A LIKE FOR OREGON

What Brings You To A State Isn’t The Same As What Keeps You There.

Take Oregon and New York for example. You stay around Portland for different reasons than people stick around NYC.

Size is important. For hundreds of miles around Manhattan people won’t leave, never think of leaving, because of the island.

“Oh, we stay for the theater, the shopping, the restaurants. It’s the best in the world,” they say.

Don’t ask them when they last visited. You don’t want the truth.

Everyone wants a bite of the Big Apple even if they can’t chew.

Portland is a different story, even if too many New Yorkers find their way here.

Oregon is beautiful in pictures but stunning in real life. You almost look away, kind of beautiful.

People say, “died and gone to heaven,” over a Mt. Hood sunrise and a Pacific Ocean sunset…on the same day.

The beach and mountains draw people to Oregon. That’s the answer to “What draws people to Oregon.”

Live here long enough, six months ought to do, and you’ll hear it. To show you’re a long-timer explain the mountain and the beach Portland style: Mt. Tabor and the 39th St. beach on the Columbia.

Keep the Portland mountain/beach trip in mind when you remember you came to Oregon for the mountains and beaches, but never go. It counts.

For the people who move to Oregon for the forests and rivers: that’s nice. Everyone loves forests and rivers, in theory. Even cement encased city folks love the notion of forests and rivers in their parks and pools.

Everybody loves the forest until they get lost. At night. And the river is time in motion until you get your white water raft stuck in the rocks. And a TV crew spots you.

By all means, move to Oregon for the beaches and rivers and forests and mountains. It’s all here all the time, but you won’t be here long if you move for any other reason than the things that matter most in your life.

You know, the things you believe in. Do that and you’ll be another like for Oregon.