Artist Alexander Rokoff and Brian Wannamaker first collaborated on portraits when Wannamaker commissioned Rokoff to paint portraits of twelve tenants who had lived in the Falcon Apartment Building for ten to thirty years – both to honor them and to capture a moment in time of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. This sense of history adds to the community feeling at the Falcon. Brian wrote an “experience” story about each tenant, which you can read here or mounted by each piece in the building. The Falcon Residence Portraiture Project paintings are currently on display in the Falcon Art Community’s permanent collection.
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Alexander Rokoff |
A painter of souls |
| “$5000, do I hear $5000…$5000 it is, how about $6500? At the $7500 mark, I decided to stop watching the auction, and turn my attention to Alexander to see his emotional response as he realized that his art had just climbed to a new echelon among collectors. He had not voiced his nervousness prior to the fundraising event, but I could tell he felt exposed, displaying for sale a large painting he had completed at his studio in the Falcon. This painting was one of six 7ft x 4ft panels of various local people, ‘the forgotten people,’ as he would call them—people who wandered into his painting school on Mississippi Ave. They were all interesting characters: from a woman in a white wedding gown, to a window washer living on the streets, all real people who lived in his gritty neighborhood that was rapidly gentrifying. Alexander had worried that paintings of his “forgotten” subjects would not sell. They were forgotten in life and could be forgotten in art. On the auction block was a life-size rendition of a black artist. The artist was depicted with paint all over his pants holding a handful of brushes, but what made it a masterwork was the artist’s expression—caught in a moment of inspiration with a halo of light around his head. Alexander was nervous, watching his painting come to life for collectors. This was a life changing opportunity and he knew it. Alexander did not paint to sell; he painted to paint, and hoped the work would sell. As he told me, “If an artist is good with his craft, then a painting of a brick should be interesting.” Alexander had been working on his craft in one form or another for most of his life. But Alexander still doubted that his paintings would be appreciated by collectors, even though his subjects were far more interesting than a brick. I could see tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he realized that everything he had worked and sacrificed for all these years was finally being valued. In less than 2 minutes Alexander Rokoff had become an established artist. The painting titled “Brian the Painter” eventually sold far above the opening bid and within that year “Virgil the Window Washer” sold for $24,000 in Beverly Hills California. The portraits in these halls were all completed by Alexander Rokoff in 2005, when Alexander was 34 years old. The 15 paintings were completed in apartment 310, or in the first studio in the basement, now known as studio 16. When I was choosing subjects for the series I did not think of a self-portrait of Alexander, until near the end, and once I did, it was an obvious choice. It is one of my favorite paintings because it shows so many aspects to his character. His eyes show a soulful sadness, which I interpret as a sensitivity and understanding toward life. Alexander is a genuine person who prizes his own integrity and does so with grace courage, and fortitude. What really makes Alexander special is his humanity—an understanding of people and a genuine caring for them through an understanding of their flaws. Looking for their beauty as a human being, and not just the beauty of their physical appearance. His is a real appreciation of the beauty of imperfection, of non-romanticized human beings; The beauty of a person’s life experience, and a sad reality of their existence; Of a 50 year old long-time Mississippi Ave. resident dressed in a white wedding gown with light emanating from her surroundings and joy on her face* and inspiring us all to over come difficulties and see the beauty in life. *This Painting now hangs in Mayor Sam Adams office in Portland City Hall. |
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Armondo Marin |
Alexander Rokoff |
| Seventeen seemed to be the age that most of the family came. Almost a rite of passage or maybe that’s the age when a boy must strike out on his own to become a man. It took real need to leave a Rural Mexican town of a few hundred people, and make a long arduous, dangerous, unknown journey into a foreign country with a different language. Like the Germans, Italians, Chinese and others that had immigrated to the United States before them, the Mexicans came by the millions. This just happened to be the 1990’s instead of the 1890’s, and unlike prior immigrants, many of them were breaking the law by coming. They had to walk four days through a desert, carrying only water, trying to remain undetected by boarder patrol guards. By now I’m sure I had met 8 or 9 cousins, uncles and brothers from the small rural town 5 hours north of Mexico City. All of the people I had met were from a close knit family structure, all relying on each other to take care of one another. I found it quite amazing to see this modern immigration story playing