Bird Of Paradox

Available now at Amazon: Bird of Paradox: The Seasoning of Birdie McInness, a coming of age story set in Portland, Oregon.

The story follows the adventures of Robert Cameron McInnes, known as "Birdie" to friends and family.

Birdie learns the ying and the yang of life itself, a balance on a pendulum between the poles of providence and misfortune. Herewith is a taste of the narrative from the prologue:

Robert Cameron McInnes was basically just like every other kid growing up Catholic in 50s and 60s America. Yet, in many ways, he was unique. The nuns called him “Bert,” but everyone else knew him as “Birdie."

The eldest in a family of five, Birdie attended grammar school at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow (0LPS) parish, just like all the other Italian-American and Irish-American youth in his neighborhood. The “parish” was an all-inclusive term that meant priests, nuns, clerics, congregation, school and staff.

These young Christian soldiers were – by and large – serious about their schooling, and many were actively involved in other traditions and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. Some, like Birdie, were altar boys – those young servers who assist the priest in conducting Mass while attaining a certain degree of proficiency in the lost language of Latin.

At OLPS (bottom photo), Birdie experienced his first taste of the type of draconian discipline administered by the Catholics. Brother Gerard, the parish advisor for the Altar Boy Society, like other members of the Franciscan Order, subscribed to the twin Catholic concepts of distributing guilt and.when necessary, corporal punishment.

The altar boys were an ambitious lot. Many were also members of the Boy Scouts of America, which was in its heyday at the time. Many played sports and some, like Birdie, had newspaper delivery routes as well.

In addition to serving Mass at the parish church every morning, they assisted parish priests with Mass at an earlier service at a monastery nearby at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. Sometimes it seemed if only the cloistered nuns, who were basically imprisoned at the monastery, and a few devout senior citizens, attended. 

One morning, Birdie overslept and, having to choose between serving Mass and delivering the morning edition of The Oregonian, he chose the latter. “It’ll be okay,” he reasoned to himself uncomfortably, assuming the other server would pick up the slack.  Big mistake. At the next meeting of the OLPS Altar Boy Society, retribution would be swift and brutal.

“McInnes, stand and follow me,” barked Brother Gerard at the very beginning of the meeting. Birdie’s heart leapt into his throat. What followed was the most serious upbraiding Birdie had ever yet received from an adult in a position of authority, at least up to that point in his life.

Brother Gerard had Birdie reduced to tears for the serious offense of missing the early Mass, and altar boys on the other side of the door could hear every word. When it was over, Birdie asked Brother Gerard if he could clean up a bit before facing the others. “No,” growled the sadistic cleric, firmly. “Get back in there and sit down.”

Birdie returned to his seat, eyes red and swollen, and his ego shattered more by humiliation in front of his peers than anything Brother Gerard had said. The stout, muscular cleric had accomplished two tasks at once: he had disciplined an errant altar boy and sent a clear message to all others in the room who might be so careless as to miss a scheduled Mass: “Don’t even think about it.”

It wouldn’t be the last time Birdie experienced Catholic justice. They didn’t refer to these clerics as “soldiers of Christ” for nothing. But the altar boys, at least the errant ones, would nonetheless have their payback behind the scenes, munching on communion hosts and sipping cheap Thunderbird wine surreptitiously in the sacristy after hours.

Mt. Mazama: Crater Lake

With the exception of Glacier Peak, I know Crater Lake as well as anyplace in the Cascades. It's a mystical spot, the deepest lake in North America and the seventh deepest lake in the world. I first saw the lake as a child and, as luck would have it, I worked there as a tour guide and boat operator in the early '70s.

As a child, the family would camp at Diamond Lake and drive up to the rim of the lake. It's called "Crater Lake," but it's actually a caldera. The "crater," if you will, is on top of Wizard Island. The lake has been in existence for slightly more that 6,600 years, but the mountain has been there much longer.

In his book The Best of Oregon, UO School of Journalism professor and author, Ken Metzler, lists Crater Lake as number one on the "Seven Natural Wonders of Oregon." He notes: "(the natives who) were ever wise in environmental matters, left Crater Lake alone." The Klamath and Modoc natives feared the curse of Llao.

In 2002, on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Crater Lake National Park, the Park Service held a reunion for former employees of the federal government and the concessionaire(s) over the years. A gaggle of us were in attendance (below). As when I was a child, we camped at Diamond Lake and enjoyed the reunion.

