Jay Higdon Treehouse

(1977) It started as a place to get away from it all. Next thing he knew, Jay Higdon found himself living in a tree. 

"It began as a project to keep myself busy," claimed Higdon. "It didn't cost me anything to build the basic structure. The joists were 4-by-4's from packing crates, the nails were pulled out of old lumber, I split the shakes myself for the siding, and I made the roof out of rubber mud flaps from trucks. When I realized I was going to live up here, then I spent some money for plywood, insulation, fiber glass, and furnishings.

"I like my comforts and plenty of heat," said the 30-year-old builder, inventor, metal sculptor and handyman. His compact treehouse has all the luxuries for which a bachelor could ask. There's a telephone, color TV, toilet, shower, hot and cold running water, electricity and a view. There's also a wood stove for heat and a microwave oven for cooking, and a refrigerator to supply his ice cream habit. A ladder is the only way into the treehouse. When he wants to be left alone he can draw up his ladder and lock the trap door.

Higdon has lived in his arboreal retreat almost two years, and keeps a guest book for visitors to sign. "My most famous visitor was Bill Walton. I've got over 300 names so far, and people keep stopping in to see my house.

"I have no doubts that my house is strong and durable," he said. "It got pretty windy last winter, and it held up fine. It doesn't rock so much now since I topped 25 feet off the tree. There were times before that when the house would start swaying back and forth, and my guests would get up and leave."

Higdon at Home

Willard Smith passing on skills

(1977)  An assortment of horse-drawn equipment could be seen from the highway plowing the fields on Charles Kadell's farm in McMinnville. Motorists zipping by on Route 99 slowed down to look, and some of them stopped to see what was going on. It was a horse-plowing contest, an annual spring event sponsored by the Oregon Draft Horse Breeders Association. At this year's meet, some 30 plowmen and 80 horses competed with walking plows, riding plows, single-horse hitches, and teams of three, four, and six horses. Teams of Shetland ponies and mini-mules competed in their own categories, alongside giant Belgians, Percherons, and Clydesdales.

As the afternoon wore on and each contestant finished his plot, three judges inspected the furrows. The plowmen were judged on the straightness of their rows, the best "in" and "out" at the ends of the plot, the depth of the cut, and the general appearance of their teams and equipment. Scores were tallied and the winners received ribbons and sacks of grain. The next day the field would be disked and planted in oats. 

There are no formal schools that teach the art of plowing with horses, and the old "professors" who really know their subjects are scarce said Monty Rumgay, president of Western Drafters. But the interest is there for a new generation, and people flock to the contests to watch and learn. "it's an adult hobby. We just get together for fun." Not like during the 1930s when he got his start. "During the Depression you had to be the best or you didn't get the work. But these matches aren't exactly like real farming. You're given a small plot to work and plenty of time to do it. Everyone rests a lot to visit and chat with their neighbors. They're just scratching the surface when it comes to the art of plowing."

Finding the right equipment is one of the hardest requirements for hose plowing, said Everet Metzentine, who still uses a 14-inch Oliver 40 walking plow that his father bought 75 years ago. Old barns and attics are likely spot to dig for plows, double trees, collars, and other gear, he advised. "If the metal isn't rusted, the wood and leather can be replaced and the equipment made as good as new. Some tools are handed down from one generation to another or passed on from old-timers to newcomers. There are also some small foundries that are starting to cast horse equipment and I think we'll see more foundries following. These plowing contests have helped in putting interest back in draft horses."

Horse farmers

D'anse Combeau Orchestra

(1982) "We've always wanted to come to America," declared chanteur D'anse Combeau, interviewed backstage after an enthusiastic reception at Louis La Bamba's club in downtown Portland. The big band, allegedly from France, features a large brass and percussion section, with guitars and keyboards, and enhanced by a graceful and melodious femmes chorus. But the man at the front of the stage, the inimitable D'anse Combeau himself inflates the whole souffle with his iconic style of classic pop music, sung to a light latin tempo. A languid rendition of In the Ghetto is followed by a Bob Dylan folk song, How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down, and then Got to Revolution, crooned with numerous grins, grimaces and gyrations by the slim singer, bedecked in red silk pantaloons and a white matinee jacket. The crowd loves him and roars its approval.

