Retirement is not without Hassles: Feet Don’t Fail Me Now #1103

The other day I ran past the Lovejoy Columns, not knowing their significance in Portland history. Coincidentally, I was renting the movie Drugstore Cowboy filmed in the railroad viaduct area of the now refurbished Pearl District. A friend suggested that I watch the Matt Dillon classic primarily for one of the opening scenes that takes place in a drugstore just down the street from our new apartment. The robbery crew headed by Dillon’s character Bob are shown in some choreographed segments involving the columns that once held up the Lovejoy Street ramp that once bridged the freight tracks. According to Wikipedia accounts, the columns were painted by Greek immigrant Tom Stefopoulos between 1948 and 1952. In 1999, the viaduct was demolished but the columns were spared due to the efforts of the architectural group Rigga. For the next five years, attempts to restore the columns were unsuccessful and they remained in storage beneath the Fremont Bridge.

In 2005, two of the original columns were re-sited at Northwest 10th Avenue between Everett and Flanders Streets. These were what I spotted on my morning run. The Regional Arts & Culture Council was searching for photographs showing the murals in their original location for an ongoing restoration project. In 2006, Randy Shelton reconstructed the artworks on the columns using the photographs for reference. The once seedy grounds around the rail yard are now home to some of the priciest real estate in Portland. What was the perfect setting for this movie about drug theft is currently loaded with fine restaurants, luxury high rise condos, upscale businesses, and popular bars. “Formerly known as the Northwest Industrial Triangle, it was given its new name in 1985 by a gallery owner named Thomas Augustine, who told a magazine writer that the neighborhood’s artists, toiling away in old, crusty buildings, were like pearls inside oysters.”

I discovered this hidden Portland treasure that is just past the two-mile mark of my morning run. I will make a tradition out of circling around the columns before the last mile home. Today was number 3,952 on my quest to continue running every single day for as long as I can. Just after Christmas it will have involved eleven straight years of lacing up the shoes and completing at least a mile each day. Over the next two years, I’ve made plans to run in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Russia, Finland, Indonesia, Egypt, and China, adding to my worldly roadwork accomplishments that already include the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, France, the U.S. (at least 20 states), Netherlands, England, Croatia, Italy, Thailand, Greece, Tahiti, and Bora Bora. In the words of the band Queens of the Stone Age, “Feet don’t fail me now!”

Oh-oh-oh, feet don’t fail me now
Do whatcha gotta do
And do it now
Feet don’t fail me now
I just gotta move on