AMERICAN LIFE PLAN FOR LIVING UNGUARDED

An American life, yours and mine, is based on a certain freedom.

Those freedoms are listed here in the National Archives Museum.

If that’s not enough freedom, you might ask ‘what is enough?’

The top image is from the 11th floor on SW 11th and Clay near Portland State University.

Portland freedom looks pretty good from the kitchen at 11 on 11th.

American life looks good in Portland from the balcony, too.

July 4 is the day to celebrate those freedoms.

So is the day before, and the day before that. And most important, the day after.

In fact every day in America is a day to celebrate our freedom.

That part slips by too often.

This year I got together with everyone and then some.

It felt like everyone, and that was enough.

Turns out lots of people were going to the same place, The Waterfront Blues Festival.

Walking Blues

We’re free to walk down a city street to the Willamette without facing a mass shooter.

Highland Park had a gathering for a parade and encountered live fire and everyone running for their lives.

They didn’t get the freedom to go out on the 4th of July without that.

Modern American life isn’t supposed to include mass shootings and mass casualties.

We are free to own weaponry of our choice, but not to use them on innocent people because they are easy targets.

A heads up to all bad asses, we are all easy targets when we let our guards down.

After an American President got shot, no more open car parades.

The Pope got shot? No more open car parades.

A mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. A mass parade shooting in Highland Park. Mass shootings in between the two events.

What has significantly changed to halt mass shootings in schools and parades?

I’ll wait while you make a list.

Keep Your Guard Up?

These are unguarded moments.

I walked from the South Park Blocks unguarded.

The music from the stages felt and sounded unguarded.

My companions were unguarded. Were we losers and suckers for walking around?

Or were we living an American life in the west?

No one wants a shadow of doom following them around, but it’s getting harder wondering what sort of evil lurks in the hearts of people, and what they do with it.

“Anyone can turn bad, and they can turn bad anywhere.”

That’s more apparent with every gun shot fired at random people for reasons unknown.

What is known is that guns should never be in the hands of people with no idea what they are made for.

Even as Portland goes through things, it still looks like a city in the forest on July 4, 2022.

If you’re a decision maker for your company, your family, or just yourself, decide to live an American life as it’s meant to be lived.

If that’s a hard concept, repeat this: “Live and let live.”