3647
Two missives ago I wrote about the house at 1008 NE 122nd, how it had once apparently been an African Orthodox Christian Church and now was probably waiting on a redevelopment, but there's also something right across the street from this, at NE 122nd and Holladay, that's just so adorably Portland I can't even.
This is a T-intersection: the 12100 block of Holladay meets 122nd Avenue as such (Holladay continues east from here, but at a considerable job). And, guarding the entry to the 12100 block of Holladay, as though they were library lions, are two commercial buildings styled, for all the world, as log cabins; one on the north side of Holladay, one on the south.
The one on the north side was for a long time (and still is) a chiropractic office. The one on the south side was a dentist, and then was vacant for a long time, and now is ... a cannabis dispensary.
This is what it looks like today:
The one on the opposite side of Holladay is similarly styled and painted, save for the commercial contents. The environment of this plague year has made for some darkly-hilarious absurdities; along the 122nd Avenue side there you see a small black and buff sign on an orange support; this denotes the pickup area for your herbal order. Living in a present that has as a feature legalize marijuana is an adjustment enough; where it becomes roaringly funny is when one realizes that the same behavior that got you jacked up and in jail twenty-thirty years ago ... driving out to your dealer's, pulling over, handing money through a car window and getting a lid ... is not only now legal but, due to Covid-19 social distancing, prescribed by the same law that would get you cited back in the day.
A similar collision of past and present may also be defined by the fact that when I was of an appropriate age, the combination of log cabin and nectar meant maple pancake syrup, not curated marijuana.
And, so it goes.
This is a T-intersection: the 12100 block of Holladay meets 122nd Avenue as such (Holladay continues east from here, but at a considerable job). And, guarding the entry to the 12100 block of Holladay, as though they were library lions, are two commercial buildings styled, for all the world, as log cabins; one on the north side of Holladay, one on the south.
The one on the north side was for a long time (and still is) a chiropractic office. The one on the south side was a dentist, and then was vacant for a long time, and now is ... a cannabis dispensary.
This is what it looks like today:
The one on the opposite side of Holladay is similarly styled and painted, save for the commercial contents. The environment of this plague year has made for some darkly-hilarious absurdities; along the 122nd Avenue side there you see a small black and buff sign on an orange support; this denotes the pickup area for your herbal order. Living in a present that has as a feature legalize marijuana is an adjustment enough; where it becomes roaringly funny is when one realizes that the same behavior that got you jacked up and in jail twenty-thirty years ago ... driving out to your dealer's, pulling over, handing money through a car window and getting a lid ... is not only now legal but, due to Covid-19 social distancing, prescribed by the same law that would get you cited back in the day.
A similar collision of past and present may also be defined by the fact that when I was of an appropriate age, the combination of log cabin and nectar meant maple pancake syrup, not curated marijuana.
And, so it goes.
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