Larry Morrell

Larry Morell Transcript
Interview by Mike Meyers, Larry Kent, and Sonja
Time: 66:11
Also present: Arlie Sommer, Laurie Simpson

0:00:00.0

LARRY MERELL: Well it was…there were neighborhoods you know. My grandmother used to stay up on the avenue and, um, where we lived on Killingsworth and Albina, it was called Piedmont. It said Piedmont on the, uh, telephone poles. Had our own policemen; we called them the doorshaker and uh, they came all around and I only saw them arrest somebody once. And he really did it. He grabbed the guy by the ear and hit him in the [inaudible].

0:00:37.8

SOMMER: So before we get started…can I interrupt?

MERELL: Yeah.

SOMMERS: um, everybody if you can move up closer to the table….it’s a little bit unnatural but you got to speak into the microphone. These are directional mics so they won’t capture everything they only capture what you say.

MERELL: Cardioid like this.

SOMMER: Yeah, yeah, you know your stuff.

MERELL: Well, I’ve been in the music business for about 70 years so.

[Microphone set-up…a phone rings in background]

0:02:25.3

MERELL: You know sometimes you can pick up on, um, you’ll pick up a radio station. We used to have…played in a band and the guy hook up all the sound system radio and we’d get KGW right soon. [Laughing] We had to have somebody rewire something. It was, it is some kind of a crystallized…I don’t know how it worked but it did.

SOMMERS: You got the radio signal through-

MERELL: Yeah it came right through the PA system. We never forgot how it happened.

MIKE MEYERS: Whoa.

MERELL: That was the old days when we had tubes and all kinds of wires. Now you have a thing about this big that takes care of all that.

SOMMERS: Right, yeah, uh, a radio station I work at, it’s really neat, they got old photographs of people putting up the wire all around the campuses-

MERELL: Yeah.

SOMMER: -the university radio stations and everything was a lot more-

MERELL: Well they had a telephone line to every…we played in bands like at Jantzen Beach and everything…and they had these, uh, just a regular telephone, uh, I guess it would be a receptacle and they just hook onto that and they would broadcast by the telephone lines downtown and it would be broadcast out from there. Called them remotes. And so every time we’d be playing a job there would be someone back there plugged into the telephone line and it would be going downtown. That’s how they did it.

MEYERS: Yep.

SOMMERS: Through the telephone? You got to be-

MERELL: Well through a telephone line, yeah. Things are different today.

SOMMERS: You put it in…well, we’ll have to ask you then about the bands that you’ve played in. What type of music did you play?

MERELL: Oh yeah. Oh, I played with a big band named Woody High but back then there were, you know, there was fifteen bands playing around town and we played in as many as we could work in. You made quite a bit of money, like as…like ten dollars a night, but that’s like a hundred dollars a night now. So we were making…that is how I financed my extracurricular activities like getting a second car and everything but I used to go to the…what, what you gonna to do now? You gonna-

0:04:23.0

MEYERS: They’re gonna take a picture of us.

MERELL: [Laughing]

Take photo

0:04:36.4

MERELL: I used to work at the Albina Art Center down there.

SOMMER: Oh really?

MERELL: Yeah, helped a…helped Walda Ridges’ band. A bunch of white people came into work. You know that is one of the things about integration: there was no such thing as integration. I used to play at the cotton club down there you know. You played with the musicians; you didn’t care if they were green, blue, or pink, you know?

SOMMER: Yeah.

MERELL: I went to grade…I don’t know, uh, um, is uh-

SOMMER: [inaudible]

MERELL: I can’t think of the guy, his birth name. He was a black jazz player. Hmmm, Bobby? Anyways he went to Jefferson same as I.

[More set-up]

0:05:54.7

MERELL: To think about how far we have come: when I was in grade school, like in ’39, nobody had a telephone.

SOMMER: Yeah.

MERELL: I mean one person in the neighborhood had everyone run over, oh so and so is calling, and they would run over to so and so’s house and use their phone. Now everyone has a phone in their pocket. Big change.

SOMMER: Yeah that is a big change.

MERELL: You can’t hide anymore.

SOMMER: Just for one lifetime.

MERELL: Yeah when, let’s see, somewhere between 19…I don’t know when it was but they renumbered all of the houses.

[People arriving and more set-up]

0:09:21.9

MEYERS: I’m Mike Meyers and I work at Port City and I have been here for a long time now. Larry, your turn.

LARRY KENT: My name is Larry and I am from Forest Grove. I, I….I [inaudible] but I left but I came back. Other Two: So.

SONJA: [inaudible]

SOMMER: Twenty eight years? Sonja. That’s Sonja.

MERELL: Oh I’m Larry Merell. I’m a retired musician and school teacher.

0:10:18.8

SOMMER: And can you just start out with an introduction of growing up here and we’ll go from-

MERELL: Oh yeah. I was born in 1930 and, uh, born in Emanuel Hospital and, uh, spent my whole life…until 1950 I lived in this…the area, right off of where Cascade College used to be, which is now Cascade campus from Portland Community College. Killingsworth…and I went to Jefferson High School, Ockley Green School, and one time, part of the time, to Beach. But I used to live in [inaudible], hang out up and down the avenue as they called it.

SOMMER: Okay. Questions? Yeah. Why don’t you start with the question you always ask.

MEYERS: [Laughing] Okay. What high school did you go to?

MERELL: [Laughing] I went to Jefferson High School from 1944 to 1948. As did all my family; my mom and all my cousins and aunts and uncles. They all went there. We all lived in the same area. It was, um, twenty five hundred students living in…going to Jefferson and that would be about 1946, at the end of the war. All of the people from Vanport and, uh, they split them between Roosevelt and Jefferson and I don’t think Grant got any of them. Mostly just…’cause it was right up from Vanport; you come up the highway to Jefferson. Lots of kids.

0:11:53.8

SOMMER: Do you want to ask him about his parents?

MERELL: Oh my parents. Well they, um,….is what you want to ask?

SOMMER: Can somebody ask you a question-

KENT: My question is, um, um, how…I mean…how long…what…your parents. I’m just curious.

MERELL: You mean how long did I live in this area?

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Well we moved in the area. I lived on 5823 N Michigan right next to…used to be the car barns there. And we lived there 19…probably ’37 before that we lived on Garfield and all around the area in various houses. That was a tough time economically, like it is now, and my dad worked for the railroad and he got laid off actually and nothing was happening. About 1930, ’31, when I was born, it was a low time. It was after the big stock market crash. So we rented a lot of houses. And my grandfather, my mother’s father-

KENT: How many?

MERELL: How many different houses?

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Well I would say probably five or six different places between 1930 and 1939.

KENT: Why?

MERELL: ’Cause wherever there was a less expensive place to live…like for example: we lived on 5822 N Michigan. We paid seven dollars a month for the house.

