Living Room Project

I came to Portland in 1997 as a school bus driver.  I had been driving for Laidlaw Inc. down in Medford, this was a non union company and I was bringing home $100. per week which did not pay for my rental of $400. + a month, much less the needed necessities of this life.

 

At the time there were two cities in the U.S. that needed school bus drivers, Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon.  This was 1996 and Oregon was experiencing flooding from storms so I called ahead and got a job with the Scottsdale school district.  I sold my car so I wouldn’t have to tow it through the traffic of Southern California that area had grown so.  I needed my car to get from one bus barn to the next as things turned out so, destitute, I continued on to my mom’s in central California.  I did not connect with a driving job in Monterey County but worked in a gift store in Monterey until fall when I returned to Portland Oregon and drove for Portland Public Schools.

 

The first year I drove normal children and the next year I drove the emotionally disturbed at George’s middle School and for Alameda Elementary School.  I loved that job and had a very hard time missing my children when I started driving for TriMet in February 1999.  I drove six years for TriMet when I became insulin dependent I chose not to drive.  In 2005 I left TriMet and struggled three years until the Great Recession when I no longer felt alone in my destitution.  I struggled for two more years until I was put on SSD.

 

When I drove for Portland Public Schools and TriMet I had two gardens at Reed College in their  beautiful community garden.  Such a beautiful garden and such a loss for us to pull most of them out to build dorms.

 

When I left TriMet I moved in with my youngest daughter her boy was 7.  I lived with them four years and gardened in the Brentwood Community Garden.

 

I now am retired and off disability.  I live in St. Francis Apts and grow a little garden in the Terrace of St. Francis.

 

I am an ex TriMet driver, so know how to get around town which I do every day.  I am out and about five hours a day, usually stopping at one of the Libraries in Multnomah County.  I swim at Mt. Scott and belong to the Oregon Zoo and take my walks there.  I take public transportation to Gresham and ride on to Rhododendron where I like to hike and camp.

 

I feel that I live around people that are like me, urban and from out of state and a bit out of the box.   I love living in Portland, Or and I love living downtown southwest.