He prefers air conditioned venues so that his audiences can remain cool even during the heat of his performances, he said, when female fans sometimes toss their underwear at him on stage. "They say, 'I'm too hot' and throw their panties on stage. It's a message of love. They want to spread their warmth to someone who wasn't quite so hot." 

In the light of day the duo behind the theatrical presentations, band leader Jon Newton, and namesake singer, Jim Baldwin, describe their invention as an impromptu brainstorm during a musical presentation about two years ago. It provoked a big response, said Newton, and they decided to expand upon the idea. "Its been a lot of fun, but also a lot of work." he said. The balance between fun and work was beginning to fall into the laborious side of things, he added.

Sacre bleu! Is there a Waterloo on the horizon for this Gallic ensemble?

D'anse Combeau Chorus

FMZ Lifted on Cable

Driver FollowsA logger takes a short cut across the Bull Run River to get to the other side.

(1976)   The FMC timber mover has only been available for a year or two, but several area logging outfits have already bought one, even with a hefty price tag of almost $100,000. Some of the early models were recalled for improvements as they were tested in the field but the latest ones are meeting tough standards. 

Sid Houghton had a brand new FMC delivered to his log landing in the Bull Run watershed last month. There was one problem. He set up his equipment on the south side of the Bull Run River and the timber was on the north side. There was no access to the fallen trees by logging roads, so he had to get the 27,500 pound FMC across the mile wide canyon whose bottom was about 1800 feet below the log landing where Houghton had placed his yarder and wooden spar tree, on a 1 & 3/8th inch cable.

A skyline was stretched across the chasm to a haul back at the clearcut site. They wanted to use the FMC to drag the wood from the whole unit to one point where the choker setters could hook it to the skyline, and send it back across the canyon to be loaded onto log trucks and driven out.  It took all morning to detach the sky hook and attach a block and tackle and work on the mechanics of the move. Finally the machine was slowly raised up in the air until it was high enough to clear the edge of the landing. It headed slowly across the canyon while everyone watched. 

"It's all yours now, Sid," said the FMC salesman when it was on its way.

"Not until it touches down on the other side," replied Houghton.

After it arrived safely and was detached on the other side, the machine operator followed it across on the same line, clinging to a single horizontal log like a makeshift carnival ride. After the day's work was done he returned the same way, and sang the praises of the new machine. It's faster than a cat and can pull heavier loads, he said. The arch on the back raises and lowers for moving logs over and around all sorts of obstacles. The logs can be pulled up to rest on the metal of the arch and can be dragged quicker and easier over the ground without chewing it up. 

Houghton said he planned to get his money's worth out of his new purchase during this logging season.

Skidder logging

Don Reed's Kitty Cat

A skidder on the other hand can log faster than a cat and can bring in more loads of wood in a day. They have rubber wheels rather than treads and can drive on paved roads without breaking up the surface. They can get up to pretty fast speeds on a smooth road but they bounce a lot, and steering becomes critical at high speed, said one driver, who learned their limits the hard way.

"It was my second day on the job. I barely knew how to drive a skidder and they gave me this old crummy machine. I was driving it downhill when the brakes gave out. I tried to jam it into reverse but the engine stalled and I couldn't steer any more. I went over a stump with two wheels and almost tipped over. Finally I got the blade down in front and built up enough dirt to stop." Most skidder flips are no big problem and do little damage, he said. Once they are uprighted they go right back to work.

Cats have been used in logging much longer than Skidders, which have come into their own in the last ten or fifteen years. Often a logging company will have both cats and skidders on the same unit, working side by side.