MEYERS: Whoa, whoa, wait…seven dollars a month for the house?!

MERELL: Yep. Uh-huh. And I slept in the bedroom. There was one bedroom and they had a big walk-in closet and my bed was in the bottom of the closet. Had an orange crate for my nightstand. I thought it was great ‘cause my mom made little curtains and I could put my socks in there and everything. And oh, my dad had a shop in the back, and we built a lot of things together. But then we moved you know, to just wherever there was a…that, that was 1937 economically. I can remember my dad got a check from the railroad for forty seven dollars. That was for two weeks worth take-home pay. And there were three kids and my mom. So there were five of us. That, that had to pay for everything. So it was a low economic time. Then along towards 1939…and various places. We actually moved to the back room of one of my aunt’s house and one time my grandmother’s house. And then we….the war started. Things started happen in ’39. They started building up all the different…railroads became booming and my dad got back to work. So then we got into…we ended up buying back the house that my grandfather built in 1911. We bought that house back in 1939.

MEYERS: Wow.

MERELL: Paid fifteen hundred dollars for it and we lived there all through the war.

KENT: Now, um, what war?

MERELL: World War II. 1941 to 1945. Anything else?

SOMMERS: Where was that house?

MERELL: Oh the house was at 549 N Church St. And Church is one block north of Killingsworth and the nearest cross street was Kerby. Now Kerby goes right beside Jefferson High School. So I could hear the bell in the morning in my bedroom and I could jump up and get there before I was late. Which I did often. And it was right near the north branch of the library. Which we lived in because it was a neat place. Still is. Yeah, that’s all gone now.

0:15:37.9

SONJA: [inaudible]

SOMMER: How old…Did you say how old are you?

MERELL: How old am I? 80. I was born in 1930.

SONJA: Ooh.

SOMMER: Yeah.

MERELL: Yeah. Nobody gets gray in my family. My aunt was ninety one when she died and she still wasn’t grey. Clean living.

0:16:03.2

SONJA: [inaudible]

SOMMER: Are you married?

MERELL: Yes. Yes. Um, my wife and I have been married fifty six years and we have four kids.

0:16:22.1

SONJA: What you do now?

SOMMER: What do you do now?

MERELL: Well I am retired. I retired in 1990. I was a band director and supervisor for music at David Douglas School for fifty years.

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: Seems like a long time doesn’t it?

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: I really, I really liked kids and when I was at Jefferson the band director that was there got us all excited. A lot of other guys who went through there became band directors. He was a good man. He played up in the symphony.

KENT: Uh what’s that? What is a band…band…band what, what which you? What is it? Band…band…what is it?

MERELL: Band director?

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: It’s the guy that makes up the football formations and Friday night they run around and makes pictures.

KENT: Oh okay.

MERELL: Conducts concerts-

KENT: Oh okay.

MERELL: Basketball games, and all that…and teaches kids how to read music. One of my students, uh, from there is the…is Jimmy Makarounis’s who owns Jimmy Mak’s downtown. You know the jazz club? One of the most famous jazz clubs on the West Coast.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: Yeah he…well he was a trombone player in the back row but he liked music.

KENT: So…so what kind of music do you like?

MERELL: Well, I like all kinds of music. You know I played mostly, uh, um, I played trumpet mainly, but you have to know all of the instruments. I played with the Woody High Band and that was a big band like Glen Moore and here in town. And I play a lot of, um…when I was in the Marine Corps band during the Korean War I played down in Hollywood, radio and television shows. So when I came back I had a lot of experience. I got to play Bob Hope and Tony Bennett as they came through town they would hire a local band. So I got to play all of that too. That was fun. Kept my sanity from dealing with high school kids every day.

KENT: Okay so…so…so…so did you actually meet Bob Hope?

MERELL: Oh yeah.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: Yeah. Bob Hope and Toney Bennett, um, Johnny Mathis. Uhhh, Marlene Dietrich I know. We used to play the ice shows. You know what the ice shows are like?

KENT: No.

MERELL: They skate around and make music.

KENT: Oh, I-

MERELL: We played that for years and years. That was great fun. And circuses. Da-na-dunt-da-na-na-dunt-na-na. Played that for a long time. Now all of that is done on tape. You know they don’t use a live band anymore. So, we’re out of business.

SOMMER: Can you talk about the music scene around here.

MERELL: Oh the music scene around here…every grade school, beach, KENTon….all the ones around this area all had really good music programs. They were taught music from Kindergarten by a local teacher at the school then the high school band director would go to each school and form a band. So when Jefferson….when the kids got to Jefferson there was already a band ready to go. Jefferson, Grant, and, um, Roosevelt, Washington High School those were the strongest music programs in the city. The Grant High School band director was my personal, private trumpet teacher. Ed McDowell, one of the big name names around here, he was the one I used to…I played…I would take lessons even though we would go play jobs together at night, play for different shows and everything. He was a great guy. In fact, even when he died about, I think a couple of years ago, he was about 90 some years old, still hay on hearty. Um, let’s see…Ockley Green probably had the best music program. There was about a seventy five piece marching band that used to come in first in the Junior Rose Parade and, uh, now Portland public schools have let all that stuff kinda go into the…they don’t have bands and stuff like they do. Ironically all of the suburban schools…David Douglas is still very strong. Reynolds, all of the Beaverton schools, Hillsboro, all have great music programs but the city schools seem to be doing something else.

0:20:26.4

KENT: Um, what, uh, what about art and stuff?

MERELL: Yeah art was another big program. At Okley Green we had, uh…the teacher I had for band was also a part time art teacher. So I always had to choose if I wanted to be an art major or a music major and they did all manner of things. In fact, if you called, uh, uh…they had a home ec for the girls and they had, uh, [inaudible] training for the boys. And, uh, the [inaudible] training we made sailboats, we made all kinds of things. It was a big program. Today everything is electronic and they don’t seem to use their hands like they used to.

KENT: And, uh-

MERELL: It is kind of a shame.

KENT: Uh, is…is…is you mean….I, I was born in 1960-

MERELL: Yeah.

KENT: and I, I remember Coke…twenty five cents is now a dollar. It’s like crazy.

0:21:25.5.5.3

MERELL: Yes, let me tell you about that a little. Quick story about that. We just came back; my sister lives in Greece so we went over to see her and we thought we’d stop at the island of Capri because that is kind of in the area. I got a coke, one of the old six ounce bottles, those little tiny bottles, it was three-point-five Euros. That’s like four dollars.

KENT: [Laughing]

MERELL: I couldn’t believe it. It was just…two drinks and it was gone.

MEYERS: Wow.

MERELL: That’s the way economics have changed.

KENT: Yeah.

SONJA: [inaudible]

SOMMER: Yeah. She said yeah. Your just agreeing right? Sonja?

