Used Bookstores In Portland
Joe on November 17th, 2009 | Filed under Travel
Portland, Oregon was Tim’s hometown. He hadn’t been there in four years and as he sat in the airplane looking out over the Cascade Mountains he wasn’t sure why. He had just finished his bachelor’s degree in Boston and had moved back to the West coast, though he landed much further north than Portland. He had moved to Seattle, which is where the love of his life, Tammie, lived. Ironically he met her in Boston the summer of his freshman year when her family was there visiting relatives. They both happened to be eating pizza in at the same sidewalk pizzeria and when Tammie left her sunglasses sitting at the table as she was leaving it was Tim who noticed them and promptly returned them to their owner. The rest is basically history. Tammie was only in Boston for two weeks, but they saw each other everyday and emailed consistently after that. They also visited each other as often as possible, which sometimes was twice a semester.
As the plane descended into Portland Tim decided that it was advent of his relationship with Tammie that prevented his return visits to his hometown once he had left. Here he was though, almost back on his streets. He hadn’t told anyone he was coming and had planned to stay in one of the best Portland hotels, however after giving it some thought he decided it might be too much of a shock to his mother so he called her a week ago and she insisted that he stay with her, in his own home as she called it.
As he walked along Hawthorne Boulevard on his way to the old bookstore he used to work at he couldn’t help but think these buildings, which he passed everyday for so many years, somehow looked like a postcard, or better yet a seasonal holiday card. They had assumed a definite nostalgic characteristic and Tim wasn’t sure how they had achieved that. He felt like he was walking through a dream, or maybe he was even a ghost. It was a good thing he had phoned his mom. At least someone could testify he was actually there. He opened the door to Hawthorne Boulevard Books and suddenly twelve of his friends from band and the high school debate team jumped out at him. Apparently his mother had told them he was coming and knew he would visit the bookstore. Tim realized then that some things never change.
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