David the Minstrel

A bubble cube filled with smoke? No sooner said than done, declared David Minstrel, dipping his wands into his jar of soap. He began building bubble onto bubble into a sudsy concoction like a geodesic dome. He took a quick puff from his cigarette, gently slipped a straw into his creation and filled the center chamber with smoke. Voila! A square bubble.

"Bubbles are universal magic," said David MacKeand, better known at street markets and fairs as David Minstrel. "Everybody likes bubbles -- kids, adults, even dogs like them." A familiar figure where folks gather for fun, MacKeand makes his living playing music, singing, and creating bubble sculptures. Working festivals and crafts fairs, cafes, bars, and college campuses, he travels from Santa Cruz to British Columbia in a yearly circuit that brings him to Portland for three months every spring. "There's no place I can call home," said the 29-year-old Toronto-born entertainer. "I left home the day I turned 16 and I've been on the road ever since."

Weekends find him at Saturday Market, playing his guitar amid the crafts booths and jugglers and fellow street entertainers. With his gaped-tooth grin and infectious enthusiasm, he easily gathers an audience for his original compositions. On a good day, he said, he collects more than $50 in tips in his guitar case.

"I don't need food stamps or welfare," MacKeand said. "I can play on the streets and make enough to live on any day. That's all anybody wants -- to pull your own weight and be happy." People are attracted to his profession he said. "There's a growing number of bubble players. It's a self-ordained occupation. I've been doing this for nearly 15 years and I can't seem to do anything else."

Murder by the Book

(1982) Killers lurk in corners. Innocent Bystanders have a place reserved for them between Hard Boiled Detectives and Soft Boiled Sleuths. Mystery book fans have begun to ferret out Murder by the Book, where they can find a wall-to-wall selection of stories of mayhem and the macabre.

"I can never find enough murder mysteries to read," said proprietor Jill Hinckley. "Mystery fans are a dedicated group, and they like to read a lot," she said. Open since April, the bookstore has more than 5000 new and used titles, arranged in the small store front at 3729 S.E. Hawthorne Boulevard. Browsers and buyers are guided to their favorite authors or subjects by Hinckley's distinctive classification system. 

Some shelves contain "Yard Birds" or "Cops and Killers." Others are labeled "Cherchez La Femme," "Cries and Whispers," "Young and Restless," and "In a Far Away Land." Prolific authors such as Ian Fleming, Rex Stout, Helen MacInnes and Ross MacDonald have their own sections. An overstuffed couch and two armchairs in the back room provide a place to read and relax.

A former land-use planner for the Metropolitan Service District and the city of Portland, Hinckley quit her job a year ago to write a novel, which is now in its second draft. "Every fan is a closet writer," she said. "I've always had a dream of having my own bookstore. It's fun talking with other people who like mysteries."

E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., which had published the Milne books, contracted to publish Hoff's book, which was released last April. It already has sold nearly 30,000 copies. The principles of Tao can be very useful to Americans, Hoff said. "They were the world'd first ecologists. In Tao, all extremes are unhealthy, the clenched fist or the limp fist. The frantic American who overdoes everything is headed for stress, traffic accidents and an early death."

Hoff also draws an analogy between his childhood and that of Christopher Robin Milne, who was the inspiration for the Pooh books. "Like Christopher Robin, I grew up on what had been a farm in the countryside," now the Sylvan neighborhood of Portland, "with a chicken house, a well and a barn. It was bordered by an old abandoned orchard, which seemed almost as mysterious to me at night as the Hundred Acre Wood in the Pooh books. Like Christopher Robin, I spent every possible moment alone in the forest, learning things that were to eventually bring me to Taoist principles. Thank God for the forest."

Author Ben Hoff & Pooh

From Astoria to the Bonneville Dam fishermen who own the drift rights to sections of the Columbia drag the river bottom for snags several times annually. To do the job right they need a good diver, who works with a team of boats and a barge with a winch to raise the snags.

