EARTH DAY 1995
For the past week it had been cold
and raining with random showers of
hail pounding down on anyone unfor
tunate enough to be away from shelter
at the time. Saturday, April 22nd, was a
perfect sunny day though, and Art and
Roger Seliner and I got a late start on
our downtown Portland adventure.
The busos were all free in honor of
Earth Day which saved us each a buck
on our short ride across the river. First
we headed up to Ospirg's corporate
free celebration in the park by PSU, A
lot of celebrations are sponsored by
big corporations who want good pub-
licity but really don't make an effort to help the
environment. Anyway, we missed most of the
festivities but Art didn't care because he's not
a hippy like me and Roger. What is a hippy
anyways? Is It a fifteen year old kid bummin
change on Haight Street with Birkenstocks and
their parent's Gold Card in their pocket? Or is
Lit just someone who cares about the planet we
live on and wants to help it in their own little
way? So we checked out some of Ospirg's
Information stands and found out about their
efforts to expand the bottle bill, which extends
recycling laws, and
then we signed a
petition they're
sending to Con-
gress with a list of
twenty-five impor
lant things Con
gress can do to help
the environment.
Clockwise from above: Just before,
or maybe right after the cops cleared
out the session at Waterfront Park,
Roger Seliner topped this switch backside
tailslide. A couple of Earth Day enthusiasts
showcase their lowride bikes. A smiling fellow
plays "Hava Nagila" on the accordion. Art
and Roger chat with a friendly policewoman.
Up Front
22 THASHER
Roger tried this
one handrail for
a minute before
almost making it,
but not before a
campus policewom-
an noticed his efforts and came over for a chat.
We talked for a while and found out she was a
lot nicer and more knowledgeable than your
average law enforcement agent.
From there we walked down to Pioneer
Square and at first didn't realize what everyone
was cheering about. Then I looked up and saw
a couple of guys with a banner hanging by
ropes from the top of a twelve-story building,
How they got up there I have no idea, but it
must have been difficult. The banner was urg
ing President Clinton to veto the Recisions Bill
which would put National Parks in danger of
salvage logging. This would be very bad! They
were arrested on criminal trespassing charges
and let go later that night.
Our stomachs were growling so we headed
down to Saturday market for some food.
Waterfront Park is right across from the market
and is Portland's version of Wallenberg. It was
crazy that day with bicyclists, pedestrians,
rollerbladers and skateboarders all going in dif
ferent directions, creating chaos. I sat on a nice
wad of gum and took some photos and then
the cops showed up. Skateboarding is illegal at
Waterfront so those who saw the cops tried to
look like they weren't skating. It didn't matter
because they weren't writing tickets and only
temporarily stopped the session.
Roger and Art headed home and I decided
to grab a free ride on a yellow bike. There's
this great free bike system in Portland where
they have all these bikes painted yellow for
anyone's use. You'll see them sitting around
town and you can just jump on one, ride it
where you need to go and then leave it. It's
good to see things like this hap-
pening amongst all the craziness
of our society. Food Not Bombs is
another great organization that's
helping people with free food.
The twenty-fifth anniversary
of Earth Day went well here in
Portland and I hope other towns
also had good days. General con-
sciousness of our environment
seems to be improving and I hope
other skaters share my opinion
that whining doesn't do any good.
Just like in skateboarding, actions
speak a lot louder than words,
-Noah Martineau
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