A viaduct over the railroad tracks near our ancient rental house in north Portland was only three blocks away and adjoined a dense forested acreage just a block away. It was a great place for exploring, just like Africa.
We had ample choices for adventure for a couple of boys. The woods offered trees to climb, hazelnuts to crack and eat and plenty of mystery-- like trampled places for sleeping by many hoboes passing through on railroad trains traveling under the viaduct.
Like other boys, we built and bartered parts with other boys and then raced our homemade speeders. We could race them at breakneck speed down the steep hill over the railroad tracks for about a quarter mile at speeds of at least a hunnert miles an hour.
The viaduct raceway exists to this day but kids prolly don't use it. They all have bikes. Nobody on our street had a bike except a boy named Melvin Amsterdam and it was ancient. It had a huge front wheel and a tiny rear wheel and clincher tires about an inch wide. I could never climb on to it.
We spent a lot of summer days hiking along the tracks gathering what our mom called Brock. It was similar to dandelion greens and we ate it as salad. Remember, this was the Great Depression.
There was a single railroad track under the viaduct and about a block away was a big lumber mill where the Prentice and the Robinson boys used to scrounge for scrap mill ends.
John Prentice still lives in the Shorewood area and has been active at Evergreen High for many years playing music in a community band.
One day, my brother Russell and I were poking around the lumber mill and discovered the switch that allows a steam engine on the main track to turn off to the mill had been left unlocked.
So what does any red -blooded mischievous boy do? My big brother and I took an idle handcar and like a couple of dancers pumped it out on to the main track. We had barely gone fifty feet when we heard a whistle blaring and saw a train coming.
Panic? You bet. We managed to pump that hijacked flat car back onto the siding, jump off and throw the switch in time to suffer the glares and fist shaking by the engine crew.
Russell didn't even wet his pants.
