"Wet cement! Is there any sweeter sign?"
- Bart Simpson, Lemon of Troy
Apparently Matt Groening didn't think so in 1996 when he drew a picture of Bart into the newly paved sidewalk near the corner of SW 18th and Salmon Street. Having been a life long fan of the Simpsons (quite a feat since I'm twice as old as the show), I figured it was about time I started to explore the connections between The Simpsons and Portland (Simpsons creator Groening's home town). What better place to start than with this cement carving.
- Bart Simpson, Lemon of Troy
Apparently Matt Groening didn't think so in 1996 when he drew a picture of Bart into the newly paved sidewalk near the corner of SW 18th and Salmon Street. Having been a life long fan of the Simpsons (quite a feat since I'm twice as old as the show), I figured it was about time I started to explore the connections between The Simpsons and Portland (Simpsons creator Groening's home town). What better place to start than with this cement carving.
It all started back when Groening was attending Abraham Lincoln High School (Lincoln for short) a quarter century earlier. As an interesting aside; the school was known as Portland High School when it started in 1869. This makes it one of the two oldest public high schools west of the Mississippi (San Fran's Lowell High is the other one). The name changed in 1908 and moved to its current location in 1952. Through all that they seem to have kept there mascot since the school paper, "The Cardinal Times", has been in continuous publication since 1897. Back to Matt...
By all accounts he had a very eventful time at the school. He and his friends formed the "Komix Appreciation Club", comics being a huge part of his younger days. They also formed a political sect called "Teens for Decency", they published an underground newspaper called "Bilge Rat" and created a Lincoln High board game. As a member of the Film Group, he and his friends created "Lightning Tour of Lincoln", essentially them just running really fast through the halls. There was also "Drugs: Killers or Dillers?" featuring an insane clown with an eggbeater. This clown can still be seen today in some of the torch wielding mob scenes in The Simpsons. Did I mention he was the student body president?
Probably one of the more creative activities Matt and his friends took place in was the creation of an imaginary group of greaser thugs. Since there were wacky actions occurring all over the school, someone needed to get blamed. After many locker locks were smeared with bananas, this fictitious group became known as the Banana Gang. During his junior year he and his friends got dressed up as greaser thugs at a party and posed as the Banana Gang for a picture that ended up in the 1971 yearbook.
Perhaps it was antics like these that lead him to call himself a "brat", thus leading him to the anagram Bart making the picture outside his alma mater all the more fitting. Speaking of character connections; Mr. Burns' demeanor was apparently based on a teacher he had in high school.
Groening was not the only celebrity to graduate from Lincoln. The Man of a Thousands Voices, Mel Blanc attended Lincoln. He is most famous for doing the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Woody Wookpecker (among hundreds of others) but I'll always remember him as Twiki from "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Astronaut S. David Griggs, golfer Peter Jacobson, abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko and the late, great singer-songwriter Elliott Smith are all listed as Lincoln alumni.
It actually took me a little wile to find the drawing since it wasn't exactly on the corner (not to mention there are four corners to choose from). However walking southwest along the schools sports field did lead me too it. I'm not quite sure what the circumstances were that led to him making this picture, but he was apparently in town after the Kings Hill Station was constructed and the new sidewalk was laid. It doesn’t seem to have been condoned by the city since the council had to decide not to cite Groening for vandalism. What ever the reason, I'm just glad he did it.
By all accounts he had a very eventful time at the school. He and his friends formed the "Komix Appreciation Club", comics being a huge part of his younger days. They also formed a political sect called "Teens for Decency", they published an underground newspaper called "Bilge Rat" and created a Lincoln High board game. As a member of the Film Group, he and his friends created "Lightning Tour of Lincoln", essentially them just running really fast through the halls. There was also "Drugs: Killers or Dillers?" featuring an insane clown with an eggbeater. This clown can still be seen today in some of the torch wielding mob scenes in The Simpsons. Did I mention he was the student body president?
Probably one of the more creative activities Matt and his friends took place in was the creation of an imaginary group of greaser thugs. Since there were wacky actions occurring all over the school, someone needed to get blamed. After many locker locks were smeared with bananas, this fictitious group became known as the Banana Gang. During his junior year he and his friends got dressed up as greaser thugs at a party and posed as the Banana Gang for a picture that ended up in the 1971 yearbook.
Perhaps it was antics like these that lead him to call himself a "brat", thus leading him to the anagram Bart making the picture outside his alma mater all the more fitting. Speaking of character connections; Mr. Burns' demeanor was apparently based on a teacher he had in high school.
Groening was not the only celebrity to graduate from Lincoln. The Man of a Thousands Voices, Mel Blanc attended Lincoln. He is most famous for doing the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Woody Wookpecker (among hundreds of others) but I'll always remember him as Twiki from "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Astronaut S. David Griggs, golfer Peter Jacobson, abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko and the late, great singer-songwriter Elliott Smith are all listed as Lincoln alumni.
It actually took me a little wile to find the drawing since it wasn't exactly on the corner (not to mention there are four corners to choose from). However walking southwest along the schools sports field did lead me too it. I'm not quite sure what the circumstances were that led to him making this picture, but he was apparently in town after the Kings Hill Station was constructed and the new sidewalk was laid. It doesn’t seem to have been condoned by the city since the council had to decide not to cite Groening for vandalism. What ever the reason, I'm just glad he did it.
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