Lightning Rod Of The Cascades

Unique to the Oregon Cascades is a series of high pinnacles whose sheer pointed summits remind travelers of Switzerland's Matterhorn. Two of these spires can be seen from almost anywhere along the rim of Crater Lake, Union Peak (7,698 feet) to the south and Mt. Thielsen (9,178 feet) to the north. Along with various and sundry members of The Committee, I have climbed the peak twice, both from the easy side.

The climbing is very good from Diamond Lake, until you reach "chicken point." From there, its a free climb with good hand holds to the summit. On top, it's evident why Mt. Thielsen is call the "Lightning Rod Of The Cascades." Strikes dot the surface, leaving a random pattern of volcanic glass. It's kinda creepy on top. You must hunker.

Broken Top: An Inside Look

Aside from the Three Sisters themselves, the next largest peak in the constellation is Broken Top. A stratovolcano capped by a summit cone, it was appreciably higher that its present 9,175 feet. Broken Top, adjacent to South Sister, is now a semi-circular amphitheater open for an inside look, much like Crater Lake.

The Committee has climbed the peak twice, once successfully and once that was close-but-no-cigar. The first time, we were advised to climb from the east  using the approach from Todd Lake. Bad idea. We made it as far at the saddle above Bend Glacier, but didn't budget enough time for a day trip.

The next time, we went up the west side, hiking past Green Lakes and camping at a small lake (above) below the approach to the summit. Markee transported our gear on llamas, complete with tipi and wood-fired stove. The next day, we proceeded up the west side, where a climber's trail deposited us at Chicken Point.

After a night in the tipi, we embarked early up the west side to Chicken Point. It was pretty easy climbing until then. After that it was tricky. As we waited for one of our mates to set the belay points, we started to get get quite chilly, so we headed up, free-climbing the rest of the way. It was bold and foolhardy, but we made it.

Fire And Ice

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved the mountains. Growing up in East Portland on (where else?) an extinct volcano known as Mt.Tabor, we had stunning views of both Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, as well as a tiny tip of Mt. Adams, from the family home at 350 S.E. Gilham Avenue in the City of Roses.

At an early age, I took to adventures in the Cascades. In the Boy Scouts, I roamed the trails of the Mt. Hood National Forest and hiked from Timberline Lodge to the Columbia River Gorge on the Pacific Crest Trail. By age 12, I had climbed Mt. Hood with my dad’s high school climbing club associated with the Mazamas in Portland.

By the time I was 14, I had climbed Mt. St. Helens. In Boy Scouts, we’d spend a week at Spirit Lake on the north side of the peak. This was all before the blast. In the mid-60s, I kept having this recurring dream: gazing from our kitchen window, the mountain erupted. About 15 years later, it actually happened.

Climbing other lesser peaks during my high school years (I was quite busy with academic and athletic pursuits), I resumed my serious hobby in college, working at Crater Lake National Park, and the Forest Service on the Malheur and Wenatchee National Forests. After graduation from j-school, I resumed working for the U.S.F.S.

On the Lake Wenatchee District, which had peaks galore, I worked as a wilderness ranger for the next five years. By the early 80s, I had left the Forest Service for graduate school in journalism and a career in public relations, first at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital and then Eugene Water & Electric Board.

Being my career job, I spent 23 years at the utility. Hooking up with other like-minded backcountry enthusiasts, I reconnected with Oregon’s Cascade peaks while traveling to Lake Wenatchee to reacquaint myself with those trails and massifs. By 2008, I had retired from the utility to dedicate time to more wilderness endeavors.

In retirement, I’ve had the opportunity to explore my Alpine roots, with visits to Germany, Switzerland and Italy. My heroes throughout my climbing career were Fred Beckey, a Northwest resident (Seattle) who was a transplant from Germany, and Reinhold Messner, an Italian-cum-German citizen of South Tyrol.

Hence, I will initiate a series of posts on the the mountains of the Northwest, beginning with peaks I’m most familiar with in Oregon and Washington, in a series entitled “Fire and Ice” on the Cascades, this region’s contribution to the Pacific Ring of Fire that extends from the tip of South America to the tip of New Zealand.

Floydian Flashback

Cover bands have become a staple of the music world: in rock, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are among the most popular. Having already seen numerous Pink Floyd cover bands, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see Brit Floyd, the self-proclaimed “greatest Pink Floyd band in the world,” on July 13.

