Tsuru Island - Gresham's Japanese Garden, Part 3

4148Last missive, I posted a look out the portal window of the gazebo in the middle of Tsuru Island. This is what it looks like if you step out and take it all in:

I do really feel peace as I look at this. Japanese culture has a reputation for encouraging nourishing introspection and reflection. Its art and mingling with nature do that for me unlike few other things do.

One of the centerpiece features of the garden is a dry streambed that runs through the thing entire.

It makes me think of rivers and river valleys and the journey rivers take and valleys and the reality that I live in one of the world's perfect valleys and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Tsuru Island - Gresham's Japanese Garden, Part 2

4147Another stop by Tsuru Island. A couple of little cozy bits.

Reviewing these pictures brings a sort of peace, and tells me one thing about Tsuru Island ... it's not about how big it is, but how sincere. As Japanese gardens go, it's modest, but it's meaningful. Remembering it is a nourishing thing to do.

To view things in a Western way, as I'm prone to do, it punches above its weight.

There's a gazebo at the center, and in a future entry I'll share a picture of the whole, but for the moment, this part means a great deal to me emotionally:

 

And here's something that's just ineffably charming. It stands and speaks for itself. It's adjacent to the gazebo.

One Less Sign of the Time at Polar King

4146The Polar King is dead; long live the Polar King. Well, maybe that's a little melodramatic. 

There is a magnificent diner at the corner of Cleveland and Powell, just east of downtown Gresham, called Polar King. It was founded in 1952 and still slings classic diner faves including scrumptious burgers and sandwiches, big breakfasts, and divine lunches and dinners. For that entire time, the 'King has been remarkable for its retro archiecture and signage which has little changed since the time of its founding.

 

It scans most handsomely in the the night.

That standup which contains a mascot went up at the same time as the rest of the building, and it's remarkable. The mascot wears a crown, sports a red apron, and maintains a tall soft-serve treat in its paw. It's blue, and might be a bear, but it could also be a large mouse, is made of painted plywood, and has held court over the corner of E Powell Blvd and SE Cleveland Ave for the past 70 years.

As of this month, though, it's been retired. As reported by KOIN, the figure has been donated to the Gresham Historical society who is now studying how to best preserve and display the mascot, which has seen significant deterioration during its time in the crows' nest. 

That splendid lighting and signage will remain, of course, so the charm isn't gone, and the food is still excellent. 

As for the rest, sic transit gloria mundi, I guess. 

So it goes.

Tsuru Island-Gresham's Japanese Garden, Part One

4145I was about two months ago years old when I found out about Gresham's Japanese Garden. The fact that it exists at all is because of a strong volunteer base and a lot of local affection.

It's a delightful thing we're going through in this household; we are discovering Gresham, parts of which are closer to us than parts of Portland we've frequented over the course of decades, and from our point of view, it's gone through a lot of changes - from the bland, banal edge-city that we used to dismiss it as, to a warm and charming place full of unexpected depths and surprises. 

Tsuru Island is one of those unexpected surprises, at least to us. It's located in a corner of Main City Park, which is directly across the street from downtown Gresham, occupying about twenty-two acres in the southwest quarter of the intersection of Powell Boulevard and Main Avenue (it's not Main Street because it runs north-south and streets in the Gresham grid follow the N-S Avenue classification that the greater Portland area employs). To get there, one just goes south into the park; it's on the left just before the bridge over Johnson Creek.

The access to Gresham's Japanese Garden - Tsuru Island - from Main City Park

The access is a bridge from the south end of the main parks' parking area. Tsuru Island is an island because early in the 20th Century, Johnson Creek, which runs along the south part of Main City Park, was altered by having a meander straightened. The result was a semi-circular swale on the north side of Johnson Creek, which isn't submerged in water all of the time, but creates a small knoll of land which may as well be an island. 

And, coincidentally, a lovely little bit of land that is isolatable in the way that provides a feeling of seclusion in the middle of the fourth-largest city in Oregon.

The swale separating Tsuru Island from the rest of Man City Park. In the middle distance, Johnson Creek passes under a bridge providing access to the southern part of Main City Park.

Once over that magnificently-charming bridge, one finds themselves in a place replete with deft landscaping, charming flora, and in general a place that does encourages a contemplative, or at least quieter, frame of mind.

And this is why, personally, I love Japanese gardens.

The pond with Japanese red maple overlooking it is one of the first things one sees as one crosses over to the island

Immediately after crossing onto the island one comes upon a small, shallow pond surmounted by a Japanese red maple. According to the lore of the history of this place, that maple came from the property of a local who came to the conclusion that the maple had grown too large for the place that contain it so it was donated. What I learned about the history of this garden speaks of a proud history of volunteerism and donation and care from people who care about heritage and the history of Japanese people in east Multnomah County.

The history is recounted in thumbnail on the Garden's official page thusly:

In the early 1970’s, a group of local farmers and members of the Japanese-American Citizens League (JACL) Gresham-Troutdale chapter created a Japanese garden with peace, tranquility, and longevity as its theme. They named it Tsuru Island. Tsuru (Su Do) means “crane” in Japanese.