It's a dangerous job, Hiersche admitted. The fishermen always snag dive in the fastest current, he said. When their nets catch onto a sunken tree, he has to follow the line down and attach a cable to the snag so it can be hauled up and carried to the banks. "The visibility is so poor that even with my light I can see only a few feet ahead. If the snag comes loose the whole net comes sweeping at me like a Mack truck. These nets are designed to catch things and I don't want it to get me."

Captain Ben Jolma surveys the river surface during the operation and watches his locator boats to see who will find the next snag. A log floating by the barge is passed over even though it it is already half sunk. "We have enough work to do on this drift. That's someone else's problem downstream," he says.

Jerry Hiersche Snag Diver

Spar Tree Rigging

Fully Rigged Spar Pole

First a tree near the site has to be found that is high enough and sturdy enough for the job. It's cut down and dragged to the log landing, then lifted upright and tied down. B&E Logging Company set up a new spar pole on a high ridge along Fish Creek in April. Three cats were attached to the tree with cable and pulleys. As the early morning sun rose, so did the pole. When the spar stood up straight cables were stretched out in every direction and anchored to stumps, wrapped three times, pulled tight by a cat and fastened with spikes.

It took three days to ready the new landing. By then the old landing on a nearby ridge was through being logged and the yarder, shovel loader and trucks moved in to begin again in a different spot. Bill Anderson said he'll continue using a wooden spar tree. "A new yarder and steel tower would cost around $500,000. For a lot less than that, I can keep three or four men working. Rigging a new tree takes time, but we usually work it out right so a new landing is always ready and the crew works steady."

Helicopter Logging

Helicopter Drop Site

(1976) This summer only one heli-logger outfit, Columbia Helicopters is working on Mt. Hood. Logging a unit aptly named Dragonfly two big ships swoop about all day, lifting logs out of clear cut units and dropping them on log landings where are loaded and trucked out.

"These big ships use a lot of fuel, but we can log a lot more lumber than other conventional methods," said project manager Lou Morgan. "One ship can do the work of five skidders. We can work on flat land, in steep ravines, on any kind of ground. The only thing that can shut us down is fog or gusty winds."

The pilot swings into the unit and drops low so the skyhook is four or five feet off the ground. The hook tender has to grab the 50 pound hook out of the air and slip the chokers into it. Then he must jump clear and signal the pilot with a two-way radio to lift up. At the log landing the ship lowers the logs to the ground and chasers rush out to unhook and coil the chokers, trim off branches and load the logs onto trucks before the ship comes back for another turn. Often it is only two or three minutes between turns.

Powder Bill Robinson

(1977) "There's no room for monkey business around black powder and dynamite, says Powder Bill Robinson. He retired in 1968 after almost 50 years of working in the woods with black powder. At 72 he describes himself as "ornery and independent." He lives alone in a shack about 1 1/2 miles from Estacada. His companions are a loose family of dogs and cats.

He blew stumps, ditches, rocks and entire hillsides while building roads for Dwyer Logging Co. in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Robinson said he charged high prices for his work. "Powder work takes technique. You don't give it away. I was the only man I knew who could blow a square doorway in a concrete wall. I could make a 500 foot ditch in one shot. It was a job that took manpower and muscle. If I had a nickel for every 50 pound box of black powder I hauled into the woods, I'd be a millionaire today."

In the last year they hauled more than one million board feet to the mill, said Willard. He figures there are at least 15 to 20 other horse loggers in Oregon. "The majority are younger guys, under 35, They get their know-how from the old tim Willard Lee & Sons ers, by coming around and watching and asking questions."

Sudul Brothers @ Skull Ranch (1981) The three Sudul brothers -- Ben, Jess, and Joe claimed to be the last of the old-time coyote outfits in the West. Their work consists of drilling and blasting narrow tunnels into rock walls, called coyote holes, because only that animal has enough room to maneuver in them. Pockets at the ends of the tunnels are loaded with explosives and set off to blast quarry rock for the construction of dams, highways, Jetties and railroad beds.

"We have a great tradition to uphold," declared Ben Sudul. That means teaching their skills to the younger generation.