glasses are kinda on the large size, no???

if i'm ever in portland, you know where i'm headed!


The Queen of Portland

The long, fabulous reign of Walter Cole and his drag cabaretConnie MonaghanSpecial to The TimesNovember 13, 2005On a hot summer day in 1937, Walter Cole, 7 years old, pulls a little red wagon loaded with a 25-pound block of ice down the two-lane highway through Linnton, a small community on the edge of Portland. He chips at the ice with a rock as he goes, and offers a sliver to his black-and-white mutt, Spot. A nameless pet crow clings to the dog's back as they head home past the barbershop and the feed store. The crow swoops across the street to snatch a grape from the produce display outside the grocery, and the Italian proprietor comes out and yells.The highway runs parallel to the Willamette River, visible just to the north, where the town's three lumber mills are busy night and day. Walter's father, Richard, works in a millpond as a boom man. He balances in cleated boots atop the floating logs, guiding them into the mill. Here in Oregon, at the end of the Depression, lumber is big business. For Richard Cole it's a living, about a dollar a day when he can get work.Walter's hauling the ice home to his mother, Mary, in their two-bedroom company house on Front Street. It isn't much bigger than a cabin. The floors are linoleum. There are chickens in the yard. Most of the houses in town are like this, except for the doctor's and a few others. Mary has a heart problem and stays in bed much of the time.For entertainment, Walter might run down to the Cherrys' house to listen to "The Lone Ranger" on the radio, or walk three miles, all the way over the soaring St. John's Bridge, with a dime in his pocket for a Saturday movie. But the bridge is so high it gives him nightmares, and the walk is so long. It's a big day, then, when the boy and his mother take the bus nine miles to downtown Portland to see "Gone With the Wind." The part where Scarlett pulls a radish from the dirt and swears, "As God as my witness, I'll never be hungry again" impresses him deeply.On a warm spring night in 2005, 74-year-old Walter Cole steps into the spotlight in front of 200 people as a garishly gorgeous blond, her hair a fright wig of froth, her red-glitter eyebrows angled toward the mirror balls, her lips heavily lined and gooey pink. Gallons of rhinestones drip down her bosom, and her Santa Claus-shaped figure is draped in a glittering gown. Onstage, Walter is Darcelle, and this is her club, Darcelle XV Showplace, quite possibly the longest-running drag cabaret in the country, offering six performances a week, every week, for 37 years.