in this blog your heavenly power may offer my Thanksgiving and homage to the most Loving of Birds.

O Turkey of St. Johns, I never weary contemplating you and imagining you asleep in your pen. I dare not approach during your reposes near my heart. Press the Turkey of St. Johns in my name and kiss the Turkey of St. John’s fine Head for me and ask the Turkey of St. Johns for me, and ask the Turkey of St. Johns to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath.

Turkey of St. Johns, Patron of all sacrificial turkeys, pray for us. Amen

Read more Turkey of St. Johns posts:

The wind blows shadowy images of tree limbs and their leaves on the wall in the faint fall moonlight during the haunting season. I scurry to work in darkness. When light arrives Halloween images appear around me. Scenarios celebrate the season. Most are gruesome while others truly terrify. I’m left to wait for darkness so I’m less afraid of what I can’t see.

Toddler Fear

You can’t help but get a creepy vibe from a doll-like creature posing as a toddler on a front porch. I was wary of getting close. The limbs hanging from ropes out of frame added to my fear. Toddlers are already menacing. What are they saying? What do they want? Usually I can run away but in this case I merely increase my pace and keep moving looking long enough to get one picture.

In my low light mornings, I huff and puff as I walk to work. This comical ghost received a makeover from a fixed lens camera phone that made the image actually ghostly. The mouth is less smile, more ghoulish slash. This inflatable benefits from photographic imperfections that creates an image with a frightening lack of eyes. Blow ups never fail to entertain but they aren’t as threatening as they wish they were.

Webs of Fright

Webbing is decorative. I’ll give it that but is it ever realistic? It may not matter how many plastic spiders you put in it. This web impressed me because it stretched the length of a long row of tall bushes. I wouldn’t have expected this kind of effort.

Get closer and this mammoth spider may elicit a fearful scream. That’s what she was hired to do. One does need to be grateful that a habitat for real spiders can’t be created from synthetic webs

Another example feels more like worms nesting and attacking trees. This is more frightening from a homeowner’s perspective. Perhaps most frightening of all, in the foreground there are potholes on an unfinished street. These are the true nightmare terrors of homeownership: Worms attack as potholes breed.

Hangin’ With Halloween

I can’t resist enjoying visions of hanging ghosts despite how redundant they seem. These spirits are already dead. I get that the purpose of their suspended animation is decoration. Ghosts are a cog in the Halloween machinery and it would be a grimmer experience without them.

Colorful witch hats hanging in a tree caught my eye and my imagination as soon as I noticed them weeks ago. Blinking lights surround purple and orange–a color too close to traffic cones, in a unique display which leaves me to wonder where the witches are but the mystery is part of how this hanging stuff from a tree display goes to the next level.

Toxic Treat

It’s a gruesome sight. I catch it every year and it keeps getting creepier by the minute–that’s every minute I spend time thinking about it. What’s in the barrel? My first thought was nuclear sludge. I spent more time considering. A body being dissolved in acid? Do you see where this is going? That’s just one element of this scene. There’s a body wrapped in duct tape and thick black plastic and a sinister portrait while some mutant attempts to photo bomb my efforts to take a picture.

When Sculpture Haunts

I noticed this decoration and was intrigued that it was on the property of a church. Kind of a knobby kneed fellow who is sporting some nice rain boots. His head is pumpkin orange but it’s not a pumpkin. The skull and bones on the can he holds fits the season. But the board he holds carries no Jesusween proclamation like I was expecting.

Some effort was made to create a scary sculpture around our house and it’s frightening because it’s so weird.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder about the sign that’s blank. There’s something wrong with this unless he’s actually holding a paddle. What do you expect from Halloween sculptures? Most days you have to enjoy any and all forms of seasonal decor and the unsung efforts that go into producing them. That’s the real spirit of this season.

See another Halloween post: https://portlandorbit.com/2020/10/28/rattling-around-in-their-bones-yet-another-halloween-spooktacular/

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