MERELL: Yeah.

0:22:06.8

SOMMER: Yeah. Didn’t you…you were saying earlier that…does any of you want to…he was saying that he was volunteering at an art center.

MERELL: Oh yeah I used to help out at the, the Albina Art Center. There was a guy in town named Walter Bridges, a black man, tremendous guy, one of the best men I have ever known, he put together a…just a…we called it a rehearsal band.; guys get together and play for fun. But he had some kind of a connection with Count Basie, the famous band leader, and he could get the arrangements and so we would come down. Now the black guys who played were great jazz players but a lot of them didn’t…they didn’t care to read music. They, they were creative and that’s great. You need both. Well I was always a good site reader and so I would come down and a lot of our guys game down, I would say about have the band was white, and we’d come down there on a Sunday evening I think it was, and rehearse, just for fun. And then we’d play concerts around, wherever, we used to play at the Cotton Club down here. It’s kind of a funny feeling. You know we didn’t know what the word…and I’ll say that at Jefferson we had a lot of black kids in the band…Bobby Bradford, that’s the guy I was trying to think of. He’s still around playing. Great jazz trombone player. He went to school at the same time. You know Bobby Bradford? Oh he is tremendous. He…his daughter works at the credit union. I saw her the other day. [Laughing] Anyway, uh, we would just get together and play for fun, but the incentive for white guys had to come and work with black guys was that they were such great musicians. They just blew you away with all this great…they were absolutely uninhibited and just went flying. It was great. And Bobby was one of them. And, uh, then we got to play the Count Basie arrangements, which you couldn’t get. Now, in today’s world, I can get on the internet and in five minutes I could order anything that’s in the…Count Basie a library, will be mailed to me in my house, or emailed. It’s just unbelievable. But then you didn’t have it.

SOMMER: Do you guys want to know about the Cotton Club?

KENT: No.

MEYERS: I do.

SOMMER: You do?

KENT: No. I don’t.

MEYERS: I do.

MERELL: It was a great jazz club down in-

MEYERS: Downtown Portland.

MERELL: Well it was right down on, um, do you know where…you guys don’t know, you’re too young.

KENT: [Laughing] All bet you!

SOMMER: [Laughing]

MERELL: But it was…I think it was on either Vancouver or Williams, it was almost down to the bridge.

MEYERS: Yup.

MERELL: Anyway, it, it was a…you know nobody cared. You went there and you might be five white guys in there and everybody is just having a great time. Nobody cared.

0:24:31.6

MERELL: And, and it just went crazy til Watts happened. The Watts Riots in Los Angeles?

MEYERS: Yep, yep, yep, yep.

MERELL: We were working with, uh, um, Mo Bobby and a bunch of the guys with Walter Bridges and we were going to play a concert that same weekend someplace and so Walter Bridges, you can’t talk like this, he said ‘okay guys, we are going to met over here at Safeway parking lot and we’ll take a bus’ and we said ‘wait a minute Walt. Why are we going to take a bus? It is just a short ways.’ ‘No we don’t want you guys to drive your cars. You might get your windshields bashed in.’ So we all kind of backed up, and the black guys too, and we said ‘hey man, we better not play this concert right now.’ So we didn’t because at that time black people were driving around with the lights on in their cars so you could be sure to see that they were black. Otherwise they’d be bashin’ the windshields. Because of what went on in LA.

MEYERS: Yep.

0:25:21.3

MERELL: And that wasn’t the end of Albina art center cooperation, but it slowed it down. We still kept going from time to time but…and they got funding. Somebody in town funded that and came up with money for music and stuff but it was a community effort. It wasn’t just music. The art center had…they did other things for kids and all kinds of stuff.

KENT: Was it hard? To get funding? Was it hard to get some funding?

MERELL: It was not nearly as hard to get funding then as it is now. I don’t know why it is so hard…well there was more places to get money today, but as you know it hard to get sometimes. Back then there were lots of people, especially after the, the Watts Riots and everything, to get things back and settled down. Portland used to be known for an area where, uh, there was no discrimination and such and so there was a little hassle….I get back on this black and white thing but that was a big part of living down in this area. The, um, the black area where everybody lived was way down on Knott Street then and um, if you got up to where…do you know where Ainsworth is?

MEYERS: Yep, yep.

MERELL: Ainsworth was probably…we called that the rich people. And there was a guy named Frank L. McGuire owned all of the real estates in town and he lived in a big house down there. If you went down Portland Boulevard those were all…incidentally we were talking just yesterday out at the East Portland Community Center…they were going to close, they think they were going to close the, this community center. And I saw this thing I was like ‘what? Of all the places. That was the first community center in the city and-

0:27:01.0

SONJA: Why?

MERELL: Money. They are running out of money and what they are doing is they’re…the one out by us is called East Portland and there is one at Montavilla. They’re monsters with huge swimming pools and everything and they got them so nice that they-

KENT: And then they want to close them down?

MERELL: Well because they got their money spread out. So, you know, so if you hear anything about that get on the phone and complain ‘cause as I remember, when I was growing up we lived in Peninsula Park.

MEYERS: Yeah.

MERELL: We walked our girls in the Rose Garden, we played in the boat basin-

SONJA: Yeah.

MERELL: My grandfather played in the band festival. The band, um, what did they call it…[inaudible], the Cupola. He played in there back in 1911 or whenever and then I played there with a Portland concert band. We used to have concert bands in the park. That’s a…you know…we used to have…there used to be a circus there called the Carr Brothers’ Circus. It was a volunteer group and all of the kids in the town would come in and they would, you know, ride their bicycles and use a trampoline and everything. They are going to close it down. I dunno, maybe it doesn’t get used as much. That was the only swimming pool in town.

0:28:14.4

KENT: What, um, what I want to ask you about the [inaudible]…some people, some people can’t afford to buy food or rent [inaudible]…I remember when firstI moved here, I moved here in 1987, but MLK [inaudible] it cost people a lot, I remember but, but, it was really bad, bad back then, but some kids I know need money. They will beg for money, but, but that is true that it’s inevitable in MLK.

MERELL: Yeah. Nobody cared about what the name of the street was. It was Union Avenue when I was a kid.

MEYERS: Yep. I remember Union Avenue.

MERELL: Yeah and, uh, there was, there was a street car that went down Mississippi all the way down to the bridge transfer, to the foot of the Broadway Bridge. There was a, um, an electric trolley bus that went down Greeley. Um, there was a streetcar that went down Alberta out to 30th ‘cause I used to go out with a girl from Jefferson, she lived on the corner of 30th so I could ride the bus, the street car, to the end. Then coming back…if you worked it right you could sneak up and jump on the back and ride for free. Who wanted to waste a whole nickel to pay for a ride on the trolley? Uh, but anyway, we got everywhere we wanted to go by public transportation. Of course I have to say that, you know where the…let’s see…it was on Killingsworth and Michigan right there now a Safeway store...that used to be the car barns. All the street cars came in there and we lived right across the street from that. So you could…if I was playing downtown at night, at the Multnomah Hotel or something, and I needed to get home on a bus. I could pick up anyone that said out of service. They were all going right there and I lived right there so it was very easy for us.

