Portland is remembered as the city where the narrator attended Reed College, a small, out-of-the-way school she described as easy to get into at the time. Its significance in the conversation is personal rather than expansive: a familiar place-name helped make the choice feel inviting, even as the narrator gave practical reasons for going there.

The College Connection

Asked by Cody where she had gone to college, the narrator answered that she had attended Reed and called herself a “Reedie.” The exchange makes Portland part of her educational biography through the name of the school, rather than through a description of the city itself.

Familiarity and Choice

Edison connected the choice to the fact that Reed was in Portland and joked that the narrator had wanted to jump to the other side of the screen. She blushed and acknowledged that suggestion may have played a part: Portland had acquired a pleasantly familiar feeling. She also offered more practical considerations, describing Reed as small, out of the way, and, at least then, easy to get into. The recollection holds the city’s imagined familiarity alongside the unromantic conditions of choosing a college.