When “The Floyd” first hit the scene in 1967, I paid only scant attention. As lead guitar player David Gilmour noted in an interview: early on, the band was more about “psychedelic noodling” than any attempt to write pop songs. That changed in 1973, when they released their seminal album: “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

The album spent a record 917 weeks on the Billboard 100, nearly three times the number of its nearest competitor, “Legend: Bob Marley.” Paradoxically, despite the record’s phenomenal success, Pink Floyd remained a rather anonymous supergroup whose members blended into the shadows -- faceless and amorphous (below).

Like stepping into a time machine, songs from the past can propel us back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, stirring powerful emotions. Psychologists describe the phenomenon as “the reminiscence bump,” an anomaly prompting memories and sentiments -- and the feeling as if you’re actually there in that time and space.

Hearing “Money,” “The Great Gig In The Sky,” “Us And Them” and other epic tunes from “The Dark Side of the Moon” whisked me back to my summer as a tour guide at Crater Lake National Park. As I pondered these reflections during the concert, the memories were vivid, unleashing a flood of remembrances and emotions.

Brit Floyd pretty much nailed it, from “The Dark Side” to “The Division Bell” and all points in between. Yes, music evokes something far more realistic and compelling -- a sensation that simply cannot be reduced to wistful thinking. Indeed, the experience is a dynamic venture that far transcends mere nostalgia.

A (Brief) History Of Bier

Considering my nearly lifelong affinity for that “nectar of the gods” known as beer, I thought it would be a fun and interesting project to review the long history of the world’s most popular alcoholic beverage. However, this will not be an unabridged history of beer: more like “the history of beer, according to Gonzo.”

No, instead of a comprehensive review of the third most widely consumed liquid (behind water and tea), this post will provide a personal perspective on the subject -- from the streets of Portland to the bier halls of Munich -- prefaced by a brief overview of beer through the ages. Where to start, but in the beginning?

Imagine, if you will, this scenario: a band of primeval humans, at the end of a long day of hunting and gathering, huddled around a communal fire sharing…beer? Don’t laugh; based on archeological evidence, beer has been part of the human existence since the dawn of humankind, playing a significant role in virtually every culture.

The brewing and consumption of beer dates back several millennia to ancient Babylon, Egypt and Mesopotamia at a time when humans began to settle down, according to anthropological studies. The advent of grain-based alcohol coincided with cultivating cereal grains such as wheat and barley to make bread and beer for sustenance.

With safe, sanitary water largely nonexistent, beer provided both essential nutrients for maintaining health and also antiseptic qualities from the alcohol. Legend has it that soggy grain had accidentally fermented after coming into contact with wild yeast. Some claim the intoxicating mix inspired ancient humans to begin farming.

However, beer as a business didn’t develop until the sixth century when brewing technology and science evolved rapidly thanks to Christian monks who learned to develop high quality beer and closely guarded the secrets of their craft. During medieval times, as many as 500 monastic breweries existed in Germany alone.

Monks ultimately controlled the commercial brewing industry for a time and they excelled at experimenting with ingredients. Some historians credit the monks as the first to introduce hops, recognizing its preservative qualities, as an ingredient in beer, essentially extending the life of the brew.

By the 12^th century, feudal lords had noticed the popularity of ales and the profitability of brewing. Soon, they created laws granting themselves exclusive brewing privileges, giving them full command of the industry. In 1447, ordinances were established in Munich requiring brewers to use only barley, hops and water for their beers.

In 1516, the powers-that-be in Bavaria issued the Purity Order (known as “Reinheitsgebot”), effectively taking the lead in regulating ingredients, processes and the quality of beer sold to the public. Many brewers still subscribe to the antiquated law as a marketing tool against mass-produced competitors.

In the U.S., ale dominated the market for the first 200 years until German and Dutch immigrants arrived in large numbers and by the Civil War, lager beer was outselling ale with its appeal to increasing numbers of newcomers. These German brewers -- Pabst, Coors and Busch -- would come to monopolize the American market.

Interestingly, Oregon -- with a climate similar to the hop-growing regions of Germany -- would become the top hops producer in America by 1905. The climate and soil in the Willamette Valley were both perfect for growing hops, with wet springs, dry summers and at least one hard freeze in the winter.

The next decade would become a good news/bad news proposition for brewers in Oregon. Because World War I had devastated European agriculture, the state expanded the production of hops to meet global demands, but in 1916, Prohibition came to Oregon and effectively put smaller breweries out of business.