0:30:22.6

SOMMER: Did you [inaudible] paper route?

MERELL: Oh yeah I had a paper routes and two magazine routes all down in this area. We were suppose to go…to stay in our area but we snuck up down here cause there was more people to sell things too.

KENT: Well, um, um, did, did, did you get caught sneaking out?

MERELL: [Laughing] No, there was no regulations. Just you were assigned an area, you know-

KENT: Okay.

MERELL: I was suppose to…one time I sold Sunday night, Saturday night we’d sell the Sunday paper…sell the Sunday paper, that was on right were that terrible accident was. Lombard and…what is that…Killingsworth or Interstate-

MEYERS: Killingsworth? Interstate?

MERELL: Yeah.

MEYERS: What happened at Interstate?

MERELL: Yeah right-

KENT: What happened?

MERELL: Well some guy, nobody knows why, he ran over two people and shot across the street and ran into another young man who had his little boy with him and the little boy was killed.

KENT: Oh, that little kid?

MERELL: Yeah. In the-

KENT: Oh man.

MERELL: You don’t know what happens-

KENT: I was mad. I was ticked off.

MERELL: Oh yeah?

KENT: Yeah!

MERELL: But we don’t know what really…the guy had a heart attack or what, even so. Hey I just remembered. Williams Potato Chips down on, down on I think it was…was that on MLK or Grand or one of them…anyways there was that and there was Raven Creamery. They had great ice cream. So when I’m delivering my papers I would stop by there. But Union Avenue was a major…it was a…Union Avenue was the way to get to Vancouver. Then they put in Interstate Avenue, which goes right by Ockley Green. But that was called Paterson Road or something. It was a gravel road. Then they put in Interstate and that became Highway 99, or whatever it is that goes to Vancouver. So it could go either way. So then you could go Union, Vancouver Avenue, or Interstate and now of course the highway goes zip right over there but in those days you stand there on Saturday morning and people are going someplace and it was just a constant stream of cars. We used to just watch them. You know, it was fascinating to kids.

0:32:28.3

KENT: Um, I mean…what…do you know when Oregon became, became state. I’m just curious.

MERELL: When did I-

KENT: What year did Oregon became a state?

MERELL: Oh no. I was…that was, that was, that was 1859. But I played at the Oregon Sentinel in 1959. They had a big celebration. Delta Park.

KENT: I was right then. I was right then.

MERELL: Yeah, yeah and you know what day it was? February 14th and-

KENT: No wasn’t it-

MERELL: Yep.

KENT: It was the 15th. Wasn’t it the 15th?

MERELL: No. It was the 14th. On Valentine’s Day it became a state in 1859 and that is how you can always remember that. Yeah that was a big celebration. They had all kinds of big acts came out here from…went on all summer. Great fun.

0:33:20.6

SOMMER: Did you say that your grandfather lived here too then or-

MERELL: My grandfather, uh, um, Ira Head was his name, uh, I’m not sure…well, uh, we all came in from Missouri. My great-grandfather, whose name was John Dillinger. I don’t want…not the John Dillinger. He and Ira Head, those two guys together, had a, uh, store and a general, uh, um, a movie theatre and a general store back in the town outside of Joplin and somehow they got hoodwinked out of their business so they came out here to find a new job. They went to Spokane, Washington, where…and the other end of Spokane…Portland…they called it the SP&S railroad…the other end was here in Portland. So they took the railroad from Spokane to Portland and when they got down here they found out about homesteading. And my great-grandfather homesteaded out by Estacada. So the rest of the family stayed here. That’s how we came here. Now Ira Head, that’s my grandfather, he built this house down here on Church Street in 1911. It was 191 Church Street and then they renumbered it and it became 545 as it is now. Anyway, that’s how they got the…came here and he built that house, and I don’t know how...it’s a… somehow we don’t know how it happened…anyway, they moved out of there. Well he died but that might have been why they moved out. Anyway, then my dad bought it back for my mother in 1939 for fifteen hundred dollars.

MEYERS: What?

MERELL: Incidentally he lived…we lived there all through the war and at the end of the war in 1950 he sold it for thirty four hundred dollars. [Laughing] It got worth more.

KENT: Oooh.

MERELL: Now it is probably worth two hundred if it was…well my son bought a house just like it over here on 8th and, uh, Beech. Two hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars. For the same kind of a house. Built in the same year, 1911. Things have changed.

SONJA: Oooh.

KENT: Uh, where, where…it seem like money don’t…do not go far anymore.

SOMMER: Money doesn’t go far.

MERELL: No. Absolutely not. In fact the 15th of this month is when you have to pay your property taxes and we put so much money away all year long and went…look at the fun. We’re eight hundred dollars short. So we’re going to have to come up with eight hundred dollars someway. Now how that happened I don’t know but what happened is the, the property value went down but the taxes went up. So.

MEYERS: That’s, that’s the same way with, um, with my, um, my, my, where I live at. House and property, they go up and you have to pay for it.

MERELL: They raise the evaluation of the house but then if you look carefully where it says the sale ability, it’s gone down.

KENT: Yep.

MERELL: ‘Cause of the economy.

0:36:10.7

MEYERS: Now let’s get back to Jefferson High School.

MERELL: Yes.

SOMMER: [Laughing]

MERELL: You mean the best high school in Portland.

KENT: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait here. What you talking about the best high school in Portland? Grant, Grant’s the best high school in Portland.

MERELL: Well we, we called it Grunt High School.

SONJA: [Laughing] Ooohh.

KENT: Well we called, we called Jefferson Potato Heads.

MERELL: [Laughing] Ain’t that right.

MEYERS: Back in the day, back in the ‘70s when I, when I came to Portland in ’73. I went to Grant High School. I was a junior and I, I played football with Grant High School.

MERELL: Oh did you?

MEYERS: And we went against Jefferson.

MERELL: Oh yeah.

MEYERS: We bet Jefferson up and down that field so bad. We, we named them, we named them the potato heads. Cause that is what they had. Them black guys back in the day had potato heads. We named them potato heads.

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: [Laughing] That was the style then.

MEYERS: That’s right, but that’s what we named them.

MERELL: We called them bowl cuts. That’s the same thing. Put a bowl and buzz.

SONJA: [inaudible]

SOMMER: Sonja went to Jefferson too.