out in front of me. I suppose I thought about my family generations back, and their immigration story to North America. OR my mom immigrating from Denmark at 15. My immigration story is simpler. When I immigrated to the United States, I drove to Detroit and spoke Canadian to a border patrol agent who stamped my entry paperwork. While I was nervous and unsure what lay ahead, it was a very different experience than what Armondo had. The uncertainty he and his cousins must have felt was difficult to imagine. They came to the US for the same reason everyone else did; to have a better life. The promise of opportunity not predetermined by circumstance. But over the last 10 years, Armando and I had become close friends. Not superficial friends, but a deep lifelong friendship. It was based on a mutual respect, one immigrant to another. Both of us ventured into a new country, lured by the promise of opportunity for a better life not predetermined by circumstance. I think we had established a mutual respect. Armando had worked hard these last 10 years and had become talented in the construction trade. Finishing walls with a 1940’s hand texture, painting, sanding floors, and laying tile were commonplace for him. I had seen him redo a large one bedroom apartment single-handedly in 7 days. He was a total professional even while being underpaid. One day I asked if he wanted to go boating up the Columbia River. He looked nervous but agreed. I asked if he had ever been in the water before, and he joked something about crossing the Rio Grand, but otherwise never. I assured him the boat would most likely not sink, and he would be fine. So off we went. Armando, Paul Eklund and myself. There is a place up past Rooster Rock State Park where this vast river is about 5 ft deep for most of its mile and a half span, during the summer months. It is a great spot to drop anchor and walk in to shore. He put on a life preserver, and climbed down the ladder until he was fully in the water. I jumped in, and we swam around the boat in the middle of the Columbia River. It must have been terrifying for him but Armando had the courage and trust to explore beyond his known horizon. After his father died in 2004, and his Uncle died 2006, Armando told me I was the only patron left. |
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Harold “Bird” McConnell |
Alexander Rokoff |
| I couldn’t imagine how Harold could be called “Bird”, but that’s what they called him. Based on his stature, I could see “Bear” or “Hippopotamus” but at 350lbs, a bird was the last thing that came to my mind. But everyone kept calling him Bird so that became his name. After about 3 years, Bird’s father Max, told me Harold’s name but like everyone else, and I had been calling him Bird ever since. |
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Bruce Holloway (b. 1950) |
Alexander Rokoff |
| ‘Well howdy caller; God loves you caller, and I loves ya too, so if you leave me a message, I’m gonna get right back wit ya, ok? Ok!’ I never knew how to interpret Bruce’s answering machine. It was not the sort of message you’d expect when calling for an oil change, or to ask for apartment maintenance, but it did contribute a piece towards his puzzling character. After moving to Portland from Cleveland in 1990, Bruce was homeless. Mechanics school was expensive but Bruce continued to attend while living on the street. After a year and a half he found the Falcon apartments, moved in and started working on cars in the back lot behind the building so he could pay his rent. You can still find him back there under the old dead tree called the money tree by those who believe in ghosts. Old-timers swear the ghost of Jack Black can still be felt beneath the money tree, and sometimes seen unburying, counting and reburying his stash. It was a money tree for Bruce as well, as that is where he did most of his car repair work, which allowed him to pay rent, get off the streets, and have a place to live. Bruce will be back there wearing oil stained coveralls and holding a large wrench, surrounded by steel and grease, car parts, kittens under the old dead tree. The first time I met Bruce, I felt intimidated, not because he did or said anything but because he didn’t. As if he had a quiet inner strength. The Falcon was a mix of gangsters, drug addicts, and good people, and at first I didn’t know which group he belonged to, but I wouldn’t have assumed he was a man of faith. In contemplating his character over the years, this ultimately made sense to me; Bruce has an unyielding faith that I really couldn’t understand. I imagine that if I had asked Bruce about his beliefs, he would say that everything will work out fine, that the almighty has a master plan for all of us if we just let go and let it happen. He might be right, but I try to control my destiny. I suppose I didn’t have the faith he had. But we never spoke about faith; I never asked, and he never preached. Bruce didn’t seem to have that same destiny-controlling need. After wishing him a Merry Christmas one year, I asked what his plans were for Christmas day. “I’m just gonna let the offers come rolling in and see what happens.” He said the statement out of faith, not arrogance. And, the offers did come rolling in. The next day he told me he had been invited over to 3 separate meals, had eaten too much and then slept like a baby. Faith worked for Bruce. He understood that God provided for people and