Despite such inspired beginning, though, after that initial period of birth and growth, the Island went though a period of neglect, until about 2010, when Tomiko Takeuchi - who was, at the time, a board member with the Gresham Sister City Association - and Jim Card, a local landscaper, decided to step in and organize a comeback. The results speak for themselves, with an active volunteer history over the past decade-plus, including expansion to a nearby plaza where interested people can purchase an inscribed paving brick, and a building that's now an event center.

On this small Island, there are curving paths you can get lost in the foliage on ...

... and what Japanese garden would be complete without a Zen garden? Tsuru Island has one.

This is merely the first go at showing of pictures from our visit. I have more pictures, and there'll be more visits, because one of the charms of Japanese gardens is that they really change, if only in subtle ways, from season to season.

The fact that it's so accessible and free of charge to enter are just bonuses really.

They're Building a New Library in Gresham

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At the corner of NW Division St and Eastman Parkway in Gresham, a new library is going up. Multnomah County Library is growing like a weed (a weed of knowledge, yo) and Gresham is lucky to host a huge new branch.

They've started and they have the crane in, as can be seen. When completed, in 2026, it'll be more than just a branch, but an east-side flagship; nearly as big as the Central Library. 

From the page about the project at https://multcolib.org/building-libraries-together/east-county-library:

Completion date: Mid-2026. Be there or be severely uninformed.

Gresham: Rare Wit

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The proprietor (or manager, or whatever) of a auto shop out at 202nd and SE Burnside has something to say about that:

Well, he's no Blue Sign Guy, but I respect the effort. 

Dreamland East of 257th On Stark

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In the intervening time since the last times I regularly posted, I've changed places of employ. I used to work near the Portland International Airport; now I work in an area called Springdale, which is about three miles east of the south end of Troutdale via Stark Street and Historic Columbia River Highway.

It's a longer commute, but I love it; I use all of Stark Street east of SE 122nd, out to its veriest end. This pleases me as I know I follow not only a rather historic road for this area but also the Willamette Base Line. I've become much more familiar with areas of Gresham I formerly rarely visited. 

There's some nice stuff there. I've missed out.

The road climbs from about 205th and Stark to 223rd, a rise I call Twelvemile Hill (after the historic name of Twelvemile Corner which is 223rd and Stark). It then levels a bit, descends gently from Hogan to 257th, then just east of 257th, drops more precipitously. This allows for some lovely views, if the morning clouds and mist are just right. Like this, here:

Stark Street is a very broad-shouldered, muscular boulevard all the way out to 257th. After that, it drops down to a 2-lane local road and descends this hill along the north side of Mt Hood Community College. Just beyond his, the first traffic signal is Troutdale Road, and beyond that, in the distance, is the signal at SE Evans Avenue in Troutdale, which is the veriest and lastest signal on all of Stark. 

Today, hanging over the gulch that the Sandy River flows down, was that bank of cloud. Most dreamy. 

Wy'east: Bigger From NW Gresham Than You Think

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Gresham is, to some degree, defined by Wy'east. The mountain's European name -- Mount Hood -- is all over everything out there; the local community college and about half (it seems) of the businesses in town call themselves Mt Hood-this-or-that.

When you go out there, it's plain to see why. At about 11,245 feet, it is Oregon's tallest mountain, and cuts quite a figure (as I relentlessly document) from just about every viewpoint. Its shape on the horizon has become iconic, in a way, for the Portland Metropolitan Area. And, as big as it seems from Portland, from Gresham, which seems just over the foothills, it looms larger.

This is a view from the upper slopes of the hill Burnside Road descends on before it intersects with Eastman Parkway, NNW of the Gresham business district, on the edge of the desolate parking lot of the still-vacant Gresham K-Mart:

If the greens of the trees in the foreground look a little dark, that's a correct observation. The Brown Eyed Girl wanted to get some views as she too had her camera with her this day, and while the day was more or less fair (with a mugginess that attenuated our energy ... but, still fair) there was a very high overcast that filtered all the sunlight and caused the great mountain to nearly fade into imperceptibility. After I loaded the picture into GIMP and played around with color levels, however, I was able to make the mountain pop out and the foreground became rather artistically abstracted, somewhat. 

[pdx] Mount Hood Near Sunset, Vance Park, Gresham

2849.The Wife™ is of the opinion we need to spend more time outdoors. I agree.

Right now I enjoy long walks in the park, which sounds very singles-bar-ish, which is awkward since I'm happily married.

Anyway.

This is the sort of thing you'll see in Vance Park, in Gresham, late on a early-Summer evening:

Vance Park is on SE 182nd Avenue, just south of Mill Street, a short walk from SE 181st and Stark. So it's accessable. Just a pleasant city park, nothing special except maybe an undefinable something that concentrates time and space into a feeling of … well, something or other. 

It backs up to an old gravel quarry on its eastern margin that you can reach via SE 190th Avenue. It's possible to get into it this way, from the park, as some enterprising people have made a hole in the fence there and here, but I'd advise against it. That first step … it's a lulu. 

It's possible to get some gorgeous shots of Mount Hood though. I really wanted something like this since the cloud adds more than a little bit of drama. That's the maximum zoom the Kodak EasyShare will allow, which is all the optical zoom plus a bit of digital zoom.

… context is all, as they say. Here's some of that, too.

I really recommend Vance Park. It's got a nine-hole disc golf course, a little panhandle which reaches back into some treebound seclusion (which would be good on a hot day, we got the feeling), and a nice amount of lawn and the people around there are awfully decent sorts.