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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 19, 2002)
•julyliL 2ÛQ2 26 FkyHTINCy fo r Y o u r L ife Q o o d N e ig h b o r s Continued from Page 25 McBride Citizen of the Year IJLM Maro e 6 Granite GRANITE BLOWOUT! M any P a t t e r a i a n d C olara a te ta r ía is s to r ti» « a t S r_ • tH C / U f y m, ■ _ C-. r ltim M l NV U t OWW iu ly f fT«w CSilliiu»« f m mu . Z kU md «*, -503-233-1117- 902 Sf M ill - Portland, OR Office: 5 0 3 -2 3 3 -9 2 2 6 L esb ian activist b a ttle s sm oking and cancer b y Caitlin Sm ith brief gig as an apprentice carpenter selves how to use toys, not giving up until they reach mastery. She even has watched kids with _ disabilities benefit from the \ items she makes. 5 “1 have seen an autistic child | suddenly come out of his shell a with a toy he can hold in his hand,” she says. “It’s worth a lot to see these things.” The recent spinal surgery, which involved the removal of bone spurs and addition of a metal plate, required McBride to spend several weeks out of commission, but she is working toward total recovery. And what about her future as a volunteer? “I expect that I will continue with the Christmas Market for some time,” she says. The parade and her Portland Marathon aid station on North Willamette Boulevard are also in the plan. Long-term, she would like to be able tp write a grant “to start a youth organization to teach kids how to do some of the old crafts.” She has been recruiting wood carvers, quilters and glass blowers and hopes “to be able to con nect at-risk kids with something that they can take with them into the future. ”jn P atricia L. M ac A odha is a Portland free-lance uniter. E-mail her at (Amacaodhal@hotnvul.com. P ro te ct Your A sse ts T h ro u g h Estate Planning Pw lical Quid? t.Q • Schedule a FREE 30 minute consultation to discuss your personal estate plan. nude b each ve stocV fir leaves. • To Receive Your FREE Booklet 4 £ tlU lt. P a n n i n g . “1 do want to give back a little,” Cushing says Stop by on your vay to thè every sleeping beauty needs beauty sleep C a ll the Law Office of James D. M cVittie 503-224-6611 athryn Cushing is a woman obsessed. A leading advocate for tobacco control and education, she noticed no tobacco programs target the sexual minorities com munity. Yet smoking, the leading preventable cause of death and disability in the United States, is more prevalent among queers than in the general population. “As a lesbian, I have a particular interest in LGBT1 issues,” she says. “I also discovered that PHOTO BY and teasing about it from the girls...from about 14 until 1 was 17 and graduated from school.” She left Ohio in 1977, moving to California with her husband and son. Nine years later she and her son moved to Oregon. She soon settled in St. Johns, purchasing her home there in 1991. In 1989 she was in a car accident, which led to the first surgery the following year. Wearing a neck brace during the recovery period, she was forced onto public transit. “1 got on a very crowded bus one morning,” she says, “and there were no empty seats. A woman stixxl up and offered me her seat. We talked during the bus ride, and every day after that she saved me a seat on the bus.” At a Christmas party in 1992, McBride final ly told the woman, Kate, “that 1 was gay and that I was attracted to her.” They began “seri ously dating” in March 1993 and have been McBride got into the toy-making business after a together ever since. McBride claims 1993 as the year she “official called a "Jacob’s Ladder.” McBride made a dozen ly” came out. She had been working as a human of the items, selling them out “within an hour at resources administrator and was "immediately Portland Saturday Market. I was on my way.” dismissed from my job. They said they didn’t like McBride also has been involved in leadership with children my shoes.” She drifted for a while and worked at var since her son became a ious types of jobs: bank auditor, United Parcel Cub Scout at age 7. “I was Service loader, apprentice carpenter. a Cubmaster for 4 1/2 Through the latter position she got into the years, long after he had toy-making business. moved into Boy Scouts. “There was a lot of scrap lumber, new stuff [But] when the Boy Scouts that was just being thrown in the trash,” she says. decided they didn’t want “1 kept bringing it home until I had a garage full gays in their ranks, I quit.” of the stuff.” McBride has continued to One Christmas McBrides son gave her a work with other children’s scroll saw, “and 1 started cutting up shapes. I groups and has been asked by was maki.,„ ornaments, desk accessories, schixd representatives to talk to household gadgets.” students about her toy-making A customer asked her if she could make a toy business. She often donates items for fund raisers and to vari ous organizations. “I feel that children are our lega to be feeling By C linton '/mmo right now." cy,” she says, “and we need to be O ne of With two nomination* and u majority of very much involved in their the vote* limn the St. Johns Parade Commit McBride's two n o m in a tio n s education." tee. Phyllis McBride was named St. Johns' wr cam e from ( iti/cn of the Year. She takes seriously what McHnric coordinated the new Si. John* Laura W oo Christmas Market for the last five years, druff. children say and what they don’t “ She served as a scouts leader and a* a mentor for say. “I watch them as they play,” brought hack the Big Sister Program and builds wooden the Christmas toys lor lud* she says, “and learn a great deal “It's very rare to gel one person nomi Market that about life. 1 have also learned a sorely nated lwice ... that was pretty special." said was McBride m issed for a Parade Comnnitce Chair Barbara Legge. valuable lesson about not giving couple of years and this is just a small way to McBride said the honor was unexpected up when things look grim.” don't know yet,” she said about how say thank you.” Woodruff said. PiNO-KIiE-O’*. McBride's toy hti.sincss the fell. “1 think I’m tall in shock I’m McBride is impressed with See McBmoe/ Pag* 7 pleased but I'm not sure how I'm supposed the way children teach them James D. 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