Prohibition for the whole country began it 1919. To survive, Portland’s largest brewery owned by Henry Weinhard, merged with the Portland Brewing Company, owned by Arnold Blitz, becoming Blitz-Weinhard. Hop growers in Oregon leveraged other farming operations but continued to sell hops for medicinal elixirs.

Fast forward to the late 1960s, when I tasted my first beer: though underage, some of us with more mature features and facial hair could hoodwink clerks at neighborhood stores into selling us beer -- sometimes in large quantities. Our choices were limited to Western beers, primarily produced in the Northwest.

Growing up in the City of Roses, grocery outlets typically stocked Blitz-Weinhard (known simply as “Blitz”), Heidelberg (Tacoma), Olympia (Tumwater), Rainier (Seattle) and Lucky Lager (San Francisco). That was it, until we discovered a precious commodity not available locally known as Coors.

Compared to the beers available in Oregon and Washington, Coors -- brewed in Colorado by another German immigrant -- was a pilsner, smoother and more pleasing to our (still developing) palates than other Western beers. But the “banquet beer,” as it was known, was banned in the Northwest in those days.

As young entrepreneurs, a midnight run to either Hilt, California (608 miles round trip) or Ingard, Idaho (725 miles round trip) was not uncommon. There, we would purchase mass quantities of Coors for both consumption and sale back to Portland. At Crater Lake, we often shuttled Coors purchased in Dorris, California to Portland.

Such was the popularity of Coors in those days. Due to an Oregon statute maintained by organized labor (Coors was non-union), only pasteurized malt beverages in brewery-sealed packages could be sold for consumption. Consequently, it was illegal to stock Coors on retail shelves in Oregon, hence its wide acclaim.

While Coors was easier on the pallet, it was only slightly better than its other Western counterparts in hindsight. In an oddly ironic twist, it would be childhood acquaintances of mine who would help Coors ultimately sell its product in Oregon. Good news for Coors, to be sure. That bad news was their names were McMenamin and Widmer.

In college, I drank my first European beer at a frat party, where someone afforded unlimited bottles of Becks for guests. Also known as Brauerei Beck and Co, the German brew was a big improvement over Western beer, I thought. At Lake Wenatchee, I discovered Mexican (Dos Equis) and Australian (Foster’s and KB) beer.

Meanwhile, the McMenamin brothers would open “Produce Row” under the Morrison Bridge in Portland. The unique establishment was an instant hit with beer loving hipsters and yuppies alike. In addition to Becks and Heineken, a popular Dutch brew, the unique pub offered Guinness on tap -- particularly popular on Saint Patrick’s Day.

From that point on, I would not swill mass-produced American beer again. Sold on European beers, particularly those from Northern European countries like Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, England, Ireland and Lithuania, I would not return to the fold until the microbrewery revolution led by the McMenamins and Widmers.

In 1985, two sets of Portland-area brothers, Mike and Brian McMenamin, and Kurt and Rob Widmer, along with other motivated local brewers, helped write a bill that would change the law in Oregon to allow the combination of brewing and retail sales, a critical component that shapes today’s industry.

True, “The Coors Bill” was a good thing for the Colorado brewer, at least initially. But the microbrewery revolution would change the face of beer drinking in this country. My brush with fame: I attended Jesuit High School with Mike McMenamin and the Widmer boys grew up a few blocks from my childhood home on Mt. Tabor.

After Produce Row, the McMenamins opened “The Lighthouse” in Lincoln City near my family’s summer home and “The High Street Café” in Eugene. The Widmers introduced their “hefeweisen” in downtown Portland, a popular blonde wheat beer in the German style. McMenamin’s featured "Hammerhead Ale," among others.

Today, both sets of brothers have numerous brewpubs and commercial sales outlets, having contributed to Portland's growing reputation as the best beer city in America. Oregon has become the vanguard for craft brewing and has one of the few colleges that condones brewing beer as an academic pursuit (Go Beavers!).

In 2011, I traveled to Munich, home of the annual Oktoberfest, and visited the Hofbräuhaus, one of the oldest beer halls in Europe. During the annual beer festival, Munich swells from 2 million people to 8 million. Also toured the Paulaner (est. 1634) and Spaten (est. 1522) breweries, among the oldest in all of Germany.

These days, I still prefer mostly European beer in bottles (Carlsberg Elephant is a favorite), but with so many choices available from among literally hundreds of microbrews from throughout the Pacific Northwest, I find myself staying close to home when it comes to draught beer. Now then, what's your pleasure? Cheers!