 © Shane Reiswig
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Alleys - A Reminiscence Click to read Click to |
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© Shane Reiswig
|
Alleys - A Reminiscence Click to read Click to |
Alleys - A
Reminiscence
Portland, Oregon is a city bereft of alleys. Streets and avenues are everywhere, but the
unpaved, uneven, and pock-marked alley is almost nowhere to be found. It’s as if an
anti-alley league swept through town and convinced the city fathers to make these unnamed,
one-lane streets illegal. But in doing so they deprived Portland of a mainstay of
America’s urban landscape.
An alley is like a good butler who makes his services available when you need them; otherwise, he blends into the background. The electric poles, sewage connections, and gas and water lines are located in alleys of many towns and cities. And when these utilities need to be repaired, the workers and their vehicles don’t have to block the street in front of your house. If your garage entry is from the alleyway, you don’t have to lose precious space in the front yard to a double-wide driveway. In fact, you don’t have to have a fancy garage door because guests can’t see it from the sidewalk.
I miss alleys. I grew up in towns where alleys became an extension of your backyard. An alley was the perfect place to leave your junker, an old barbecue, and a couple of rust-laden folding chairs. If you tore out an old toilet from your remodeled bathroom, you could deposit it in the alley for the garbage men to pick up, rather than leave it near the front sidewalk for the neighborhood to inspect.
As a teenager in Wilbur, Washington, I would cut through several alleys on the way to school. I shared my favorite shortcuts with dogs and cats, which wandered about that small town in search of their friends and enemies. Together we kept the original meaning of alley intact, because in medieval France allée meant "walking street."
Our house had a burn barrel in the alleyway. We put our used paper, cardboard, and plastic packaging in that ancient container, which had lost its original color and acquired the orange-red tones of a hardened life. After lighting the contents we had to watch for a short while in case the wind might catch a scrap of burning paper and toss it on some dry grass. The sight of flames leaping in the barrel could spark my mind, but the smell of plastic wrap always made my nose hairs curl.
The hoop on the neighbor’s garage didn’t pose any particular problems to a game of basketball, but the alley sure did. Before I could dribble, I had to smooth the gravel as well as I could by dragging my shoe over the surface and casting aside the larger stones. Ruts and potholes could affect the strategy of the game. Alley players try to work with inside knowledge of the court, and rocky ones have their advantages.
Most alleys that I’ve seen are packed with gravel, and it still amazes me how weeds and bits of grass can poke their way through. The sound of car tires over crushed rock is one that you rarely hear in a big city unless you have an alley. To a child, waiting for a parent to return home, the crunchy sound can be comforting.
I once lived in an apartment that fronted an alley in Parkland, Washington. The actual mailing address included one-half in it—something like 114½ g Street. The place was nicely furnished but failed to impress one coed who just couldn’t believe that I lived in an alley. To her, as to most suburban Americans, an alley is a dark, unkempt, sinister place. Alleys conjure images of broken streetlights, cobblestones, the Mafia, and the poor.
Those who think alleys have to be grimy should visit the historic section of downtown Philadelphia and wander along Elfreth’s Alley, which advertises itself as "the oldest continuously inhabited street in the United States." Many of its narrow rowhouses date from the 1720s and are still used as residences. With this sort of start, America should have become a nation of alleys.
I asked a city engineer about the dearth of alleys in P-town. "The city was designed without alleys," he said, "because landowners wanted to make more profits. No one wanted to give away precious land for an alleyway."
Unfortunately, P-town succumbed to the mundane pressures of money, so we don’t have the Gasoline Alleys and Tin Pan Alleys that other cities are measured by. We do have a number of bowling alleys. Maybe I can overcome my melancholy by starting a team called the Alley Cats. We could develop gravelly voices and exhibit untamed and uneven play.
Profile
The buildings we enter are nearly all four-story and five-story square-windowed cubes of soot-blackened brick. The musty halls are walled in fat yellow and floored in dull worn green and black linoleum, like the insides of a tired 1950s high school. The ritual is the same each time: buzz ourselves in, ride the elevator to the top, loudly sing five or six carols to the echoing hall with as much harmony as we can, shout "Merry Christmas," and head for the stairs and the next hallway below. If we pause for a moment we can hear muted words: "Thanks!" and "Merry Christmas to you too!" Sometimes, if we look back, we can see doors opening and heads appearing.
This began in 1988 and the ritual continues, with James the leader today just as he was then. Over the years the tenants have gotten braver and fonder of us. They open their doors to the singing now, and often join in. Without James, this event could not be as it is. It could exist, certainly. But the openhearted zest and tenderness of these outings come straight from him.
James lives with his wife Kathy in Portland, appreciated by those who read him, cherished by those who know him.
—Victor Chapman
Bio
James Bash
Place of residence: Portland, Oregon.
Birthplace: Bellevue, Ohio.
Grew up in: Pacific Northwest.
Day job: Technical writer at Sequent Computers.
Education: B.A., Pacific Lutheran. Graduate work at University of Iowa and
University of Vienna, Austria.
Current projects: Short stories. Articles for sforzando, a classical music
magazine for the Pacific Northwest. Singing with the Portland Symphonic Choir and the
Oregon Symphony Orchestra. Organizing the NordFest Folk Festival in Portland.
Literary Award: First Place in the 1997 Cune Press Essay Competition for the essay
"Alleys—A Reminiscence."
Worst houseguests: Two Russians. We had signed up for two Estonian singers, but we
got two Russian men. Each weighed over 200 pounds. Their previous employment? They had
trained mercenaries in Angola and Lebanon. Now they sold oil and gasoline on the Estonian
black market. What were they? Russian mafia.
Worst drinking experience: Trying to match the Russians in glass after glass of
vodka—not recommended, even in your own home.
Favorite books: Imperial Masquerade and Money and Class in America by
Lewis H. Lapham (Grove/Atlantic).
Belief: Christian. I belong to a Lutheran Church.
Cravings: Classical music. Singing.
Window espresso: In the summer, my next-door neighbor comes right up to our kitchen
window to get a cup of latte. We also have a bird feeder nearby, which we keep
well-stocked. Heck, it’s great to have a happy neighborhood.
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