he was therefore never questioned whether or not he was going to have a Christmas dinner at someone’s house. I wondered if people knowing that I had nowhere to go would have inspired invitations towards me, but truth is, I would never allow for that uncertainty. I am short of faith, so I cook a turkey. Bruce had lived in the Falcon for 14 years when I asked Alex to paint his portrait. Bruce struggled to understand why anyone would want to immortalize him in a painting, and asked, “What do you want to do that for?” I told him it was a way of honoring the tenants in the building, so he agreed. Bruce looked great dressed up in his suit and tie. I was used to seeing his intimidating physique in coveralls working behind the Falcon with a transmission laid out at his feet, and with grease wiped on his face and clothing, but not today. Alexander Rokoff was painting his portrait, and he took pride in his appearance. On the drive back to the Falcon after installing “Bruce and the Kittens” in Commissioner Sam Adams office in city hall, Bruce simply shook his head from side to side. “Who would have thought!” He kept shaking his head. “Sometimes words cannot describe how you feel about something, and all you can say is WOW. So when you hear me say WOW, that’s what I mean.” |
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Emmitt Thomas |
Alexander Rokoff |
| Emmitt was never shy when asking for a smoke, as he leaned back in his chair under the NO SMOKING sign displayed clearly in the entry hall of the Falcon Apartments. With his current cigarette burning down to the filter and ashes free falling onto the carpet he would ask me, “Where you bin at? We haven’t seen you around for a while. You bin up to Canada?” I would answer him the same way I did every few days I saw him. “No smoking in the halls.” “All right,” he agreed, but he never moved from his comfortable and opportunistic spot across from the mailboxes and beside the coin operated pay phone. It seemed to be the best spot to accomplish his goal: to flirt with the new girls in the building. The girls never knew what to make of him. Emmitt still had a clever and wily look in his eye, but his memory was not sharp like it had been, prior to his strokes. He used to tell great stories about hitch hiking to South America after the air force released him from active duty in 1953. I suppose that was where he picked up his perfect Spanish, although you could never tell with Emmitt where he learned many of the things he knew. A long life I guess. German, Spanish, English, Japanese and his native Cherokee all popped up in some conversation or other. I wonder if all of his 22 kids and 100 grand kids even knew Emmitt’s life story. All I really knew was that he had lived in the Falcon for about 20 years, he was fun to joke with, and I got a kick out of seeing him flirting with the girls in the building. At 80, he claimed to be just a youngster and relative to his mother, who was 104, he was. I would tell him that some people believed that smoking could cut a persons life expectancy, and he would just laugh. After his wife Sherri died at the end of January in 2006, Emmitt’s children decided to move him to accommodations where they could better take care of him. “How will Sherrie find me?” he asked his kids, but they moved him anyways. Part African American, and part Native American, Emmitt claimed he was all-American. Emmitt’s voice will be missed around the Falcon, but even now, I can still hear it echoing in the halls with a “What you been doin?” |
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James “Chip” Simon |
Alexander Rokoff |
| “There must have been a hundred thousan’ dollars in there.” “What did you do with all that money?” I asked in amazement. “Well, I reached in to pull it out and it all just turned to dust. Green dust everywhere!” James said with a look of amazement and amusement. “I had all that money in my hands and it just disappeared.” James had lived in the Falcon for over 30 years, and had lived in many different units. While living in apartment 207, Ruth had been after James to fix the door. For some reason it would not hang right on its hinge, and was difficult to close. After much prodding, James took the door molding off to find money stuffed all around the door casing. According to a newspaper article found with the money, there had been a bank heist in 1924 where $17,000 was taken. Apparently something had happened to the robber before he could spend it all, and James found it. As it turned out, the Falcon had hidden riches. After a lifetime of hard work, for a moment James and Ruth Simon must have thought they had hit the lottery. After retiring from the shipyards, James did ok, but seeing all that money piled up in the doorjamb of apartment 207 must have stopped his heart. Unfortunately the dream remained just out of reach, like something you can see in front of you, but can never touch. The dream turned to dust and fell through their fingertips as they reached in for a slice of the American Pie. “Hey Ruth, why do they call James ‘Chip’?” I asked one day. “Well James used to spend a lot of time down on little Las Vegas, what is now called Historic Mississippi Ave. In the Seventies the boarded up buildings had backroom gambling. The locals would distil their own hooch in the backrooms and gamble away over at Cornbread’s place (now Gravy). Then in the early 1980’s Crack Cocaine started all this gang violence and the gangsters would come in and rob us. It became too dangerous and we shut the places down. “Eventually the buildings all became boarded up. I sure do have some good memories and stories about those days and if I had had all that money from the bank heist, I would have I would have turned it into a lot more down there in little Las Vegas.” James and Ruth Simon had a rich life full of local tales and experience, and they both add wealth and community to the Falcon. |
