HOW TO INTERACT WITH RAJNEESH CULT MEMBERS ON PORTLAND STREETS

 

 

Most days after work in the 80’s I walked the same way to my NW Portland apartment. The path took me past a place called the Martha Washington on SW 11th. I walked the same way so I could talk to an interesting woman from the museum.

 

Note to remember: All museum women are interesting.

 

Over a short time span what seemed like a transient hotel turned into an urban hub of activity between people dressed in shades of red, some in fine clothes, others in sheets or ponchos.

 

If keep Portland weird is all about today, those days with the reds downtown seemed too weird, like a takeover.

 

It took me over one day on my walk, but it didn’t end in Antelope.

 

Starting with how to walk on a city sidewalk, I’ll tell you I’ve had practice. Philadelphia and Brooklyn sidewalks took the edge off Portland sidewalks. What could happen here that didn’t happen there?

 

Once the rajneesh cult took over the Martha Washington, they parked their cars in a nearby lot. One day I walked past the parking lot. One man in red was driving his car out and blocked the sidewalk while he talked to another guy in red. Together they blocked my path.

 

I’d already had a nice after work walk and talk with the interesting museum woman. We hit it off the way she hit it off with everyone, which seemed like a good mood sort of deal. So I was in a good mood when I noticed the rajneesh cult roadblock.

 

Since I’m a ‘live and let live’ sort of guy, the red people didn’t bother me. Of course this was before they left their reservation to poison the salad bar on voting day. So far they were an interesting Oregon development out of town. Now they were in town.

 

They weren’t of the same ilk as the Malhuer Seven, who finally showed up in Portland for a court date. Instead of a hotel, those people stayed in jail. Besides, the rajneesh cult were peaceful, not gun toting farmers, at least in the beginning.

 

If I’m blocking someone’s path due to my own indulgence, I move out of the way. The two men in red blocking my way on the sidewalk didn’t have the same manners.

 

I approached them, waited for a break in their conversation, then said, “Would you please move your car? You’re blocking the sidewalk.”

 

The man leaning into the window talking to the driver looked back at me with a cute smile, a transcendent smile he probably learned in meditation, and ignored me to continue his conversation.

 

I’m a negotiator here, saying, “Excuse me, would you please move your car so I can walk past?”

 

How hard can that be? I’m sure they both heard me because the driver looked at me and said, “You can go around.”

 

Looking back, this might have been a clue to their eventual fate. I was nice, asking a polite question of rajneesh cult members, and got the brush off? I was nice twice and the third time wasn’t as charming.

 

Pulling some vocabulary from the profane streets of Coos Bay, where North Bend kids learned to cuss everything Pirate related, I made a few suggestions. If a stranger had walked up they would have seen two sweet smiling men dressed in red facing a cussing white guy in slacks, shirt, and tie.

 

What did I say? Strike one, strike two, and I swung for the fence with, “Move your $%#%%^&% car you @^%$ for brains &$% wipe and get off the (*&^^&(*ing sidewalk. Drive it, *&$%#er.”

 

I’m quite proud of my vocabulary and fondly remember times I broke it out to good effect.

 

After my instructions on where to park their car in a tight spot, the standing man walked away while the driver rolled up his window and smiled at me. And still didn’t move. I pointed a finger with my thumb trigger up, then down, which was a first and only gesture of that kind I’ve done.

 

‘Live and let live’ meeting ‘f u’ on a city sidewalk ended when he drove away, which was my goal from the start. The man who walked off went up the block and talked to two mounted policemen. He pointed toward me, they nodded and started my direction.

 

So far my evening had begun with hustling a museum babe, confronting two guys in red, and now men in blue on horses closed in. What happened next was a flashback to when I was sixteen and working graveyard at Hallmark’s Fisheries in Charleston, Oregon.

 

Part of that job was dipping cleaned salmon in a solution so they wouldn’t stick together in the freezer before shipping. The industrial freezer had huge doors that slid together in the middle. To open them you pulled a cord.

 

One night I pulled the cord and slipped into the freezer just as a co-worker pulled the cord as a joke. The doors closed on me with crushing power, and would have crushed the wind out of me except for one thing. I was a high school wrestler who had his wind crushed out every practice.

 

I didn’t panic with the freezer doors. When the two horse police rode up on either side of me and used their steeds to squeeze me, they didn’t know I’d had practice holding my breath and staying calm.

 

“We have a report that you’re having trouble,” one cop said.

 

“Yes, sir. I was blocked on the sidewalk and now I’m not,” I said.

 

Does a policeman want to hear me justify my actions? Probably not.

 

“You could walk around if you’re blocked,” the other one said, getting his horse to lean on me harder.

 

For anyone afraid of horses, fearful of being stampeded by big animals, this was a tight spot. I like horses.

 

“Next time I will walk around, officer, but this time I got to meet your horses. What are they, about sixteen hands? They look great around town,” I said.

 

What did they expect from the average city boy getting squeezed? I could see their disappointment that I wasn’t giving them a reason to prolong our meeting. Or club my collar bone from their high perch.

 

“Try and get along with the neighborhood in the future,” one of them said.

 

“Yes, sir,” I said, ignoring my instinct to explain how this was my neighborhood, that it extended from the SW Park Blocks to NW 21st and Lovejoy, and I didn’t appreciate guys in red blocking the sidewalk.

 

“See that you do,” the other cop said.

 

“Yes, sir, and I’ll keep an eye out. Can I pet your horses?” I asked.

 

They nudged their nags off me and I gave them a scratch under the chin before leaving.