I drove out to an industrial section of Milwaukie early one morning this week to write what I thought would be a charming profile on a woman who works at the Pendleton Woolen Mills distribution center.
I found that and so much more.
Each year, the center ships 163,000 packages across the country. The men and women who work there are lifting, loading and pushing carts. They’re on their feet all day, which is what I thought made Mary Bayless interesting. At 73, she’s not only the center’s oldest employee. She also has worked there for 25 years, has never called in sick and has no plans to retire.
Her boss, Mike Donovan, the center’s manager, told me that her work ethic has made Bayless a bit of a legend. He led me through the sprawling warehouse, up a narrow flight of metal steps and down a long aisle to the long table where Bayless was preparing packages to be shipped that afternoon to Texas, Illinois and New York.
She took a break and told me that working keeps her active and young. Ben St. Clair, a 32-year-old who works at a station just behind Bayless laughed and said he hustles just to keep up with the pace she sets.
What also makes Bayless unique is that she that she rides her bike to work and home, about 20 miles roundtrip from her home in outer Southeast Portland. She began riding more than 20 years ago when gas prices were high and she needed to save money. At the time, she said, she was spending about $40 a week on gas, and getting a bike was a wise investment. But she also discovered a certain peace by commuting on two wheels.
“In the morning, I get to see the sun come up,” she said. “I ride the Springwater Corridor, and I’ve seen deer and coyotes.”
She’s now on her third bike, a 24-speed that Donovan lets her park inside the warehouse so it won’t get stolen. Over the years, she’s had five accidents. She’s been clipped by distracted motorists, and by other bicyclists.
“But even though I’ve been banged up,” she said, “I’ve always made sure I got to work.”
She got back to packing boxes.
I closed my notebook.
I had my story, a very Portland story about an older woman who commutes to work on her bike.
But late that night, I got to thinking about Bayless riding on the Springwater Corridor, a place in the news because of complaints about homeless people camping along the route. The next day, I called Bayless to see what she felt about riding the corridor at her age.
That’s when I discovered a better story, one reminds us that the best stories come from the heart.
I learned that Bayless was divorced when she was in her 20s. She had four children to raise by herself. She thought about returning to the small Iowa town where she was born, but decided her children would have a better future in Portland. But Bayless, who had only a high school diploma, had a hard time finding steady work. She did what it took.
“I worked in a grocery store, I cleaned homes, I did yard work,” she said. “I did whatever I could to make a living. I was scared. I was on my own, but I wanted my kids to be raised in Portland. We were poor. I had to admit it, but there were times when I scrounged for food in garbage cans.”
She added: “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.”
Her break came when a fellow cleaner told her that the Pendleton warehouse was looking for a part-time janitor. She applied and juggled multiple jobs for a time. She worked her way up in the warehouse, trading the mop and broom to handle shipping packages.
So, what about Springwater?
“My son was worried about me riding at night,” Bayless aid. “He worried about the homeless people.”
But instead of pedaling faster, Bayless slowed down.
“I would stop and talk with them,” she said. “I understand these lives. It could have been me out there on that corridor.”
All these years, mornings and nights, Bayless would stop and talk with the people she met.
“I would bring a man donuts and coffee in a Thermos in the morning,” she said. “He would wait for me at night and give me back my Thermos. He introduced me to other people on the trail. All those people started looking out for me when I rode my bike.”
In cold weather, all these years, Bayless has shopped at the Goodwill to buy socks, blankets and sleeping bags. She’d makes deliveries on that bike. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, when Bayless is on holiday from the warehouse, she brings food to the men and women living on the corridor.
“The people tell me that they like me because I give them hug no matter what they look like,” she said.
She’d never told anyone at work. At the warehouse, she’s Mary, the hard worker with the perfect attendance record.
But along the corridor, she’s known as the angel on a bike.
–Tom Hallman Jr.
thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224
@thallmanjr
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