MERELL: Oh did you? Good school. Jefferson Democrats. Yeah we-

SONJA: Yeah!

MERELL: Did you remember that…it was before your time, actually my time too. There is a statue of Ulysses Grant in front of Grant. We used to go paint that blue and gold and then you guys would come-

MEYERS: Well-

MERELL: Over and paint Thomas Jefferson blue and grey. [Laughing]

MEYERS: Well, well, well what we did one night, we knew we had a big game the next night with Jefferson and so at their school, at their school, it was Jefferson’s Homecoming, Thursday night a bunch of us Seniors got together and we wanted to do something so badly and I was a Junior, I was with the Senior guys, and so we said ‘well we got to do something good tonight’. I said ‘what?’ ‘Let’s Go to Jefferson High School and paint field grey. [Laughing]

MERELL: That was a famous thing to do.

MEYERS: And we went there and we painted the school grey, the football field grey with a big G right in the middle of it and said ‘this is what you are going to get tomorrow.’ And we put the score down. We put the score down and we said 56 to nothing; that is what we are going to beat them by and they came, and they saw that, and then Friday night was the big game and we got there and we had our uniforms on, ready to go, and they started, they started scorin’ on us. We couldn’t…they couldn’t score. We stopped them and beat them 57 to nothing.

MERELL: So you were right of your prediction.

MEYERS: And we…after it was all over we took the hands and they all…and then we all…and it was like…I don’t how they done it…they had the band and we just started singing with them.

MERELL: Yeah.

MEYERS: Grant and Jefferson just got right in the football field.

MERELL: Oh it was a friendly…Yeah it was a friendly.

MEYERS: It was friendly.

MERELL: Yeah.

MEYERS: And, and everybody in the audience thought we got in a fight and stuff but no, we just took our helmets off and started singing and was singing one crazy song I cannot remember what it was. And it was so funny, we had the audience into it, we had the whole school. We, we didn’t get out until twelve o’clock that night.

MERELL: [Laughing]

MEYERS: And it was ‘cause-

MERELL: What…Jef-Grant was always the big game of the year.

MEYERS: Oh yeah! Def-

MERELL: No matter what.

MEYERS: Def, Definitely.

MERELL: We could have been the bottom two teams in the school district and still it would be a big game and the place would be jammed with people.

SONJA: It would.

MEYERS: Oh yeah, definite. Every Friday night it’s like…they, they would be talking about this school. ‘Hey man, you going to the game Friday night? Jefferson is playing Grant.’

MERELL: [Laughing] Yeah.

MEYERS: ‘Oh yeah Grant’s game.’ And Thursday they’ll say ‘Hey going to Grant game?’ Well, we’re all wearin’ our jerseys and stuff. Of course we are going to the game ‘cause we got to play in it!

MERELL: You know what happened to me. All of the…my…I did it to all my cousins, aunts, and uncles, and my mother, all went to Jefferson. And then…so we start to, uh...well my mother died and my last sister, the youngest sister was born in ’37, we moved out of the Jef district when she started high school and guessed where we moved?

MEYERS: Grant.

MERELL: Grant. [Laughing]

MEYERS: [Laughing]

MERELL: So she went to Grant High School and everybody else in the district…in the family went to Jefferson. So she gets all this stuff piled on her all the time.

MEYERS: Oh yeah. Definitely. ‘Cause, ‘cause between Grant and Jefferson that’s…I don’t care what any other high school…Grant and Jefferson is a big rival game. It’s like, eh, it’s like, it’s like they made it…they, they should make a movie of it. They should make a movie of it.

SONJA: [inaudible]

MEYERS: If you’re in Portland, Oregon stop in Friday night and see the Grant and Jefferson game.

MERELL: Yeah.

MEYERS: At Jefferson High School. The biggest game in town.

MERELL: Is that…is Grant and Jefferson still rivals?

MEYERS: Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.

MERELL: Even after you were there?

MEYERS: Oh yes. We are still rivals.

MERELL: Yeah?

MEYERS: But, but this year, this time we played Jefferson, they beat us by two points but it was a good game. It was a good game and-

MERELL: Well-

MEYERS: No fights and stuff like that. It was great and everything.

MERELL: There was a lot of incentive in the schools, when we were going to school, it seemed like school was the center.

MEYERS: Yep.

MERELL: Like in a small town. Not so much now. Although Jefferson still has a tremendous amount of spirit. Whenever their sometime comes up, away they go. You know?

[Mike Meyers says goodbye]

0:41:26.4

MERELL: Was a strange thing along that line…the coach at Jefferson was a tremendous coach and-”

MEYERS: By what team? The coach of Jefferson came from Grant.

MERELL: Yeah, yeah, but what was his name? Uh-

MEYERS: I forgot it. But he was a freshman coach at Grant-

MERELL: Yeah.

MEYERS: And then he lost his job, got fired. Then Jefferson picked him up and stuff.

MERELL: Well in 19-

MEYERS: Yeah cause Jefferson picked him up and I was mad when Jefferson picked him up, but now…and he’s still there.

MERELL: Yeah. Well back at…one time…ah, I can’t think of his name…anyways, Jefferson was a [inaudible]. They had Mel Renfro and all these great guys that went onto the NFL. And they were just beating the hell out of everybody. Sixty three to nothing, you know.

MEYERS: What team?

MERELL: Um, Jefferson High School. They won every game for like three or four years in a row and then they were the state champions two or three years in a row. Well that coach, uh, decided he wanted to get away from Jefferson. He came and teach at David Douglas. So now, here we are at David Douglas and his kids start playing football, right?

SONJA: Right.

MERELL: Now he is the coach at David Douglas. Here comes the quarter finals: David Douglas are gonna play against guess who? Jefferson.

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: Well he stilled lived in a Jefferson district. So his son was the quarter…was the, uh, he was the quarterback. Now he is teaching at Jefferson and the quarterback is from David Douglas and they’re gonna play. So they had a big interview and they said ‘what do you talk about at the dinner table?’ and the coach says ‘not football.’ And then we turned around and David Douglas bet Jefferson.

MEYERS: Wow.

MERELL: And all hell broke loose.

MEYERS: How bad?

MERELL: Oh just barely. It was a quarter final play-off but that was a long time…Tom DeSylvia, that was his name. Very famous man.

KENT: [inaudible] and the Raiders.

MERELL: Yeah, yeah. I dunno. Mel Renfro. Remember Mel Renfro? There are two Renfro brothers, well this was back in the ‘70s, but they were very famous in this area. They went on to be famous in the NFL.

KENT: Really?

0:43:33.4

MERELL: Getting back to the neighborhood, uh, coming down we used to take the Mississippi streetcar and as you came down to Knott Street or right down in that area. There are still a lot of businesses there. There was a department store, I think it was called Robert’s Brothers, and there were two or three other, uh… and, uh…so we would get on the train, on the trolley bus, trolley, and go all the way down there to do shopping. And of course we drove to it by the time I could drive. But my mom used that area to shop instead of going downtown. Downtown was a big hassle. No place to park so-

KENT: Still is.

