Hippo Hardware is a difficult concept to explain. The best way for you to understand would be for you to just come to Portland and see it. Which i hope you do so i can have an excuse to go there more often and show it off. I tend to explain it to people as a smaller, more eclectic version of
The Rebuilding Center, except with a behind-the-scenes modern, new inventory in addition to antique fixtures and such. ...but then one has to know what The Rebuilding Center is, another Portland phenomenon, and so i just end up explaining the concept as a whole anyway. In short: reusable and reclaimed materials, often antique or vintage. Hippo Hardware has a large collection of Hippo paraphernalia, which i'm assuming has grown over the years due to donations or at least the owners/associates bringing in or donating hippo gear. I would love to go on a hippo hunt with you, not of the sort of hunt where hippopotami are in fact slain, but rather a scavenger hunt to see who can find the hippo in the store that is the most __________ (80s, sustainable, huge, toothy, crocheted, stuffed, useful, etc.). I went alone this time to Hippo Hardware in search of a replacement cartridge for the faucet in our bathroom which had been leaking (now fixed mostly: yay!) though
Ed sort of accompanied me in a way. Actually he was present right before i showed up at HH for a longer period of time (via cellular telephone) on a visit to the Multnomah County Central Library, and was the beneficiary of many inane comments regarding that structure and related literary homage. By the time i ended up at Hippo Hardware it was time for him to eat breakfast and then watch the Super Bowl and time for me to stop yakking so much and fix a leak.
Here is a mural on one of the doors which either may not work anymore or only is in use during the summer. I did not examine the situation carefully enough to say one way or the other.
Note tattoo on first hippo in foreground's left arm:
Bike there!
Walk there!
Bike there while being a hippo!
Young love.
More hippos on bikes--including one with a child carrier seat much like ours:
Photo from last February for comparison (nearly a year ago now, wow):
There was even a place where my disciplines intersected: German, true love, hippopotamusology, and plumbing. Oh yes, Happy Valentine's Day! (just HOURS till midnight--can you even wait?!)
