Three riders – this brisk, potentially snowy, Sunday morning – took off for bagels in inner SE.  Since the Kettleman’s company was sold some five years ago, bagel lovers have sought replacements, often with Bridgetown, Henry Higgins, Spielman’s, and Bowery, whose owners may all have worked at Kettleman’s.  Bridgetown originally had a food cart in NE off Sandy, and opened a commercial outlet in inner SE roughly a year ago.

Since our focus is hanging out and catching up with each other, we need to report that though the bagels were scrumptious, this outlet was not designed to encourage hanging out. Amenities are spartan: space is limited, coffee options are limited and there’s no tea available, and chairs are hard.

In terms of catching up, Michael told us of the highlights of J’s and his trip to Colombia: staying in Koji huts in the bountiful cloud forest; the amazing improvements of Medellin’s poor, going from being terror stricken during the drugs/murder dominated 1980s to having 1st world transportation/libraries/schools/public plazas. today; and when the light rail system stalled, having the good fortune to share a taxi with two natives who had great stories to tell.  E updated us on some consulting gigs he most likely will pick up  – writing a pamphlet for AARP on how cities can increase housing options, and being a part of a consulting team that’ll work on code re-writes for Oregon City and Milwaukie –  and how he has to be careful re time to balance those with his development work.  H reported that the results of his wife P’s genealogy/saliva test came up with higher amounts of Irish and Native American roots (roughly 30% each,) than she would have believed.

545 NE Couch                                   Bridgetownbagel.com