MERELL: It still is, right. But this was a very famous-

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: Economic area. I mean lots of stores and now you know what this area is? This is where all of my, my kids are now forty and fifty, they come over here to eat because of all these great restaurants. Such tons of good restaurants.

KENT: You know somebody told me Portland is the best steakhouse all over. It is.

MERELL: I have a good friend who used to be the vice president of CBS. So he travelled all around the world. He told me, and he told all of us, that Portland has the best Chinese restaurants of anyplace. And they have the most good restaurants per capita of any town around.

KENT: Oh yeah. It does.

MERELL: There’s more choices-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: So I believe that.

KENT: It the best.

MERELL: Yeah, well plus we like the city.

0:44:55.3

SOMMER: Could you talk about how the neighborhood was affected by Emmanuel and I-205 expansion.

MERELL: Oh yeah, uh, well Emanuel Hospital used to be…when…just before I was born, Emanuel Hospital was just a big house and then it became a regular hospital in 1930 or right before that; I don’t know exactly when. But I was born there and all four of my kids were born there and we all have the same nurse on our birth certificate.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: I should have brought those out that would be interesting. Allison B. Swanson I think was what her name was. She was a nurse when I was born and then she became head of obstetrics and so forth. But it is interesting. There are four birth certificates all with the same nurse. Anyway, Emanuel Hospital had a reputation, I don’t know if it still does, as one of the most cleanest hospitals in the city. Our doctor wouldn’t, he wouldn’t let, uh, let any of our kids be born anywhere else. It had to be here. But Emanuel just started doing this and just started taking up the whole area. And then…it’s a huge, huge operation.

KENT: Yes there is.

MERELL: Yeah.

KENT: Could, could that be, be a [inaudible] brand new bath thing. I don’t know what it is but it was brand new. I know, I know…I think…I remember…I think, I think, but don’t quote me on it though, but I think they are making a new, uh, big old…I don’t know what it is but they’re making something back there. I don’t know what they’re making but just give me about a minute.

MERELL: They are building another building?

SOMMER: The Children’s Hospital.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: A Children’s Hospital.

KENT: Yeah. That’s it.

SOMMER: [inaudible]

MERELL: Well the hospital business is big business now. You know what? I, uh, directed a band of doctors over at Providence and the Providence Hospital Stage Band is one of the things I do for fun. And they just built a huge, you probably saw it, cancer wing over there and it was gigantic. Almost as half the size of the regular hospital and I just found out after they dedicated it, that hospital wing was completely paid for before they started to build it. And it was by donations from rich people and so forth. So that’s…that didn’t cut into the economy or cut back on the other stuff. But that was really neat. But hospitals...my gosh!

KENT: I know.

MERELL: You know, when I got my tonsils out for example, I don’t know where it was but it was just kind of a big house someplace where they had an operating room and know they’re just multimillion dollar corporations and, and good I guess.

0:47:26.0

SOMMER: How has the neighborhood changed? What businesses do you remember?

MERELL: Okay what has changed is funny. I, I used to use Killingsworth and Albina as my…that is where we hung out. In fact the, um, Swoops Drugstore on Killingsworth Avenue drug on the corner is where we used to go out after evening. The stories after school, we went and have a coke, read the magazines and everything; that is where we hung out. That’s gone and on that corner, um, let’s see…Albina goes this way and Killingsworth goes this way, but there’s a club, the Paragon Club or something is still there. And, um, most of the buildings are there but they have all been changed. There was Rinkers Meat Market and then around the corner was the, uh, the movie theater. What was that called? Couldn’t remember. I knew the guy who’s parents owned it was in my class so we used to go to movies Sunday and stay all day. Um, Colonial, the Colonial Theatre. The building is still there but I don’t think it is a theater anymore. We had that one and we had Walden Park on Union Avenue. There were three movie theaters we could go to, ride your bike, you know. Anyways…oh the Egyptian further on down and that was a really nice place. Uh, here’s one thing about…on the corner of Killingsworth and MLK there is a US Bank and its still there.

KENT: Oh yeah. That’s still there.

MERELL: Still there.

KENT: By Safe…isn’t it by Safeway?

MERELL: Ah, it’s on the northwest corner. Killingsworth comes like this and MLK goes like that.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: It’s right there.

KENT: But, but, but, but there’s a Safeway across…next door. There’s a Safeway.

MERELL: Could be.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: But right around there, right across the corner from that was the very first Fred Meyer store in town. First supermarket.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: Yeah I used to work there when it was 1945 and here is another interesting thing I am so old. Fred Meyer, I worked in his very first deli, downtown and he had a mayonnaise plant, and my wife’s cousin was his first employee.

KENT: No way.

MERELL: Yep.

KENT: Whoa.

MERELL: Her name was, her name was, uh, Gladis Alchivan, and he hired her to work down there and she helped him figure out how to make what they call honey crunch. Peanut butter mixed up with honey.

KENT: Oh is that’s good? [Laughing]

MERELL: Oh it’s great and when I worked under you could go in and buy potato salad and instead of in those plastic things-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: You had a little, like you get your Chinese food in-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: They get it in there and they close it up.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: And, uh, Fred Meyer himself was in there all the time. He was a wonderful guy and his wife was not. [Laughing]

KENT: [Laughing]

MERELL: She was…when she came in it was like ‘ro-rom-brom-brom, ah here she comes.’

KENT: Was she grouchy?

MERELL: Well she was just stern. He was a happy guy.

KENT: Oh okay.

MERELL: He had a big huge, uh, hunting lodge up at [inaudible] on the mountain.

KENT: Uh huh.

MERELL: And every year they had the Fred Meyer Employees’ Picnic and we would all go to the picnic. The guys that worked at the, uh, downtown at the, uh, deli, we had to serve. We’d put out the hot dogs and everything. So we didn’t get to have much fun. Well he would have a special day for the employees that worked at the picnic up at [inaudible]. And he had bicycles; we would ride bicycles up in between the huge hunting lodge. It was wonderful.

KENT: What, uh, what did [inaudible] now.

MERELL: Oh well and it isn’t owned by him anymore of course. Kroger owns it I think.

KENT: Oh. Really? Oh god, ehh.

MERELL: Well it is a whole different world then it was back then but-”

KENT: Yes. They, they-

MERELL: Very personal.

KENT: They, they got another one in Canby now.

MERELL: Yeah. They got them all over, the Battleground and, uh-”

KENT: Downtown.

MERELL: there back…you know Fred Meyer is spread all around right?

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Gig Harbor and everything else.

KENT: Starbucks too.

