Isaac Laquedem

A Montana rabbi takes on an unexpected student of Hebrew

What do you do if your bomb-sniffing dog was trained by the Israelis, and you don't speak Hebrew?  You look for a rabbi.

What do you do if you're in Montana, a state with only three rabbis?  You wait for one of them to find you, and then you ask the rabbi to teach you to speak Hebrew in an accent that your canine will understand.  So says the New York Times today.

Why I don't mind getting long Christmas letters from my cousins

However long a Christmas letter may be, its tidings are never at risk of being misunderstood by my failing hearing.  This Thanksgiving one of the Farmer cousins told me some news about her husband.  I was surprised by the news itself, and by her equinamity as she said it, until I realized that she had said that he was out of the country, in bed with acute prostatitis.  That came as a shock to me, for at first I had misheard "acute" as being two words, instead of one, and had not correctly caught the word after that either.

Ashland burglars have different priorities

Early Monday morning a burglar alarm sounded near an Ashland bank.  A police officer came, circled the bank, and (as best as a watcher could tell) concluded that the bank was safe.  The alarm was coming not from the bank, but from a bookstore across the street.  This is, after all, Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespearean Festival, where even the criminal classes pass up money in favor of culture.

Hallowe'en intersects the world of commerce

The dozens of trick-or-treaters at Laquedem Manor on Saturday included not only the usual assortment of tramps, princesses, astronauts, and cartoon characters, but also a girl who came as Ayn Rand and a boy who came as the FDIC.

Isaac saves money on his mortgage, and the bank does also

Grandfather and Grandmother Farmer's last home mortgage, something they took out in the late 1950s and paid off in 1975, was at 4-3/4%, fixed for 20 years.  I equalled that in 2004, but with a 5/1 adjustable loan, not a fixed-rate loan.

Last week came the bank's letter with the first adjustment.  I opened it with all the enthusiasm that my friends applied to unsealing their letters from the Selective Service Administration during the Vietnam War.

To my surprise, my rate is going down, to 3-1/2%.  I don't know how my lender can make a profit at this rate, but my lender doesn't care; it's undoubtedly packaged this loan and many others into mortgage-backed securities, sold its interest, and recouped its capital with a profit, and now acts merely as a servicer.

Even now, several days later, I still beam when I read the letter, much as I do when I reread Mrs. Laquedem's first letters to me.  I'm tempted to frame the bank's letter, but it's printed on very cheap paper.  At 3-1/2% I shouldn't expect anything finer; but if next year my rate jumps into the sixes, I'd like the notice to come on cotton bond, with some gilt if the rate's seven percent or higher.

The Laquedem Made In Oregon Landmark Sign and Lottery Plan

I don't remember when the "Made In Oregon" sign in downtown Portland advertised White Satin Sugar (here's an image of it that the University of Oregon found), but it was then a plain outline of the state with a White Satin logo in the center.  The building beneath later became the property of Hirsch-Weis Co., an old-line manufacturer of work clothing and ship sails that started a line of skiwear in 1930, which it called "White Stag," the translation of the company's name.  Under the leadership of Harold S. Hirsch (1907-1990), a jovial Oregonian who brought back the idea from his years on the Dartmouth ski team in the 1920s, the White Stag line of skiwear grew to be the largest part of the company.  The company changed its name to White Stag in 1956.  When it bought the building, it added a white stag to the sign (it's still there today) and changed the text to read "White Stag," in the font that it used to label its clothing.  Here are photos of the White Stag sign and the sign as it is now.

After White Stag was sold to a conglomerate, the building became the property of the Naito family, owners of the Made in Oregon retail stores, who changed the sign text to "Made In Oregon" and the footer from "Sportswear" to "Old Town."  The University of Oregon now owns the building.  It very reasonably doesn't want to pay to advertise the Naitos' stores, and wants to put its own text on the sign.  The hitch is that the sign is a designated landmark, and can't be changed without the City's approval.  The City won't approve.  The University also doesn't want to pay the cost of lighting the sign unless the sign advertises the university, so it's gone dark.

