Meet our new friend, Flat Stanley, come to Oregon from Mississippi for a visit.

Here's a close up photo of Flat Stanley. Christopher, a first grader in Mrs. Adams' Achievers at Steen's Creek Elementary in Florence, Mississippi, sent him to Portland, with a note dated Sept. 14, 2007:

Dear "Miss" Edna, Lynette and Duncan,

In school we read a book about a boy who got flattened by a bulletin board. His name is Stanley, now it is Flat Stanley. He wanted to go on a trip, so his family folded him up and mailed him to California.

I am mailing my Flat Stanley to you. Please take him somewhere and write me back telling me about his adventures. If you have pictures, postcards, or brochures, please send them back with him. I will share his adventures with my classmates and this will help my classmates and I learn more about other places in the world.

Thank you for helping me with this project. I wish I could fold myself up and visit you.

Love, Christopher

P. S. Please try to send Flat Stanley back to my school, Steen's Creek Elementary, by March 1.

Since Flat Stanley arrived in Portland, he has been here, there, and everywhere, sometimes with just me--Lynette. Sometime "Miss Edna" and Duncan go, too. My plan is for you to get to tour Portland and its surroundings along with Flat Stanley and us, through this blog and my other blog, Portland (OR) Daily Photo.

Before we got started on the tour, I decided that Flat Stanley needed a bit of help to remain upright. And I had the perfect solution, packed away somewhere in the closet. Miracle of miracles, I went to the exact box and found the blue scooter you will see at every stop on the tour.

Let's get started, with Stop #1.

From across the street this blue statue of a man standing in a big, lighted window caught my eye. I pointed it out to Flat Stanley who said, "Cool." So the two of us crossed the street to the Mark Woolley Gallery at 817 SW 2nd Avenue.

Cool was right! Not only was the statue blue, but it was James Brown! The mosaic ceramic statue, by Anthony Tovell, was at the gallery as part of the then current show: BE BLUE (SKY). The gallery's Web site says "Be Blue (Sky) is a multimedia group show intending to explore and celebrate the color BLUE. Not as in “BLUE” (depressed) but as in “BLUE SKY” (i.e. “He’s so ‘blue sky’: open, vibrant, true, contagiously enthusiastic)." That's cool, too.



Here's a photo of Flat Stanley standing in the window with "James Brown as Blue Buddha"--that's the name the artist gave the statue.



To get everyone off on the good foot, I've introduced Flat Stanley in the same way over at Portland (OR) Daily Photo. After this, though, things might/could/may be different at each blog. I'll let you know so that you won't miss a single bit of thing Flat Stanley sees or learns about while he's in Portland.