MERELL: Yeah. Oh yeah. [Laughing]

0:51:09.6

SOMMER: Do you have...you have a story about the Vanport Flood.

MERELL: Yes. Uh, 1948, May of 1948, Vanport Flood. My stepbrother was living there. He had a company car and his own car and it was a, uh, Sunday afternoon, I think it was. Anyways, they went out for a ride. They took their own care instead of the company car and they had just been married and they came back, they were gone. They didn’t get caught in it. Everything they owned, including the company car, was gone. They never saw it again. The whole thing washed away. We stood down on Kenton, you know where Denver and everything comes together there, and they got that big statue there?

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Right down in there we stood as close as we could get and watch the buildings float by.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: And they just, they just…they were just cracker boxes. They made…you know most of…like this wall here it has the studs on edge like this and there’s-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: An outside wall and an inside wall. Those studs were turned sideways. So the wall was only that thick.

KENT: Sideways?

MERELL: Yeah they-

KENT: What do you mean sideways?

MERELL: Well instead of being this way, they put them this way and so you could have them further apart.

KENT: I lost ya.

MERELL: So instead of every sixteen inches, every twenty four inches and it was done in a hurry. Well I had a friend who lived out there and he got mad at his wife and his mother one day and he went like this on the wall, punched it through to the next apartment.

KENT: Whoa.

MERELL: [Laughing] It was like this. [inaudible] But they were just temporary. Now some of those temporary buildings were out there are still around. The ones that didn’t get washed away.

KENT: Ah huh.

MERELL: There was a place called University Homes which was just remodeled. Some of those buildings were brought in and put in there for student housing. Yeah that was quite a deal and then when I got in the Marine Corps and was down in California guys ask me ‘Now tell me, weren’t there just hundreds of people killed and weren’t there bodies were stacked over in the swift lockers?’ There was fifteen people maybe died. That’s a miracle.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: That it was not more but it was…and now that area is prime property, you know? Delta Park, all that things going on out there.

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: You know where the word, the name Vanport came from?

KENT: No.

MERELL: Vancouver and Portland; they put them together.

KENT: Nu-uh.

MERELL: Yeah. Van-port.

KENT: Oh! Okay.

MERELL: And, and they brought the kids in that went to Jefferson, they brought them in in great, big, huge buses and they were like a semi truck. The back part was all bus and a big truck in the front and just tons and tons of kids from back in the South and some of those kids were mean kids. Boy, they wore overalls and-”

KENT: Bullies.

MERELL: Yep. Exactly right. We had to watch out for those guys. Uh, yeah we were so bloody crowded that band and everything had to be in portables. That’s like a little, uh, trader house out behind and I don’t know how they put twenty five hundred kids in that building.

KENT: How many?

MERELL: Twenty five hundred and that was-

KENT: Dang.

MERELL: Jefferson has about eight hundred now.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: Course they are not using all of the building but.

0:54:12.4

KENT: What was…I heard that they might shut it down. I heard.

MERELL: They are what?

SOMMER: Shutting it down.

KENT: They, they might shut it down.

SOMMER: They might shut it down.

MERELL: Jefferson. They better not.

KENT: And Marshall, Marshall.

MERELL: Oh yeah.

KENT: And, and, this they do have, have indeed.

MERELL: The reason for all that economics again.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: And they take…they forget about…it’s important from the school budgets. Being a school man I understand that but they forget about the pride of the people who live there. You know, who wants to shut down a school?

KENT: I wouldn’t.

MERELL: I mean, Jefferson is, is a…it’s where everybody goes for, you know, like he says, Jef-Grant game. People go there.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: We used to have harvest festivals and people would come around all over. It was, it was a center for the public.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: And the kids went to school and they were proud of it. They didn’t want to have it close down. Right? Jefferson? And, uh, do you remember the Jefferson Fight Song? You know what? They don’t use that anymore.

KENT: Why?

MERELL: The Jefferson Fight Song goes-

SONJA: Why?

MERELL: ‘Jefferson school, a mighty’…and they got it…they have another name don’t they? I forgot what it is? Well anyway…um, yeah I hope they don’t shut it down because there is such a great…you know Jefferson was the first school in the city to have lights for night football.

SONJA: Hmm.

MERELL: And it was my class. Our year that we raised the money. It cost eighty five hundred dollars. Imagine what it would cost today, probably eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Anyway, we got all of the money and of course the people would come and stand outside and not pay to come in. So the next year we all got out and went to everybody’s house and you had a loral hedge crew and we are going to rip up every other one and we planted them all around and pretty soon you couldn’t see in. That was one of the projects that they came up with.

KENT: What, um, eh, you know [inaudible] field, you know how they be lining up fences? You know that field?

MERELL: Yeah.

KENT: Well, well, they tore it all down. They, they ripped it apart.

MERELL: Yep.

KENT: And that’s like what the hell?!

MERELL: Well imagine…can you imagine to close Benson High School?

KENT: That’s stupid.

MERELL: Benson High School was a polytechnic high school and they taught aviation and all these things that nobody ever…no…Seattle didn’t have a school like that and [inaudible] they were gonna close it down. They say they don’t need those techniques anymore, they don’t need to do foundry and, and casting of, of cast irons. Bologna.

KENT: What?

MERELL: They do it all the time.

KENT: Yeah, does the, does the…da, da people [inaudible]. But nothing can do that anymore.

MERELL: Yeah.

0:56:52.7

MERELL: See that’s another, just like I said, the schools are, uh…you know people coming in…community col-, uh, center down at Peninsula Park. We said we were down there all time and we had a little band we played in the gym-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: We went swimming there. In the summer we went there and they had crafts and arts and, you know, and then we played in the parks and we had…and at night they had, uh, softball tournaments. My dad and mom and everybody in the neighborhood would go to that. All of this goes on and they still have that sort of thing and this community center I am talking about out there by us-

KENT: Uh huh.

MERELL: And same thing was, uh, was Peninsula Park was jammed all day long. You got to make an appointment to get in there.

KENT: Yeah. Oh really?

MERELL: Yeah.

KENT: Wow.

MERELL: My wife goes over there to do the, uh, on the…what do you call it…on the treadmill and you got to put in the…call in the [inaudible] dance to get a place to go. So I don’t know why-

KENT: Ohhh, that’s stupid.

MERELL: I don’t know why they are closing it…it could be because one nearby does it better.

KENT: Or like money.

MERELL: It’s cheaper to go to this one than to remodel. You know that’s-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Part of the thing.

SONJA: Why?

MERELL: Labor is so expensive to remodel.

SOJA: Oh.