Ramsay Signs, the company that owns the sign itself, proposes to solve the conundrum by taking the sign down.  That would be a shame.  That, combined with the City's reputation for being anti-business (something that part of the city council would like to change), led me to the Laquedem Made In Oregon Landmark Sign and Lottery Plan.

I recall reading that the sign costs about $20,000/year to maintain.  I don't know what it costs to light it up, so I'll guess that it's another $20,000.  That's $40,000/year.  Let's imagine that ten civic-minded businesses with significant operations in Portland would each pay $5,000 toward the cost to maintain and light the sign, and commit to do that for ten years -- or just pay $50,000 each up front.  That covers the cost to maintain and light the sign for ten years.

Each year, a lottery selects one of the businesses to be on the sign for the year.  At the end of 10 years, each business has had one year of being the icon in front of downtown Portland, inexpensive publicity for the $50,000 it would cost.  A plaque near the building would honor all ten donors.  The surplus covers the cost to rework the sign each year with the name of the lucky winner.  The City's part is to approve all ten designs at once through design review, so that the civic-minded businesses don't have to slog through Portland's land use process every year simply to update the sign.

Not every business would be able to buy a Laquedem Light-It-Up Lottery ticket.  To qualify, a business must have its headquarters within the City of Portland, be a for-profit enterprise (this prevents Duck boosters from buying all ten tickets), and employ at least X people within the city limits (perhaps 50).  If the tickets could be sold for more than $5000/year, some of the surplus would go to the University of Oregon for tolerating the sign on its rooftop.  If the tickets sell for less, the City would kick in the deficit and proudly point to its subsidy as evidence that it's open for business.

One variation on this would be for the City to pay the cost of the sign, and offer it free of charge for one year to any business that moves its head office to Portland with at least 100 workers, or opens a factory or office in Portland with at least 100 workers, as a sort of thank you for coming to Portland.  In years without new businesses, the City could draw lots and give the year's worth of advertising to an existing business that's been here for X years or more.  That's promoting business, in grand style.

From the lowest hills to the highest valley...

It struck me as odd today, driving east on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway toward Scholls Ferry Road, that the Valley Plaza is higher up than the most prominent intersection in Raleigh Hills.  I don't know how the valley ended up higher than the hills, but my bemusement increased when I passed an apartment house named Raleigh Heights, located down low near Fanno Creek.

A new benefit from the Auto Club

Walking through downtown Portland yesterday, I passed a commercial pickup truck that bore the markings of a towing company, including the information that its owner had contracted with the American Automobile Association, better known as "Triple A," to provide starter service and batteries to stranded motorists.  I then took a second look at how the truck's owner had displayed this information:

AAA Batteries Delivered and Replaced

"Surely such small batteries could be delivered by bicycle," I thought, and then amused myself with the idea of telephoning to ask if the company could come and replace the AAA batteries in my dictating machine.  I'm on my own for the gadgets that take the nine-volt size.

Scenes of Portland 1

This morning, at 19th and West Burnside, a bicyclist ran the light from the north.  She crossed Burnside and turned east onto Alder Street, oblivious to traffic, as she chatted on her cellphone.

Isaac sacrifices for the common safety

So I consoled myself when the TSA's representative took my toothpaste away.  Metro takes discarded paint and blends it into a sort of gray-brown, which it sells for a very low price as an alternative to throwing it in a landfill.  It occurred to me that my humble tube must not be the only Crest or Colgate to be confiscated for the safety of all who fly.  As I watched my dentifrice disappear, I had the vision of a new brand of blended toothpaste, perhaps called "TSAfeteeth," assembled by the government and sardonically made available in the federal prisons for the use of persons caught sneaking mouthwash onto airplanes.