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Patrick Moxhet (b.?-d.2005) |
Alexander Rokoff |
| Patrick was found dead the morning March 30th 2005 in apartment 204. He looked peaceful lying in his bed as if he was still sleeping. His passing must have happened without drama sometime in the night, or the night before that. Estranged from his family, I had rarely seen any visitors going to his apartment. Chris had called to let me know that he had not been able to reach his father at the appointed hour. Apparently Patrick was trying to reestablish a relationship with Chris and they had started a dialogue. Chris had called the police, and the police found Patrick’s body in the apartment. It was no surprise that Patrick would have died in the same place, and in the same way Diane, his second wife had died some 5 years earlier. Since her passing, Patrick had retired, and he spent his days downtown at the Portland Library. He knew there was wireless Internet in the building, but he remarked that going downtown to use the Internet gave him something to do. So each morning he would stand by the bus stop, wearing his beret and pulling his carted briefcase. Living in Portland did not give him much opportunity to speak French, which may have been one of the reasons he liked to use the Internet. But that was supposition on my part. He might just have liked looking at beautiful women online. This was not a stretch in thinking, as his apartment was decorated with nude photos he had taken over the years; nothing pornographic, just nude. It did not seem that Patrick was a dirty old man but rather a man who appreciated the female form, and had spent a lifetime photographing it. Patrick died two weeks after his portrait was completed. His Family came to the funeral and they used his portrait hanging by the casket as his last image, and then returned it promptly, as they left town for good. They made it clear they did not really want to be in his apartment to clean out his possessions, and they said they did not want to take any mementos with them. We will never know what happened within Patrick’s family to isolate him, but the result is that Patrick died the same way he lived; completely alone. |
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David Reese |
Alexander Rokoff |
| “I was born in a coal mine in Colorado.” Not one to exaggerate, Reese may have been. It was that old salt of the earth strength that described him well. His thick black hair had turned grey, but his strong stature reflected a lifetime of hard labor. I don’t know if he had ever been to a hospital, even on the day he was born. Still, his wife Betty tried to take him to a doctor, though Reese ignored any medical recommendations he received. Not that there was anything wrong with him, but if there was, he didn’t want to know. I’m not sure Reese had the ability to whisper, but that was the only talent he seemed to be without. In a different generation, or from different circumstances, he would have been a great artist, probably a sculptor, but as it happened, his fate rested with the Greatest Generation, and all the responsibility assigned to their time. Still to me, I saw him as an artist and a definitive craftsman of the past. His hands had touched many lives, but his signature was nowhere. Reese’s massive left hand was framed at the wrist with an anchor tattoo. The ink was blurring, but you could still make it out. He said it had something to do with some right of passage during WWII and I never inquired beyond. What seemed a little strange was his naval occupation as a seamstress. But I suppose he liked to work with his hands, and he had made a lifelong career of it. Reese volunteered for the Navy and ended up at Bikini Island, where the United States tested a nuclear bomb before dropping it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan. He said it was easy duty. A lot of waiting around for this new secret weapon to be tested. “Rumor was it was a special weapon that would blow up the whole island with just one bomb. We all found it hard to believe, but we were there to help clean the islands inhabitants off. Waiting around on watch, I would drop a fishing line off the back of the boat and anything caught would cook up in the galley. Watch was a little boring, so I learned to play the mouth organ while waiting for a fish to strike.” By which he meant the harmonica. “The day came to test the bomb and we pulled the ship farther off shore. We were told not to look at the explosion because it could blind us. Afterwards we were told not to fish anymore, but I still did, pulling them up the side of the boat and cooking them in the galley.” “After the war, I moved to Oakland to work construction on projects like the Transamerica Insurance building in San Francisco. Eventually I moved up to Portland which is where we met in 1988.” Reese had taught me many things about doing the job right, and working smarter, not harder, ideals I have