Milwaukie 10/10/25

Sometimes attending a football game takes a lot more courage than people think.  It had crossed our minds to change our schedule and head south this week, or maybe take in a game on the coast, but in the end we decided to stick with our original plan of going back to the Portland metro area, specifically to the city of Milwaukie.  With battles raging all over the war-ravaged city, with fires everywhere and bombs going off and armed mobs running wild, I didn’t want to be too close to the front lines. But I figured Milwaukie was far enough from the war zone that we’d be safe, and even if we did get caught up in the anarchy, what kind of fans would we be to miss a showdown between two undefeated teams just because the whole city is burning to the ground?  I, for one, was not afraid of a little armed chaos, and Mrs. Ednold… Well, she is an expert marksman with the medal to prove it, so I was not leaving her at home.  So, again, we followed the Willamette downstream and got on McLoughlin Blvd. heading north.  Sadly, the old B-17 bomber that used to advertise the Bomber Restaurant and service station in south Milwaukie was removed a few years ago, and the service station and restaurant have closed, but the sign is still there to remind us old folks where it used to be.

Milwaukie, settled in 1847 on the east bank of the Willamette just south of Portland, was kind of named after Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which had just been incorporated the year before.  It was named by a man named Lot Whitcomb who platted the town in 1849.  He had spent some time in the midwest but never lived in Wisconsin, so I don’t know why he liked the name, but the spellings are different because at the time there was no definitive spelling of the town in Wisconsin.  It had been, at various times, Milwakie, Millewackie, Milwahkie, Milwalky, and even my personal favorite Milwacky.  In the end, they settled on the double E ending, which is just as well to avoid confusion between the two places.  Milwaukie had a post office by 1850, and it was incorporated in 1903.

Today, Milwaukie is home to the headquarters of both Dave’s Killer Bread and Bob’s Red Mill, but I was in the mood for some artisanal grains that had been used to make something else, and we found it right downtown.  The pFriem (the p is small because it’s silent) Brewers pub is located in the old Milwaukie City Hall building from 1938, and their West Coast IPA contains not only some of those grains, but a bit of cannabis too, so I had to try it.  It was good, but I can’t tell you how much the cannabis had to do with that.

We strolled around downtown for a while, checking out the small businesses just a few blocks inland from the city park along the river.  I’m not into comic books, but those who are would probably make a big deal of the fact that Milwaukie is home to Dark Horse Comics, whose offices take a couple of entire city blocks downtown.  What we didn’t see was the Pietro’s Pizza Parlor, but I know there’s one around there somewhere because Milwaukie has one of the world’s three remaining Pietro’s.  Another things we didn’t see, or at least didn’t recognize if we did, was a Bing cherry tree, which would have been neato since the Bing was first developed right there in Milwaukie by an orchard foreman named Ah Bing back in the 1800’s.   That development is particularly interesting because it could never happen today.  It involved cross pollination between the Royal Ann variety and a Black Republican.  Good luck finding one of those in Milwaukie anymore.

We hopped back in The Bucket, drove about half a mile down Main St., and there was the high school to the east.  We drove around to the back side and found a big parking lot with plenty of space, but with the size of the crowd later on I bet there were some late arrivals who had to walk quite a way.  The school is actually two schools in one, with the Milwaukie Academy of the Arts occupying the same campus.  The Academy is a charter school that operates within Milwaukie High School, with an emphasis on the integration of arts into the core curriculum.  These two, along with Rex Putnam, Clackamas, and Nelson, serve the high school students in the North Clackamas School District.

Milwaukie High School has been around since 1907, but in 2018 the building was condemned and a new one built in the same place.  It’s nice and new, and I’m sure the students in Milwaukie don’t lack for much, especially since they aren’t called the Maroons any more.  That was their original mascot, but it was a little too close to “moron”, so they became the Mustangs, which isn’t quite as easy to make fun of. We paid our $6 each at the booth on the north side of the parking lot and entered Roland Aumeller Stadium, or “Coach Aum’s House”.  Two years ago after a game at Parkrose Coach Aum had a heart attack and passed away while napping on the bus during the return trip.  By all accounts he was a pretty amazing individual, and his players and former players were adamant that the stadium be named for him, and now it is.

One of those old players may have been Kendrick Bourne, the wide receiver for the 49ers who graduated from Milwaukie Arts Academy in 2013.  Brad Ecklund was certainly not one of those players, but he was a Milwaukie grad in 1941 who went on to play for the Ducks, fought in WWII for a few years, then went back to finish his college career before ending up playing for the Baltimore Colts.  Another guy Coach Aum probably didn’t know was Latin Berry, from the Milwaukie class of ’85.  Berry still holds the long jump record at the U of O, and was a fullback on their 1989 Independence Bowl team.  He was a defensive back for the Rams and Browns.  Coach Aum probably didn’t know Tonya Harding, either, unless they met before she dropped out of Milwaukie in the late 80’s to pursue skating full-time. 

We found a couple of seats on the aluminum bleachers inside the covered wood and steel grandstand on the west side of the field.  The running track between us and the artificial turf gave the cheerleaders a place to do their thing and also gave what turned into an overflow crowd a place to stand and watch the action.  On the opposite side of the field there are some smaller aluminum bleachers, but they are uncovered, so many of the visiting fans ended up on our side of the field in an effort to stay dry. The Mustangs were undefeated at 4-0 and were hosting the also-unbeaten Hood River Valley Eagles who came in at 5-0.  They would be fighting for the top position in 5A Special District 1, which would be a big deal for the Mustangs who have been a middle-of-the-pack team over the past several years and have been waiting 118 years for their first state football championship. 