MERELL: Anyway Peninsula was…you know Peninsula, I lived at the…here is Jefferson, here is Ockley Green, and Peninsula was right here so we were right…and the kids from all over town came there. When we went swimming at Peninsula Park there would be kids from all over. Even out in Parkrose and things like that ‘cause that was the only swimming pool around. Anyway-

KENT: What, eh, eh, um, [inaudible] that was a good pool. [inaudible] You know [inaudible]?

MERELL: Yep. Well now, now they have swimming pools all over. The next one was Pier Park, I think, out in St. Johns but that was heated.

KENT: Oh was it?

MERELL: And that…the one at, at, uh, Peninsula was not heated and they drained it every Sunday at the end of the day and all day Monday they filled it back up.

KENT: Whoa.

MERELL: So by the time they got that thing full it…the water that was coming to fill it had been on Mt. Hood. It was like ice water-

SONJA: [Laughing]

MERELL: And you come in on Tuesday morning and it was like whoohh.

KENT: Whoa! [Laughing]

SOMMER: [Laughing]

MERELL: But we did anyways. We lived in the pool all summer.

KENT: I don’t have guts. I wouldn’t do that-

MERELL: No-

KENT: I’m not that stupid.

MERELL: Swimming was great and, you know, you met kids from all over town there.

SIMPSON: Oh that’s great.

MERELL: Yeah.

0:59:09.4

MERELL: Let’s see…what else…oh, uh, the businesses, um, the Piedmont area that I said before, which is Killingsworth and Albina, there was a…two or three grocery stores, three or four taverns, a, a movie theater, and the grocery stores were meat markets and so they weren’t all like Fred Meyers now where they are all one.

KENT: Yeah.

Merell: And there was a hardware store and two or three gas stations and places to have your car repaired. That was a little hub. Now there is another one down at the bottom of the hill on, uh, Mississippi down there. Probably, oh on down at the bottom…I don’t know what…would it be all the way down to Knott or not, but anyways there was another area like that and then there was an area out in St. Johns and all these different little areas. Now those things have become blurred because they put in a great, big, gigantic mall and the people who went to these other places all go to this one. So the neighborhoods start to, you know…

KENT: Expand.

MERELL: No they go the other way.

KENT: Oh.

MERELL: They go to this one big place, like when they built…when Lloyd Center opened. That was the biggest mall in the whole United States and I played in a band that played the day they opened that. You that…they used to have a big thing-

SONJA: Whoa.

MERELL: A statue up there that showed a bunch of these pigeons flying everywhere.

KENT: Yeah. Yeah.

MERELL: Well I was there.

KENT: It’s a cool one.

MERELL: On the day they opened that we were standing out there and they said ‘and we dedicate this to the Lloyd Center’ and the way the pigeons went they flew right over the band. Fortunately we didn’t get decorated.

KENT: What year?

MERELL: Oh, okay you had to ask me that.

KENT: I was…sorry. [Laughing]

MERELL: You know as you get older there is so much behind you can’t remember but it was…it has to be in the ‘60s someplace because I moved into the house I lived in now in 1960 so it was around in there someplace.

1:00:52.2

KENT: I, I was born, I born that-

MERELL: [Laughing] You were born that year.

KENT: [Laughing]

MERELL: I don’t want to hear that.

KENT: I, I was just asking. [Laughing]

MERELL: [Laughing] Yeah. You’ve been around so long you’ve forgotten the things you-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: But this was my neighborhood so I remember all that stuff.

KENT: Yeah, well, um, me, I, I was born in California.

MERELL: California, what part?

KENT: Oakland.

MERELL: Oakland? That’s the way you use to go to San Francisco. You go to Oakland and take a ferry to get over there.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Yeah.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Yeah my dad worked for the railroads so we went to San Francisco and Seattle for free, you know. We just get on. It was part of, part of being an employee for the railroad; you got a free pass.

KENT: And then, and then when I was four I moved to Sacramento when I was four.

SONJA: [inaudible]

MERELL: Sacramento is so hot in the summer!

KENT: [inaudible] it like was a hundred and four [inaudible]! I could not take it.

MERELL: Yeah, yeah, we stopped one time on the train and my dad went across the road to get the ice cream cones and by the time he got back it all melted.

KENT: It melted. [Laughing] Yeah.

MERELL: He was standing there and it was running down his arm.

KENT: Well, well in the winter it would get about seventy, seventy four like in December.

MERELL: Yeah. That’s the good part. It stays warm in the winter.

KENT: Yeah. So.

MERELL: Yeah.

1:02:03.9

MERELL: Let’s see what else was, um…

SOMMER: What about 205?

MERELL: 205.

SOMMER: [inaudible] things.

MERELL: Well when 205 came in over there it supposedly slowed down the traffic on the interstate.

KENT: It does I think.

MERELL: Yeah it did but now, uh, with the Max train going through there it seems to me like it’s plugged up again.

KENT: It’s a lot better.

MERELL: We live out on a 122nd, right by Mall 205-

KENT: Uh huh.

MERELL: 122nd now used to be, you know, gee lots of times, you know, no, no problems with traffic. At two thirty in the afternoon at 122nd is like 217 over there and the freeway, uh, I-85-84, going downtown…one thirty, two thirty and 205 same thing and they have been arguing about the new bridge across Columbia. When they started arguing about it they needed the bridge then and that was twenty years ago and they still haven’t done anything. By the time they get that bridge done they are gonna need another bridge. I don’t know where they go. They just don’t think, you know? Same thing happened with I-5 when it went south. They built it with only room for four lanes. Two lanes each way and immediately within five years it was too small.

KENT: What are…you know [inaudible] but now they changed it.

MERELL: Yeah. Yeah that’s good.

KENT: I like it better that way.

MERELL: Oh yeah.

KENT: Be-because you know, I tried to cross the street but I couldn’t figure out which street to cross.

MERELL: Oh. Bet it was worth your life to cross that street.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: [Laughing]

KENT: Yeah, yeah, be-because those cars could knock your head off and they keep flying. They won’t stop. [inaudible] is a lot better.

MERELL: Yeah, you, you don’t trust the crosswalks.

KENT: I don’t.

MERELL: Let me tell you what happened in Europe. We just came back ‘cause we went to see my sister. In Europe pedestrian doesn’t have the right of way.

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: So I’m an American. I stopped for the pedestrians. When I stopped for the pedestrians I would almost get clobbered from the guy behind me going ‘beep beep beep get out of the way’-

KENT: Are you serious? Wow.

MERELL: You can’t do that and I say to myself and my wife ‘I can’t go right through when there is somebody standing there and trying to get across’ but you have to-

KENT: Yeah.

MERELL: Because I almost caused some major accidents. Anyway…

KENT: Geesh. Wow.

[Parting words and hope that neighborhoods would thrive in the future as they have in the past]

1:05:24.3

MERELL: Yes. I went to Beach in kindergarten. That was about 1934 I guess.

[Goodbyes and picture]