We momentarily break our silence to bring you this travel guide for that most mysterious of destinations, the suburbs. Written by Dan Hannon, a writing teacher who describes himself as "a 67 year old man, not too eccentric (no house full of cats, no wind-driven lawn art that makes a bird's wings go up and down). But I am an Oregonian, a Portlander, in fact. That denotes a certain style of living that includes bicycles, guerrilla vegetable gardens in vacant lots, and a lot more."
Tourist Information for the Suburbs
We cannot offer you a tourist map
because there is no exact beginning
or end to our particular area.
In fact, we are surprised you are here,
since the area has no real name
to place on a map.
It is good you arrived by car.
There is no bus, no rail line,
no taxi, and of course, it’s too far to walk
from anywhere.
We do not recommend you walk,
even in our general area.
The traffic can be dangerous,
the crosswalks, few.
As you can see from our brochure,
cultural programming is sporadic,
and you have missed the pancake breakfast.
We do not offer many activities or events,
although the area has a vitality
even a visitor can feel.
There is new growth in the industrial sector,
especially in electronics, artificial intelligence,
storage units, and the processing of data.
We are now almost as big as the city itself,
and we are growing all the time.