Rainy, Sunny, Sweeney [Part Two]
click here if you haven't read part one.
OMSI stands for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. My fifth grade class went there on a field trip when it used to be next door to the Washington Park Zoo, now called the Portland Zoo because it was too confusing for tourists and visiting grammar school students. They couldn't understand why it was in Portland but named after a neighboring state.
Outside the old OMSI was a giant, pyschedelic colored, geodesic dome that served as the planetarium; on the other side of the building was a stripped down F-4 Phantom fighter jet. Every noontime, barely literate school age children would play in the F-4's cockpit. While pushing the mushroom shaped gray button or pulling the red trigger, they'd imagine they were shooting down an enemy jet or vaporizing their school principal who was sipping from a juice box less than ten yards away. Around midnight, local area teens stinking like bong water would line up at the geodesic dome to see OMSI's Laser Light Show set in time to Pink Floyd's The Wall. OMSI was for children of all ages.
Now, I'm twenty-five years old and I'm at the new OMSI on the other side of the Willamette River. I'm mesmerized by the water sculpture across the street. Water flows over a tall partition into black tubes. The tubes get heavy, then they tip, pouring the water gracefully into another tube. Then that tube tilts to one side and pours the water into shallow pool down below. It's some kind of marvel in gravity, liquid, and cyclone fencing.
I stare at the spectacle for several minutes. I hear the sound of water meeting water, then the sound of downshifting and heavy breaking. Hot exhaust hits my leg. A city bus has pulled just nine inches in front of my face. I take a step back. On the side of the bus is a picture of Dave with a tilted umbrella in one hand; his other hand is cupped up towards the sky. He's got a giant toothy grin.
Dave's always happy.
The ad says: Rainy, Sunny, Sweeney. Koin 6 weather. 5, 6, and 11.
The city bus pulls away. It's replaced by a school bus.
Hordes of excited kids wearing t-shirts that say YMCA clammor out onto the sidewalk. Three adults try to herd them near the entrance. Towards the back of the line, a small group of boys are making a game of flipping their ball caps off each other. I'm grinning as I pass them to go inside the museum.
click here if you haven't read part one.
OMSI stands for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. My fifth grade class went there on a field trip when it used to be next door to the Washington Park Zoo, now called the Portland Zoo because it was too confusing for tourists and visiting grammar school students. They couldn't understand why it was in Portland but named after a neighboring state.
Outside the old OMSI was a giant, pyschedelic colored, geodesic dome that served as the planetarium; on the other side of the building was a stripped down F-4 Phantom fighter jet. Every noontime, barely literate school age children would play in the F-4's cockpit. While pushing the mushroom shaped gray button or pulling the red trigger, they'd imagine they were shooting down an enemy jet or vaporizing their school principal who was sipping from a juice box less than ten yards away. Around midnight, local area teens stinking like bong water would line up at the geodesic dome to see OMSI's Laser Light Show set in time to Pink Floyd's The Wall. OMSI was for children of all ages.
Now, I'm twenty-five years old and I'm at the new OMSI on the other side of the Willamette River. I'm mesmerized by the water sculpture across the street. Water flows over a tall partition into black tubes. The tubes get heavy, then they tip, pouring the water gracefully into another tube. Then that tube tilts to one side and pours the water into shallow pool down below. It's some kind of marvel in gravity, liquid, and cyclone fencing.
I stare at the spectacle for several minutes. I hear the sound of water meeting water, then the sound of downshifting and heavy breaking. Hot exhaust hits my leg. A city bus has pulled just nine inches in front of my face. I take a step back. On the side of the bus is a picture of Dave with a tilted umbrella in one hand; his other hand is cupped up towards the sky. He's got a giant toothy grin.
Dave's always happy.
The ad says: Rainy, Sunny, Sweeney. Koin 6 weather. 5, 6, and 11.
The city bus pulls away. It's replaced by a school bus.
Hordes of excited kids wearing t-shirts that say YMCA clammor out onto the sidewalk. Three adults try to herd them near the entrance. Towards the back of the line, a small group of boys are making a game of flipping their ball caps off each other. I'm grinning as I pass them to go inside the museum.
posted by c. @ 12:05 PM
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