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TIM CURRAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
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| Daily, for the last five years, retired auto mechanic Ron Kester has picked up litter and trash at his neighborhood park — Argay — at Northeast 141st Avenue, just south of Sandy Boulevard. |
| MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN |
Shortly after beginning these walks — up to four a day — Kester saw litter blowing around and trash on the ground and decided, “I might as well pick it up.” Flicking his litter pick-up tool, Kester said that after watching him pick up litter and trash for days, “The parks service gal come by and gave me one of these things so I wouldn’t have to stoop over. So it works out, I get to walk around in the fresh air and pick stuff up,” he said with a laugh.
A portion of Argay Park is also an unfenced off-leash dog area. One wonders how many dog owners would refuse to use a park festooned with litter and various food waste — attractive to the scavenging type of canine.
When Kester started five years ago, he’d fill two or three kitchen-size plastic trash bags a day — that’s a lot of trash. Since starting though, he said the amount of trash has diminished and attributed the reduction to people seeing him on his litter patrol — a visible reminder for park users to clean up after themselves.
“People who walk around the park thank me,” Kester said. “People honk and wave as they drive by too. It’s good for my ego.”
Kester said the Portland Parks & Recreation workers are very appreciative of what he does and warn new workers to be nice to him because he “keeps this place nice and clean.” Kester doesn’t see what he does as unusual — we do.
Many people use Portland parks — most pick up and dispose of their trash. Generally speaking, few of them will pick up someone else’s litter. Even fewer carry trash bags and litter pick-up tools to police their neighborhood park daily.
This retired self-effacing self-employed auto mechanic said he was sitting around feeling sorry for himself after the loss of his longtime business, a divorce and the sale of his home in Wilsonville — all precipitating the move to Mid-Multnomah County sixteen years ago. “I wanted to last longer (in the auto mechanic business),” he said. “When I lost my business, part of me died with it,” he said. “It took me a long time to deal with it.
“When you lose something — the only thing in your life that ever gave anything back to you — it’s really hard. I’ve seen it happen to other people and seen them lose it.
“I put my life into what my profession was. When I lost it, I lost my ambition.” Kester said therapy helped. When asked why he moved to east Portland, Kester replied, “Because it’s cheap.” After moving here Kester worked sporadically until his Social Security retirement date.
Besides an occasional round of golf with his 87-year-old uncle (both walk the nine holes and carry their own golf bags), Kester used to hunt and fish regularly. He does have his Pioneer Combination License, a permanent hunting and fishing license given to 50-year residents of Oregon, enabling him to hunt or fish anywhere in the state, needing only proper tags. Kester was also an amateur prospector, but as he ages, he does less intense outdoor activities.
Kester’s other hobbies revolve around his mechanical mind — physics (he’s been an amateur physicist and inventor for forty-five years), string theory and the science of starships. “I’m not into rocket science. I’m into starship science — and that’s a whole different ballgame.” He said he recently bought an oscilloscope and is in the process of learning how to use it. Once he has masters it, Kester said he would use it in proving a theory he has about propulsion. In 1981 Kester said he built and ran — for 1.5 seconds — a heat reactive ion engine. At about the same time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was looking for space propulsion ideas. Kester applied to the National Science Foundation for a research grant, to no avail as he was told, in so many words, that NASA wasn’t about to take money away from proven scientists and researchers to give it to an auto mechanic trying to invent a heat reactive ion engine in his garage.
Kester had four children, a son, three daughters, and five grandchildren. Kester’s son passed away six years ago. Argay Park neighbors and users are lucky to have this “park angel” looking out for it.
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