tried to maintain when I embark on any new project. “You, know, I’ve been thinking about that project you have going on over there on Albina,” (the Falcon). His voice was loud and projected, like an opera singer, only rougher, deeper and not so melodic. It was the norm for him to come up with simple solutions to difficult problems. He had worked construction as his first job out of the Navy, and he knew the old ways of doing things; a talent lost to younger men. I had seen Reese whistling and talking to himself as he accomplished the most difficult tasks. But to him it was second nature, simple, like percolating a pot of coffee. His carpentry skills could easily be described as graceful, and it was beautiful to watch him work. His first job remained his only job, and at 74 he hadn’t stopped. He liked to tell me that he was never going to quit working, and I knew he was right. He was fiercely independent, bordering on obstinate, and as he said, “I always paid my own freight; No one gave me a free ride.” And if anyone had offered, he would have declined. He had ability, and was a proud man. I really liked and respected Reese’s rough honesty; something that came from a long career of speaking his mind, and acting with integrity, regardless of consequences. “If you don’t want anything from anyone, then you say it like it is.” |
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Ruth Simon |
Alexander Rokoff |
| My wife asked my mother in an exasperated moment “Where on earth did he come from?” and my mom responded without missing a beat “a frog shit him on a log and the sun hatched him.” That went over with my wife, “like a turd in a punch bowl.” Ruth’s first husband Ralph kept watch over her. He had died 20 years prior, but Ruth could still feel his presence. Long before, she and Ralph had been fishing and picnicking by a country lake, miles from nowhere, when a group of men approached. Ralph was a double amputee in a wheelchair, and Ruth was frightened. “I don’t trust anyone,” she said. But Ralph recognized James as a fellow Arkansan. “They’re good people. If you needed help, they’d be right there,” Ralph told her. After Ralph passed away, Ruth met James again, this time through a mutual friend. They soon discovered that their Arkansas hometowns were only twenty-five miles apart. And Ruth’s father knew James and his family, and, echoing Ralph’s long ago words, said “They’re good people.” Ruth knows deep in her heart that Ralph sent James to take care of her. There is a spirit in the air and when James doesn’t treat her well, dishes fly and coffee cups rattle and items break until James wizen ups. This does not mean that the ghost doesn’t approve of James marrying Ruth, but rather that Ralph’s ghost does not approve of the way James treats Ruth at times. In fact James and Ralph had been friends. “And he told him not to upset me or irritate me.” Ruth says. “James has done a good job, but at my age I can get really irritated. And sometimes I get so mad at James I could just choke him, and that’s when these things happen.” These things are the skillet that goes sailing across the kitchen floor in the middle of the night, or the coffee table moving on its own accord or a heavy marble urn blowing off the counter as if it were a dry leaf. Ruth believes that Ralph’s ghost is at least one of the apartment’s spiritual presences, but “I have never been afraid here,” she says, and considers the ghosts to be “a protection.” Ruth’s storytelling is a repository of the Falcon’s history. She’s seen the building and surrounding neighborhood at its worst, recalling that even ten years ago, it was a dangerous place, with drug addicts sleeping in the hallways. “There were lots of people here who were not very nice. It was a place where anyone could rent. Everybody called this Murder Corner,” she said. “Most people would go an extra block to keep from coming into this area,” she says. “But I have never felt afraid here.” And though she never felt afraid, she did have a close call: “One time a shot came through my kitchen window and went right into the freezer,” she says. Ruth knew the bullet hadn’t been meant for her, but for her downstairs neighbor who frequently called the cops on nearby drug dealings. Due to this, and other, incidents, Ruth became a frequent presence at the police department, pushing to make this area a drug-free zone. A lot of people have lived and died in the building, and Ruth remembers many, having lived on every floor of the Falcon. And she still catches glimpses of a few of them, like Mr. Cook, who was over a hundred years old and lived his entire life in the Falcon. As a boy he’d gone to a one-room schoolhouse a few blocks away, and in his later years was in charge of fixing the Falcon’s mailboxes. Ruth sometimes sees the ghost of Mr. Cook in the foyer, fiddling with the mailboxes still, and sees another resident, Jimmy, sitting in the sun, reading. But of course the ghosts don’t scare her. “I feel like everything I see around here is a protection for me,” she says. “I don’t have a desire to move anywhere else. It seems like I’m supposed to be here.” |
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Sherrie Thomas (b.1955 - d. 2006) |
Alexander Rokoff |