The national anthem had already been played by the Mustang band and player introductions were about to begin when a flash of lightning was visible in the distance.  This necessitated a 30 minute stoppage, and all the players and cheerleaders left the field to wait it out inside.  Thirty minutes wouldn’t have been too bad, but each time another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky the clock had to be reset and the 30 minute countdown began anew.  As soon as the players left the field the heavens opened up and the rain began to pour.  The deluge lasted 20 minutes or so, with a lightning flash resetting our 30 minute wait every 3 or 4 minutes.  Finally, after the original half hour had increased to over an hour, our opening kickoff took place just after 8:00pm.

It was worth waiting for, though.  The Mustang returner zigged his way down the field, zagging his way through would-be tacklers, to return the opening kickoff all the way for a touchdown.  The visitors were in shock and the home crowd went nuts.  Then it was the Eagles’ turn for a quick drive down the field ending in a touchdown of their own, followed soon after by another Milwaukie touchdown.  Strangely, all three extra point tries had been unsuccessful, and the score at the end of the first quarter was 12-6, in favor of the Mustangs.  The string of missed extra points continued in the second quarter as the teams traded touchdowns but failed to kick the ball through the uprights afterward, which made it a little ironic that the Mustangs were successful on a field goal try toward the end of the half to increase their lead to 21-12 before the break.

The Eagles used a strong run-option offense to chew up lots of yardage, while the Mustangs relied on a big-play passing game, and it wasn’t clear which would come out on top by the end of the game.  Defensive mistakes and penalties were frequent for both teams, but fortunately we had a guy sitting a few rows behind us assisting the players and coaches from his seat in the grandstands.  He was obviously some sort of genius who knew everything there is to know about football, and after each play he would let them know what they should do or shouldn’t do or what they should have done or shouldn’t have done.  Unfortunately the only way he could communicate this to the team was to scream it at the top of his lungs, which he did throughout the game, apparently under the impression that they could hear him and were listening intently to all of his expert input.  Luckily, the game was so good that even that blockhead couldn’t spoil it.

Halftime included routines by both the cheerleaders and Mustang Dancers, who were both pretty good, and also a trip to the concession stand located underneath the stands.  The workers might want to attend a workshop put on by their Crook County counterparts, but I also got a lesson of my own in the process. Attached to the menu sign was a smaller sign letting me know that I could get some venmo for just an extra fifty cents. Thinking this was some kind of new topping that I might want on my popcorn, I asked the lady what exactly the venmo was, and the explanation was enlightening. I declined the venmo and the popcorn was just fine without it. I also got to see the Mustang mascot up close and personal, and all of that meant that the players were already returning to the field by the time I got back to my seat.

Hood River Valley started the second half scoring with another long drive ending in the end zone, but extended the evening’s missed extra-point steak by only coming away with six points.  However, when they added another touchdown a little later their kick was successful, and they had their first lead of the night, 21-25.  Then the two teams traded possessions a few times until the Mustangs put together a drive with just over 7 minutes remaining, getting down to the Eagles’ 21 yard line ready to take a fourth quarter lead.  That’s when, at the height of the drama, the bank of lights on the east side of the field suddenly went out.  It was explained that the lights were set to automatically shut themselves off at 10:00pm which, due to the delayed start of the game, happened to be with 7:05 still remaining to be played.  Oops!  After someone overrode the switch we had to wait another 15 minutes for the lights to warm up and turn themselves on, during which time the announcer let us know that Jorge Polanco had just hit the winning RBI in the bottom of the 15^th inning to send the Seattle Mariners to the ALCS to face the Toronto Blue Jays.  The crowd reaction was a lot more animated than I was expecting, and was almost unanimously positive.  I wouldn’t have guessed that so many people in Milwaukie cared that much.

When play resumed, the Mustangs continued to drive all the way down to the 1-yard line.  This was followed by a few sacks and penalties that turned their first-and-goal from the 1 into a 4^th and goal from the 26, and their chances of a comeback were looking bleak.  But the Eagles inexplicably left a receiver open in the end zone on fourth down and the Mustangs had themselves an improbable go-ahead touchdown and a three-point lead.  Hood River Valley had time to score again, and looked like they just might, but a final interception put an end to the threat, and now Milwaukie is the lone unbeaten team in their conference. 

It had been an extremely entertaining game, and the packed grandstand, including a full student section, was vocal throughout.  The band wasn’t the best I’ve heard, but they had a good repertoire of standards that added to the crazed atmosphere and it was just a lot of fun to be there in the middle of it all.  I’m still not sure who was the better team, and if they played ten times I think they’d each win half of them, and if my grandson is reading this, then yes, if they played each other a hundred trillion thousand times they would still each win exactly half.  That’s how closely they were matched.  But the Mustangs made the plays they needed to win this game, and that’s really all that matters.

The rain had disappeared not long after the lightning, and the weather hadn’t really played a big part in the game, but it was starting to get a little chilly towards the end, and thanks to the weather delay and the lights going out it was already past my bedtime before we climbed back in The Bucket to make our way home.  It was dark and cloudy and we couldn’t make out the plumes of smoke north of us, or even the glow from the infernos we knew were consuming Portland even as we turned onto McLoughlin and headed away from them, but we knew they were there and we both thanked our lucky stars that help would soon be on its way to subdue the city that had been overrun by the factions of evil.