I’m reading Matt Love’s book about the Oregon Vortex, the giant state-and-business funded “biodegradable festival of life” that kept Portland lefties occupied with drugs and music instead of protesting the Vietnam War in the summer of 1970. Included is this amazing pamphlet the city printed and handed out to counterculture businesses that summer:
The “Peace has its price in Portland” pamphlet takes a conversational “hey, we’re cool, too, dude” air to explaining the many things that police will arrest you for if you try to protest or just hang out too long in the city.
Some excerpts:
“MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR” is a popular call, but better done in private. A public display is offensive, we consider it a violation.
WE DON’T LIKE UNPLEASANTNESS. And City Code 14.28.010 spells that out. Fighting, threatening, obscene and abusive language is in violation, So we suggest that you take any threatening behavior and unreasonable loud noises somewhere else. Like wide open spaces.
WHEN 3 OR MORE of you are getting a mite more factious and disorderly than necessary, you will probably be told by a police officer to disperse. He’s not doing that just to hear his good, rich baritone.
WHAT’S FUN FOR YOU may be a kick in the head for your neighbors. Which is why we get pretty firm about noisy parties and disturbances late at night.
WE HAVE THE USUAL vehicle, parking, and pedestrian regulations, But they’re no good to anyone if they’re not enforced. So we enforce them.
WE ALSO RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CRACK your skull if you don’t clear a public square as quickly as we’d like.
(I’ve just been reading about PSU in May 1970 in Polina Olsen’s book “Portland in the 1960s.”)
I love that they put a bird on it in 1970.
Ai, I just remembered that my great-uncle Don McNamara was Portland police chief at the time, and must’ve ordered the Park Blocks cleared. (I wasn’t quite 5 years old in May of ’70.) Small world.
I believe you mean Vortex I. The Oregon Vortex is another thing.
DOES THAT GIRL GOT FEATHERS IN HER HAIR CAUSE KE$HA?
@sarge: in Sarah’s defense, a random hippie does pop out of the Oregon Vortex every three years or so.