| “Sherri has blown up like a balloon” Ruth said on the phone, and this was clearly not an exaggeration. I had never seen anything like it. Apparently Sherri had a heart condition that made her retain fluids. Lying in bed like she was, I wondered how she could lift her chest enough to inhale. Thank God she was in an apartment by herself. Because her husband Emmitt was a veteran, the money they received from Social Security each month was high enough to preclude Sherri from State and Federal health assistance, but was clearly not enough to pay for medical treatment. If they only received twenty dollars less, she would be covered by the agencies, but the veterans wouldn’t let Emmitt reduce the size of his check, so Sherri fell into the category of the uninsured. They had thought about this before, when Sherri first started having problems and they had found a solution. It involved them separating as a couple. If Sherri had a different address, she would qualify to receive assistance and medical benefits. Social Security/ disability would pay $565/month if they would accept her as having a disability. People claimed she had something wrong with her brain, that it worked slower than most, but I had not seen her that way. I saw a child-like quality about her. And when the caseworker inquired, Emmitt and Sherri were living in separate apartments. As a result Sherri found herself in her current condition, living alone in her apartment, and with medical coverage. “What did the doctor say?” I asked Sherri’s Auntie Ruth. And as she kept taking her medication, it was amazing to see her recovery. Three weeks later and Sherri was the slimmest I had ever seen her. Eventually Emmitt moved into Sherri’s apartment. After 20 years of marriage, they had struggled being apart. They never mentioned the new living situation to anyone at State Assistance, and as a result, they were receiving a reasonable income each month. Sherri’s health continued to improve and soon they were back to their old selves. Then in Nov 2005 the rent check stopped coming. They had fallen behind in the past and had always caught up, but that was before they were receiving their increased monthly income. At $375 a month the rent was affordable, so what was happening to the money? Once in a while I would hear whisperings about gambling, and I wondered if the state’s assistance check and the rent money were returned to the state shortly after Sherri had received it through the optional tax called the Oregon lottery. The eviction was scheduled for February 1st. At about 10pm on the 30th, Sherri was admitted to the Hospital, and by noon on the 31st in 2006, Sherri had passed on. Sherri had been clever enough to increase her monthly income, and to deceive her friends with what she was doing with the money, but not quite bright enough to pay for her medication. By gambling, Sherri had outsmarted herself. We are all sad to see you move on at 51 years old. Rest in Peace! |
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Virgil Baker (b.1924-d.2008) |
Alexander Rokoff |
| My wife asked my mother in an exasperated moment “Where on earth did he come from?” and my mom responded without missing a beat “a frog shit him on a log and the sun hatched him.” That went over with my wife, “like a turd in a punch bowl.” Virgil had a colorful way of telling stories. It was the old way, like listening to an old radio program where they describe an auto wreck, instead of just showing it. If the weather dropped below freezing, he’d say “it was colder than a witch’s tit,” unless we were in mixed company, then he’d modify the expression to “colder than a ditch diggers butt,” as he was always a gentleman. Sometime around his 81st birthday his pace shortened, and his stories became longer, but that was all right with me, as I enjoyed his company and his stories. He had asked me about 20 times if I’d heard how he came to be in the air force during WWII. I often said yes, but with his hearing aids never working properly, he would proceed to tell me again anyway. “I had been working at the ship yards on Swan Island, making really good money when my brother showed up to try to talk me into joining the military. He talked about duty and adventure, and some other bullshit, and I told him that there was no way I was going to sign up. I was making $50 a week and that was really good money in those days. Anyway, my brother told me that 6 of our friends were going to sign up and I should too. So after a lot of debate and protest, I agreed. So we went down to the recruiting station and everyone but myself failed the physical. Can you believe it? I was the only one who got into the Air Force. They packed me up and sent me to Texas for training. Everyone else stayed behind. I was pissed! Every morning I’d get up and yell ‘I hate this God Damn army!’ “One morning the drill sergeant came in to wake the dorm and as he walked by my bunk I heard him say, ‘I think this guy is dead, let him be.’ He knew we had gone out to a bar the night before with the intent of drinking every sip of alcohol in the place. Fortunately, I became deathly sick before we could succeed.” After the war, Virgil moved back to Portland and started in the real estate business. With his bloodhound ways, old Virgil always found wholesale deals on property, including the Falcon. Having been a realtor for 40 years he’d learned a trick or two. He is a wily old timer, a snappy dresser, a first class act, and I will miss him when he retires. *Virgil Passed away 2008, and Marie his wife of 50 years died with three months thereafter. Their relationship was based on love, commitment and understanding. |
