We say Klatawa; did she say Latawa? Plus irrelevant reminiscing about KOAP

[Jeffrey Kopp]

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:07:42 -0700, hzenk at PDX.EDU wrote:

>The late Henrietta Failing, descendant of one of Portland's
>founding families (they arrived in the 1850s; the old Failing School is now the
>Northwest Naturopathic College, and as far as I know the Failing Building still
>stands downtown), remembers her father saying to her (now I'm doing this from
>memory, so it may not be 100% accurate--just accurate enough to make the
>point):
>
>klatawa saya (mayka)! 'go away (you)!'
>
>The significant thing here is that "kl" in [klatawa] was spoken with an
>unaspirated "k", contrary to ordinary English pronunciation habit (compare
>"clock", "clean", etc.).  I am quite sure of this (even though I did not get
>this on tape either), as I had to make her repeat several times to make sure it
>wasn't a real "barred-l"!  In rapid speech, [kl] can sound acoustically pretty
>close.  Henry

Perhaps she confused klatawa with one of the many French-origin Jargon words which began la-; however, it seems she knew the Jargon well and therefore shouldn't have.  But if she knew French, she might perhaps have made an erroneous (or unconscious) "back-formation" out of it.

I see a "National College of Naturopathic Medicine" listed today at 049 Southwest Porter Street, and I believe that's the place.  (I'll bet it still has "Failing School" chiseled over the portal; that must've cracked up generations of Portland kids.)  Perhaps Naturopathy holds the ancient bricks together.

Next door is the former KOAP-TV station, which was itself once a school whose name I have forgotten.  It was a warren of cables through holes in walls and under creaky floors kept running with ingenuity, determination and third-hand equipment connected together by components they meticulously designed and built themselves, as they couldn't afford to buy anything.  (Many early TV stations began in old schools, as the gyms provided open space for studios; the original KGW-TV at SW 13th and Jefferson, torn down in the late 1960s for I-405, was another.  But now I really digress...) 

Well, while I am off on this tangent, and haven't yet launched this missive, being reminded of KOAC and my previous wondering about any possible Jargon recordings they might have, I ran across their archives page at http://www.orst.edu/Dept/archives/archive/rg/rg015inv5_9.html  This is very interesting reading for broadcasting history buffs, older Beaver alumns, or those of us who loved the old OEB network and "National Educational Television."  However, from what appears in the fragments of their on-air schedule to be found there, it seems unlikely to me now that any such broadcasts were made.  It appears to have consisted entirely of bread-and-butter education, agricultural support, and citizenship instruction; culture apparently didn't find room in their tight budgets until the later 1960s.  Some examples, here from the thirties:

     29   "A Half Hour in Good Taste"
     30   General Science Series
     31   The Engineer's Quarter Hour
     32   Physics in Everyday Life
     33   Gilbert and Sullivan, Light Opera Continuity
     34   Oregon Wonderland Series
     35   Oregon History Series
     36   Discovering New Meanings in Everyday Art, 1936
     37   Modern Poetry, 1934
     38   Alaska, the Great Land, 1934
     39   The Citizen and His School, 1933

There's always the old KBOO/KRAB "network" of the early 1970s (then loosely affiliated with Pacifica), but since the foundation sold off KRAB's Seattle FM frequency twenty years ago and is nearly defunct today, and Portland's KBOO has since transformed itself completely, who knows where would be whatever they might have had.  (Probably in the basements and attics of former volunteer producers.)  There are other. very old college radio stations around the Northwest, however.

J.