Double-edged tour

H's cousin and her husband in town, we gave them the city tour and it must have been hilarious, now that I think about it, because H is rah-rah Pdx all the way, and I think it's gone downhill since the 1980s, so H would say blah blah is really great, and I would add, yeah but you should've been here in 1985 when blah blah, but I think H won because they left very impressed with the city, almost as much as I'm impressed with the way the city was thirty years ago. Look, 30 years ago there were two theater directors, two theater companies and a composer, all on the city payroll as city employees in Parks & Rec! Talk about a European model (our public transportation, which is great, reminded them of Europe -- they are from New Hampshire). I actually almost get sick in my stomach when I revisit the urban changes. "This is the way Greenwich Village used to be, hope it never changes," my agent told me in the 80s about the NW neighborhood I lived in. What she liked, and I liked, had vanished by the end of the decade. They call it progress and maybe most people dig it. I've wanted to move ever since it happened.