[Part II, Part III]
Introduction:
My favorite pastime lately has been bothering my father about writing pieces of his own. I know in my heart he’s a better writer than I will ever become, but despite my pestering, he has shied away from ever writing anything public. Maybe somewhere on his computer, or box in storage, is a folder full of writings, waiting to be unearthed. Maybe it’s all wishful thinking to some degree.
This past December, my father and I were visiting Portland after my mom’s mother, my grandmother, had passed at the age of 98. While on our way to eat dinner at Pho Hung, a longtime Portland Vietnamese establishment, my father approached me about writing a piece about how he and my mother met. While it saddened me at the time, in all honesty I had never heard the complete story.
With the 2 year anniversary of her death today, January 5th, it seemed appropriate to tell the humorous story of their “meet-cute”, and everything transpiring after.
For context, my father is a stoic man. Getting information out of him, or having him expand his thoughts on a situation, is not too dissimilar to gold panning - you’ll be exerting a lot of effort, for a tiny, but consequential, reward. Despite all this, he was a great guest to interview, and was happy to answer many of my myriad nitpicking questions.
Part I: No Alterations
Portland in the late 70s was incredible, or so my father, Mark, tells me. The whole state of Oregon felt like a hidden gem, and Portland epitomized that reputation. He says the size of the city, in both population and area, was perfect, holding an ineffable quality. The people, similar to the overall feel of the city, were calm and mellow, as though everyone kept a collective secret amongst themselves about living in a “West Coast Eden”, of sorts. His favorite part of Portland during that time, though? You could get anywhere within 20 minutes. My father says former Oregon governor Tom McCall said it best in his controversial unofficial slogan for the state: “Come visit, but don’t stay”.
Prior to his Portland life, my father spent his late 20s/early 30s as the grocery manager for the Albertsons in Coos Bay, a coastal town near Southern Oregon - or as he would put it “not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.” A nasty accident involving a blower fan in the Albertsons’ freezer room left him incapacitated and unable to work. While Coos Bay featured amazing hand surgeons due to its secondary nature as a logging town (i.e. multitude of machinery accidents), it was a far cry from the place one would want to spend their free time recovering. Loaded with a bundle of savings and a craving for civilization, my father ventured north towards the City of Roses.
Lucky for him, when my father moved back to Portland in 1976, a stable community was already established. Everyone from his college days at Oregon State University was living in the area, and welcomed him with open arms. My father quickly found a home in a downstairs accessory dwelling unit off Taylors Ferry Road in Southwest Portland, shared with two other “Mark’s” he knew from college. It was literally the House of Mark’s.
My father’s next few years in Portland were quite in flux, reminding me of my own transitory self. Waiting for his hand to heal, my father spent his recovery time visiting friends, while picking up odd jobs in the area like painting & light home remodeling. Once fully healed, my father landed again at an Albertsons in the Cedar Hills neighborhood of Beaverton.
His Albertsons stay was short lived, only to be headhunted in 1978 by an acquaintance of his close friend Dennis. Said acquaintance saw the potential of a grocery store in Beverly Beach and saw my father as the man (consultant) for the job, eventually running the store once fully it was open. While the job would have returned my father to the coast, the whole concoction fell through due to the acquaintance failing to obtain an OLCC liquor license due to their “multiple speeding violations”. They soon made the logical transition to selling Christmas trees in Hawaii.
Originally growing up in Eugene, known famously for the home of the University of Oregon, my father would tell us stories of spending his childhood weekends wandering around fraternity row collecting beer bottles and cans for deposit. During his junior/senior year of high school, his parents moved to San Mateo, California after his father was transferred there for work. My father says he loved the Bay Area, and would visit his folks a couple times per year once he began college back at Oregon State in Corvallis.
One fateful visit in 1982, my father recalls my grandfather saying a few friends were inquiring about hiring my father for work - or as my father says “To the tune of ‘Oh, Mark’s in town? I’ve got a few jobs for him!’ After completing said jobs, my father realized the Bay Area was undergoing significant growth, and wanted to capitalize on it. But he knew he couldn’t go it alone.
Coincidentally, one of my father’s best friends was in the Bay Area concurrently as my father. Bruce, and his wife, Nancy, were high school sweethearts, and had been longtime friends with my father since their early college days together, and were town visiting other college friends. My father, being the sly man he is, convinced Bruce to get in on the rapid growth. Together, they teamed up on construction projects throughout the Bay Area, networked through friends of my grandfather. Intially calling themselves “The Level Brothers”, they soon pivoted to “C + M Construction” to sound more
While Nancy and the baby returned to Portland, my father and Bruce went to work. Their initial short term collaboration turned into a bustling six month gig. While they loved working together, they unfortunately soon realized their income stream wasn’t strong enough to support both my father and Bruce. With a wife and newborn in another state, Bruce returned to the Portland area, and my father followed soon after. Luckily, this was not the end of their tale - upon returning to Portland, Bruce and my father reignited their construction business in Portland, seeing the growth potential in a city they both admired.
In late fall of 1983, Nancy approached my father about his interest in a blind date for her holiday work party that December. Nancy had recently been hired at Nike (yes, that Nike) the spring prior, working in their international department. As my father noted, Nike was still “a small fish” at the time; a year or so before signing Michael Jordan, leading to their wild success.
My father didn’t ask, and Nancy divulged little information about his date. He knew she worked in accounting alongside Nancy, and she, with Nancy, would run during lunch on the Nike campus, and had a daughter from a previous relationship. Living the single bachelor life at the time, my father accepted, and was told the dress was formal.
When inquiring about my father’s prior dating/relationship life, he’s fairly aloof and taciturn about the subject. Prying further about his feelings about the date, he shyly chuckles, and his distinguishable bashful nervousness shines strongly. To my surprise, he had never been on a blind date before, though the prospect “seemed pretty fun”. Elaborating, my father states he was nervously excited, though, of course, “trying to play it cool” when Nancy asked him. Sounds precisely like the man I know today.
While my father owned black shoes, a nice tie, and a white shirt, he knew he was missing the quintessential pieces necessary for his formal outfit. A month or so before the blind date, and lacking the “$200 to blow on a nice suit at Men’s Warehouse”, my father scavenged the Portland area thrift shops in hopes of something he could eventually get altered, and would work well with what he already owned.
After a myriad of visits to various thrift stores in the area, my father felt like his luck, and patience, was running thin. While perusing the Junior League, a thrift store run by a non-profit women’s volunteer organization (where my mother would later volunteer, and my older sister become employed), my father stumbled upon a black suit with slate gray pin-stripes in his size - with pants to match! - from an expensive brand that now eludes him. As he scanned over the whole outfit, he was impressed to even find something of quality in his size, and in pristine condition.
Trying the suit jacket on near the rack, he was amazed to find the jacket perfectly fit - shoulders, sleeve length - everything fit precisely in his size, alterations completely unnecessary. The pants were next, and of course the classic skepticism I’ve come to love and embellish in myself, set in: “While the suit fit perfectly, I was thinking there was no way the pants would fit too!”
Ambling off with the outfit into the dressing rooms, my father was astonished to find the pants fit him flawlessly, right down to the seam length. He was in complete shock - no alterations were needed on the entire outfit. Glancing himself over in the dressing room mirror, he remarked at how “spiffy” he looked. And the price? “$28 - a hell of a steal!”. Other than a touch up of dry-cleaning for the suit, my father was ready for his blind date.
A match made in heaven (or the Junior League).
Tune in next week for Part II, and Part III the following week.