The following weekend, after enjoying the Blues Festival in the gorge, I went to the Gresham Saturday Market (GSM) at Mt. Hood Community College (MHCC) in Gresham. The GSM is a summertime event and has been around for years. And it’s where my friends and former neighbors make much of their yearly income, because they operate a booth where Kathy sells homemade dipping sauces from her grandmother’s recipes. The venue is very pretty there on the NW parking lot of the college. Lots of tall pines give welcome shade.
My ex wife and I both attended MHCC back in the ’70’s, she to get an office management type degree, me to get my ABA (Associate in Business Administration). To go along with my AAS (Associate in Applied Science – Electronics) degree. It was great fun going there. It was interesting going to college with my wife, and because we averaged 10 years older than most of the the student body, we got respect. I took 200 series Physics and Chemistry because I fully intended to get my electronics engineering degree someday. Along with any other science, computer programming, or technology course I could squeeze into my schedule. Had to work pretty hard. Lots of studying and homework. That damn required accounting though…two years of accounting classes and all I learned was that it’s so dry and boring. I got A’s and B’s but I’ll be damned if a year after I graduated I could have told you much of anything about that class.
But, I did learn some stuff that helped years later when I started my own Electrical, electronic design, and computer consulting business.
So, I have some friends that set up a booth up at the GSM and they collect my mail for me so I went up to visit and pick it up. While there, I wandered around campus and took some pictures.
And there the GSM is, across the street from where I parked. Lots of trees all around the venue.
This is a look back down Kane. When we first went to MHCC, the right side was an empty field with trees. The owner tried to sell the property for a fast food franchise on the corner of Kane and Stark but for some reason, many students opposed it. They occupied the property to prevent clearing the land. Huh? I never did understand their objections about that so I sort of stayed out of it. Yeah, there were some big beautiful pine trees, and open meadow that students took their lunch on, but really, the purposed fast food joint would have been handy. Though I loved our cafeteria, sometimes change can be fun and interesting. The owner was a good sport about the protests, maybe it was MHCC that owned it and they’re sensitive about community perceptions of their behavior? Anyway, the owner shelved the idea for a couple years until that particular group of students had moved on, and objections to development had faded, then they developed the land. Now it has a large theater, a bar and grill, a huge parking lot, and a Jack-in-the-Box on that parcel.
On the left side of the street in this picture is the MHCC campus.
But, time to stroll through the GSM. Lots of stuff I’m not interested in of course, but they do have several fresh produce stalls, fresh local honey, a coffee stand, books, trinkets, etc.. So, it was a nice way to kill a Saturday morning.
And here’s my friend Kathy almost all set up. I got my mail and visited a while, sampled her great dipping sauces, and chose one to take home and make for myself. Yumm. Spicy hot dipping sauce.
And then I decided to take a stroll through the MHCC campus. I haven’t been on campus for several years, though I’ve driven by hundreds of times in the 15 years since I last took a computer software writing class on campus. I fell in love with this campus the first time I visited it back in 1973 or 1974 and became determined to take some classes there. Eventually, ‘take some classes’ turned into ‘get another degree’ so when the opportunity arose, and I was between jobs at the right time, I signed up for a 2 year ABA course, and convinced the wife to come along with me and get a degree of some kind, against her objections since she hated school. After the first quarter, she loved going. The rules had been changed back a year before so the result was that I had two more years of the GI bill, so I had that income. The trick was quickly saving up enough money before school started each year. Back then, just $2,000 in savings would tide you over for a school year, provided you had the GI Bill income steadily rolling in every month. Of course we also had to get some school loans and Pell grants. There were the three of us, me, the wife, and daughter Michelle. And no on campus housing so we had to find a rental off campus. But there was on campus day care. And a great daycare too. The best one we ever took either of our kids. Took us months before we were able to get her in though.
Here’s the ‘turn around’ in front of the campus where during the school session, buses and loved one’s drop off students.
Over there is the first set of apartments to be built after the campus was opened. Mostly student housing, but expensive as hell. Nothing, price wise, like subsidized student housing at other campuses. And it quickly got a bad reputation too. You’d have 4-6 students living in one apartment so soon it was a trashy place. Lots of drugs, rapes, etc. There was even a little girl who was kidnapped from those apartments, raped & murdered in the forest behind the campus. Everyone thought it had to be someone who lived there. I have a friend who lived there a couple years ago, and from what I hear, it’s no better now then it was in the ’70’s.
And that’s the upper area of campus, where most of the parking lots are. Now we’ll wander around the campus proper.
This is the open air quad. The college bookstore is in this area, along with the theater, cafeteria, etc. your regular college stuff.
And the view from the 2nd floor. Despite the open air design of the campus, and western Oregon’s reputation for piss poor weather much of the year, it’s not that uncomfortable going from class to class. Maybe I should say you adjust for the weather, so if you’re adaptable, no problem. Wind was always a big issue though. It could howl through the hallways sometimes.
Usually you were well protected from rain.
Walked down this hallway thousands of times over the years.
Pretty, isn’t it? This is a look at another of the open plazas where students hang out.
Now I’m at the very end of the campus building looking over at the GSM area.
This is a newer building…built after my time. This use to be the parking lot I’d park in when I was attending college here.
So after that little nostalgic wandering trip, I’m back at the GSM and here’s a shot of the Bonsai tree booth next to Kathy’s booth. I like those little trees but don’t have a place for one in my RV.
The GSM even hires a band to entertain. They’re actually pretty good. Not too loud either. And lots of good food here.
I’m a little disappointed with myself for not strolling over more of the MHCC campus because there’s much more to see there. I got lazy or impatient of something. Well, maybe next time I’m there.
And the next day at the RV park, I went down to visit the ducklings at the pond to see how they were doing. No more ducklings though…they’re all grown up.
Thanks for visiting!