Visiting Behind Enemy Lines, Tale #103: Three Pennsylvanians Toured Portland, Called It A "Shithole"

Downtown Portland with snow-capped Mt. Hood in the background.

One of my subscribers told me that his two grandsons and their mother spent a week on the West Coast, coming home to declare that Portland is a “shithole.” I had to have their story. The three tourists from Reading & Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, brothers Tim, age 24, and Jack, age 26 and their mother, Melissa, age 58, all love nature. So, they planned a seven-day trip to Oregon.

These three love nature and toured the usual scenic locations: mountains, forests, coastline, etc. They had a terrific time for seven days, but were taken aback by the creatures who inhabit the City of Portland. Following is Jack’s report about their trip, edited slightly by yours truly for clarification.

A SCENIC TRIP AROUND OREGON

“Exploring Portland was interesting to say the least. So, while Portland was a city we visited for a brief period of time, it was not intended to be a main highlight of the trip. We were more interested in the beautiful nature and landscapes Oregon has to offer. Us three planned the trip ourselves. Before the trip started we created a rough itinerary of all of the different places we wanted to hit. I then mapped out the routes we would take to make sure we saw everything we wanted and picked out the nice places to stay while hopping around to different landmarks in Oregon.

This was more of a nature trip, but Portland was the only option for us to fly into from Newark without spending a lot of money on private flights or lesser known airports. We flew into Portland and rented a car for our trip. We drove about 1500 miles in total. From Portland we drove south to Bend, Oregon, then to Crater Lake National Park, then all the way down to see the Redwoods (giant trees) in Redwood National Park near Crescent City, California. To finish our trip we drove north along the Oregon Coast and ultimately ended up back in Portland for our return flight.”

JACK: “Why Do These People Shit Where They Eat???”

“Why do these people shit where they eat?” Jack asked his granddad who responded “Democrats!” Jack’s words:

“Well this won’t be a very politically correct review. But what I would say is most of the city (Portland) is overrun with homeless. We saw many people laying on the ground in parks looking quite disheveled and clearly on drugs, there were quite a few different groups of people that all looked so old due to the drug use. Right outside of the Paramount Hotel in the heart of downtown Portland, where we stayed for two nights, there was a young kid who looked younger than my brother and I laying on the street sidewalk with four cops surrounding him. We watched the spectacle for a bit but left for dinner shortly after.

We had wanted to attend the Chinese Garden very near downtown Portland but, entering the area, we noticed the large population of homeless and tents and decided against going due to safety concerns and overall dislike of the area. There is no question the environment and people of Portland affected our ability to contribute to the city’s economy. We did some research online to find NW 23rd Street which was a nice street filled with shopping areas and food. It was a beautiful day outside and there were significantly less homeless that were around in that particular area. I think we enjoyed that street the most in Portland. We spent almost 5 hours there grabbing food/drinks and visiting different local shops. We had decided to wait around in Portland until our
our flight late that night.

There was one incident, however, as we were getting tacos from a restaurant a few blocks from NW 23rd Street. We were eating outside the restaurant and a homeless man with his bare butt hanging out began walking up to different outdoor tables. He was loud and very inconsiderate to the people eating outside, he was also mumbling / complaining about his plight in life. ‘No one cares about me, Give me some food,’ things like that were said by the homeless man. That, unfortunately, was all we could handle with the City of Portland and we left shortly after that scene.

We also noticed a very large population of gay/trans/furries in the Portland community. Our second evening in the city we saw a number of people dressed up as different animals almost like a convention of some sort. It was something I had never really seen before in person, maybe online. Overall the city offered good food, nice views and nice architecture but the community and people living in Portland, unfortunately, soured the experience for the three of us.”

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^Jack has a BS in Computer Science and a Masters in Data Analytic and paid his own way through college. He is with a firm which installs software for major corporations. Tom has a BS in Math and is an investment advisor for a wealth management company. Both graduated Summa Cum Laude. Their mother has owned several businesses and currently handles business development at a major bank.