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The Depot bouldering - Joel HassThe Depot

 

 

 

 

 

Trailor Park Side

 

 


 

Bend, Oregon

Elevation: 3,600 Feet

 

 

On a blustery, Sunday morning in the very early spring of 2005, Joel, the dogs, his roommate Jacob and I went bouldering on the poorer side of the Deschutes River.  Clearly, the city planners had been "not really thinking" when they put a trailor park on some of the most prime real estate in a town built on prime real estate.  Literally, it oversits the Deschutes River amongst dense lodgepole and towering ponderosa pine.  The other side of the river houses the very large, very expensive Mount Bachelor Village. 

The Depot bouldering - Jake - Bend, OregonThe trailor park side must be the conversations that can have no pure words amongst the real estate hawks perpetually circling the Bend carcass.  This is the last good chunk of meat hanging from the skeleton.  My understanding is that as the lots became available for sale, the real estate agents around town but them up.

I think at some point in the future, there will be a large purging party where the real estate agents will kick everyone out of their single and double wides while yelling on bull horns and burning sage to get rid of the bad "poor people" spirits.  Nobody dislikes poor people more than real estate agents, they just don't have anything in common with them.  I am sure there are some really bad real estate agents who have some stuff in common with poor people.

We drove through the park, noting the majority of the domiciles still had their christmas lights up.  It's always christmas time in da hood!  As we were driving through, Joel told a little story about his next door neighbor, the Mouth Breather.

For Christmas this year, Joel bought a huge tree for his new house.  He has an open stairway/entryway area that is just ripe for a larger than one story christmas tree and he went all the way with a thirteen foot monster.  It was glorious and all, but it was really, really big.  After christmas, he left it up for about two weeks before taking it down and promptly stashed it on the side of his house until he could "figure out what to do with it."  I was thinking you make that decision prior to creating a Sweet Home front lawn landscape. 

The Depot - Frosted FlakesSo his neighbor is this rather...odd individual who lives in the house with his wife and father-in-law.   The Mouth Breather is one of those guys who wears shirts that say "My Business is Kicking Ass...And Business is Good!"  It makes him fun to hang around with because he is that element of reality television that suckers us all into the human drama...those who aren't smart enough to understand it's all faked anyway so the human drama is created.  The father-in-law cleans his shop vaccuum cleaner every three days or so, whether or not it was even used.  He is a shifty fellow who likes to grumble about french-fried pertaters and an odd assortment of lawncare product maintenance and repair.

The day after Joel stashed the tree on the side of his house he got a note from the Mouth Breather.  He was asking Joel if he could have his huge christmas tree.  Joel of course wanted to give it up because he sure as hell didn't want it and most likely it was going to cost him some money to get rid of it.  Joel's wife, Jenny, went next door to tell them they were welcome to the dying tree on the side of their house.  Jenny knocked on the door.  It cracked open and a feeble, almost frightened voice came out asking "yes?"

Jenny couldn't even get a look at the face behind the door as she explained they were welcome to the tree.  The disembodied voice replied "Uh, ok..." and closed the door.  The next day the tree was gone and Joel and Jenny kind of mentally shrugged it off.

The Depot Bouldering - Joel Hass and JakeThe following day Joel looked out his front door, and planted and delimbed, stood his former christmas tree with a large American flag laying limply over it.  You have to understand, there was no foundation to this denuded tree.  The Mouth Breather dug a deep, narrow hole and plunged this now ten foot monstrosity with his father-in-law's American Flag tied to it with thin, cheap twine.

Now, a normal person might have been more forthcoming in pointing out the new neighborhood eyesore to the creator of that eyesore, but you have to understand, the Mouth Breather was very proud of what he made.  Joel was curious as to what happened to all the limbs.  MB told him had draped those on the inside of his backyard fence to make the fence look prettierest.  Joel just didn't have it in his heart to explain to MB what he had done wrong.  So he took the circumspect route and hinted that the city of Bend might have an ordinance against flying a flag without a proper...er...um...foundation.  Or you might not even be allowed to fly one that high.  MB looked a bit worried and ran inside.

The next day MB showed up at Joel's doorstep and told Joel they had nothing to worry about.  The Breather had gone down to city hall and made inquiries as to the legality of what he had done.  The city had assured MB, under no uncertain circumstances, would his flag be illegal in their eyes.  Joel's face kind of fell into itself.  MB had actually called him on his bluff.  Joel took a new tactic: neighborhood covenant.  In the interest of keeping your property value at a maximum possibility, almost all new neighborhoods are protected by a series of by-laws that you sign to as part of moving into your new cookie-cutter home that is exactly five paces apart from both your left and right neighbor, allowing you to do a running jump across houses in case you need to get more BBQ sauce from your fridge when you are at a cook-out at their homes.  Joel knew appealing to this exacting institution would be his final go at ridding himself of this...pole.

The Depot Bouldering - Bend, Oregon - Arete climbAs of this day, the pole stands with a slant that detracts from it's pride and the flag has been removed.  Evidently, son-in-law hadn't asked new poppa about the use of the flag.  So now it is just a single tree, lacking limbs and dignity planted in front of Mouth Breather's house.