Kelly's Olympian

Since cold Autumn rains make motorcycle riding a little less enjoyable, my riding buddy Jeff and I decided to drive the Jeep downtown to try a new place for lunch: Kelly's Olympian. Downtown Portland hasn't changed: it is still filled with construction, pigeon-like pedestrians who frequently walk anywhere in the street at anytime, and new train and bus transit lanes to keep drivers confused. Parking is hard to find, and an aggressive style of driving is frequently required to zoom across several lanes in order to nab any just-opened parking spaces.

Kelly's Olympian is an old-time Portland bar that was remodeled several years ago into a modern, trendy bar/restaurant. It was featured at the time in the Oregonian and several local 'lifestyle' magazines. I have wanted to get down to see it for some time. It's theme is motorcycles and auto racers. When it reopened, the Harley bad boy craze was at it's height, and this place was an instant hit. It even has a large area of the curb in front divided into motorcycle-size parking spots. The bar's website has several photos showing it during those early days. It has lots of atmosphere, with many motorcycles, mostly old British bikes and an old Indian, on display in the entry and suspended from the ceiling over the bar area. The entryway and the wall behind the bar have huge auto-theme neon signs providing a good deal of the lighting and giving the place an overall red hue.

It was obvious when we got there that, at least during the day, it is more bar than restaurant. The only other patrons were eight or nine guys sitting at the bar drinking. Several were wearing chef's outfits; probably employees from the nearby hotels. By the time we finished eating, that bar lineup was down to just one guy.

The barmaid came to our table and asked if we wanted to order drinks. Nope, just menus. She headed back to the kitchen to get them. She really was a bit of a surprise as we had expected the typical downtown restaurant server. She was a barmaid; friendly, blond, somewhere under 35, with a short skirt, a somewhat skimpy top, large tattoos and lots of cleavage. No, this was not a McMenamin's. This was a bar.

We had burgers and cokes. The burgers were okay. They came with fries and were typical of what you would find in most good non-fast-food cafes, except that they arrive with 8-10 tablespoons of mayo burying the top half of the open bun. Easy to scrape off, but who eats that much mayo? The prices were average, perhaps slightly cheaper than McMenamin's. McMenamin's, a local chain of restaurants, bars, boutique hotels and entertainment venues, sets the standard for good cafe food.

The place seemed a bit off it's prime: furniture and chairs a bit worn, the motorcycles coated in dust and cobwebs. It just seemed like the whole place could use the attention of dusting, mops, brooms and elbow grease.

Will we go back. Nah, probably not. It really is too much of a hassle trying to get through downtown Portland traffic for just an average meal in a bar; and Kelly's really is a bar, not a restaurant. I'm glad we went because I wanted to see it. But, as good as the atmosphere was, I probably won't go back any time soon.

Time In the Mirror

Driving Interstate 5 through the Willamette Valley is never a thrill. I was trying to calculate how many times I have made the trip from Portland to Corvallis or Eugene and back. 250? Maybe 300? I lived two years in Eugene in the '70s and did a 48 hours-on/48 hours-off shift as a paramedic in Portland. Lots of trips back and forth. Now there are the trips back and forth visiting or retrieving my daughters who live in Eugene and Corvallis, at least during the school year.

Sunday was another trip down the super-slab. At an especially numbing part of the ride I was startled to see a toy car in my mirror. A double take showed that it was not a toy, but a full-sized car. But this car was exactly as I had built a plastic model of a hot rod in my middle school years. I spent many after-school hours holding the finished model, imagining what it would be like to drive down the road in it. And here it was, come alive from my past and about to pass me. I don't remember the exact specs of that plastic model, nor do I remember hot rods well enough to identify the year and make of the body of this car, but the details of this shape, down to the wide whitewalls was burned into my brain 50 years ago.

As an 11 year old I had sworn to myself that someday I would have a driver's license, a job and enough money to own a car just like that model. Some day I would really drive it. But time passes, interests change, and I forgot all about the little hot rod. Until Sunday. For a moment I was 11 years old again. For a moment I wanted nothing in the world as much as to be the guy driving that car. And then it was gone. A dot up ahead blending into a group of other dots. Time in the mirror, fading into an autumn horizon.

Motorcycle Books

I was at Powell's Books in Beaverton, last weekend. Even though the economy has me a a tight budget, I still consider books one of my life essentials; right after coffee. Powells is a pirate's treasure cave of books. The constant influx of used books means I often find rare gems through some sort of serendipitous vortex that puts me in the correct isle at the perfect moment.

But, I have been dismayed of late to find that the Motorcycle section of this store has fallen into a sorry state.

Only a year ago, this section was ten shelves crammed with books on a wide variety of makes and models. It is now three disheveled shelves of nearly worthless reading. And it isn't just Powells. Borders Books has reduced their Motorcycle section to about a dozen books. Checking Amazon.com isn't that much of a help either; most publishers seem to be abandoning the motorcycle genre as they try to publish only top-sellers in their lemming-leap into bankruptcy.

The other interesting thing about this is Powell's book-buyers. They are almost always busy these days as the economy forces people to sell their collections of books. The counter in the back of the store frequently has books stacked in piles twenty-high. I keep waiting to read a morning headline: "Local book store employee crushed in book avalanche". In spite of all of these used books pouring into the store, no one is selling their motorcycle books. I don't blame them, but I really expected to find tons of early books on British bikes. A used book on an early Triumph is indeed a rare thing these days.

This doesn't stop me from hoping. Or from checking that meager Motorcycle section, just in case. Nor does it stop me from being waylaid in the mystery section before I ever get to motorcycles.