Cameron's Bookstore, Portland, Oregon

 

 

 

The (Wayne) Morse:  Democrat for US Senate poster has hung on the wall of Cameron's Bookstore ever since I first began patronising the store in 1979 (and apparently the poster long antedates that first visit).  As flinty as was the original Republicindependicrat himself:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Morse, the poster thwarts the arrow of time, as do the unchanging nature of the pulpy incense of the stacks of Frontier Times and divers other magazines, and the tightly packed catacombs of bookshelves.  I associate Fred, the congenial and distinguished-appearing former owner of the bookstore, with the era of my early expeditions to Cameron's.  When seeing a stack of books I brought forward to the counter once, he referred to a book he read about a bibliophile who neglected all other duties in favor of reading.

In the 1970s and 1980s, and up until 10-15 years ago, downtown Portland was carpeted with bookstores, used and new.  Looking Glass Bookstore, in its original location, with its racks of underground comics and thoughtful selection of books, and used bookstores such as Holland's, the Old Oregon, the Great Northwest, Powell's (still there of course) and others lent a cultured and antiquarian atmosphere to the city core.  Most have since vanished, or exist in some other incarnation at best.