In the 1950s in Portland, 7th and 8th grade students went on a couple of field trips each year. There are three that I remember.

The first was a trip to the Mission Macaroni manufacturing plant to learn all about pasta. I’m not sure what that had to do with our studies, but it was interesting to see. The last stop on the tour before the packaging machine was the machine that extruded the dough through several holes into a large stainless disc and onto a drying rack. While we were watching, someone said it looked like turds coming out. That comment was not appreciated, but we all laughed anyway.

On another trip we visited “The World’s Largest Log Building.” It had been built from gigantic logs for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Pacific Exhibition and Oriental Fair in Portland in 1905. It was an enormous structure that held documents and photographs about the history of forestry in the western United States. It was quite amazing.

Side note: on August 17, 1964, I was working in a Montgomery Ward warehouse across the road from that log structure next to the main retail store when it somehow caught fire. The heat was so intense the windows in the store 250 feet away shattered. It took many hours for the fire to subside and the ashes were still hot the next day. Not being too smart, I forgot I had a camera in my car until the fire had somewhat settled down so I missed taking pictures at the height of the flames with the firemen on large truck ladders shooting water at the flames silhouetted against them.

The third trip I remember was going to plant trees in what had been named the Tillamook Burn in the Coast Range Mountains west of Portland. In the 1930s and again in the 1940s fires had burned large areas of the forest. In the 1950s, to rehabilitate the forest, 8th grade students from the surrounding areas were bussed to a spot that needed fir saplings, where they spent a few hours planting them.

During our turn to participate, we were given a lot of trees and a hoe-like tool and set to work. Several of us soon became tired and bored and someone spotted a wooded area below us in a draw so we decided to go exploring. Once out of sight we decided to sit down and smoke a cigarette. All was well until Mrs. Basket, our teacher, found us. Yet rather than yell at us, she sat down with us and smoked a cigarette also.

Then she yelled at us and made us go back to work. She was a cool teacher.

Ken Kaiyala
3-15-2024