November 13th, 2006

Reasons to Love Portland: #22 (Hi-Ho, Silver…)

Sin #4 (pride) rears its head when I think of how this city has evolved into an ever-increasing source of creative freshness. I can’t help but smile every time I come across a mini Mr. Ed tied up to one of the city’s many old curb rings, which were originally installed for real horses as late as the 1920s.

After my first sighting, my O.C.D. kicked in—I wanted more. I searched Google and found out a few things about Portland’s little horses. The project was started in 2005 by Scott Wayne Indiana, who thought it was a shame that the old rings in the trendy Peal District were going unused and unnoticed. Soon, the horses started showing up all around Portland.

I purposely walked by one with my girlfriend, Sal. The next day, she went cruising the isles of our local Goodwill and found an old ready-for-the-glue-factory Breyer’s Traditional—I think it was a Bluebell.

As fate would have it, we happen to have a ring in front of our house. Our pony was too cute to give up to some random curb, so Sal decided to surprise me by keeping her close to home. After knotting “Flickaâ€? up (with garden twine), she was walking over to a neighbor’s house when she turned around—and as if that moment was s-u-s-p-e-n-d-e-d in time—she saw a 20–something get off her bike and bend down towards the horse. Wow, maybe she’s making a shrine, or putting some hay out…OK, cool…but NOOOOOOOOOOOO, it was a neo horse-thief! She burned the string with a match, took the horse, jumped on her vintage Schwinn and peddled away down the street…not even fast. Sal was in shock and couldn’t move. I don’t even have a memory of the horse, because I never saw it.

So what now? Am I still smiling? Yes. Actually, I think I get more pleasure in telling (and embellishing with more beers) this story then having my friend Flicka curbed in front of the house. Besides, I believe in karma.

- karen

This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Personal Reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.