Teri's Truck

I moved to Los Angeles in 1988, of which is a bit of a longer story, and we're not talking about all of that right now.

While in Los Angeles, a friend of mine that I was living with had a friend who had a friend (Mike had a friend named Ruth who had a friend named Teri) and Teri was staying in town for a Movie thing (for college - she wanted to be a Movie "something"). It ended up that some cheerleaders couldn't be out of the place she was staying so they bumped her and she needed a place to crash. We invited her in (without our roommates permission or happiness) to the living room that we lived in (in a one bedroom) with 2 other people, so there were now 5. It was only for a couple of nights. Teri is 3 years my Senior, and is an interesting gal. I'll have to write sometime about some of our other crazy experiences.

Teri and I used to go driving around Portland, and specifically through "gang areas" (yes, there WERE/ARE gangs in Portland...no one in Los Angeles believed it for some reason, but a couple of years later I'd find myself living on the edge of the Rollin' 60's territory). We'd be looking at all the boarded up crack houses and people trading drugs for cash on the streets, at the hookers and the old delapidated buildings, one of which still proclaimed it was a Disco (in the early 90's?). Burnside was a fabulous street for prostitution and the surrounding area was just as glum. We loved driving around in her truck:

Her truck was fabulous and fun! It was some special make of something...I don't even recall the make of it now, but we'd drive through Portland and Teri would throw on the light inside the cab exclaiming, "please don't shoot me! I'm a white girl! I'm not in the Bloods!" Oh, we had some fun doing that, and she sincerely acted like she was going to get shot for being in the wrong color car...I still don't quite know why we did this, but we did, and that is that.

Of course, we also did things like buying packs of Chesterfields and PalMals (unfiltered) and going out to Hillsboro and smelling the burning pot fields (compliments of the authorities) and watching the purple lights at the dinky airport. Simple times, simple things...times I miss, things I can't replace or recreate - but in memory, they will always live on.