DAILY WALK CLEARS THE MIND? “PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS? A FRANC?”

A daily walk in Paris is different than a walk in Tigard, Oregon.

This man is walking toward the Invalides.

The Pont Alexandre III bridge is behind him and connects the Invalides on the Left Bank to the Grand Palais and Petit Palais museums on the Right Bank.

I saw him and thought, ‘This is France. Contemplative and calm on a daily walk.’

If this is his daily walk, what’s it like seeing the same thing year after year from 1671 forward?

In 1670, no foundation existed to house wounded and homeless veterans who had fought for France. Louis XIV, who was anxious about what would happen to soldiers that had served during his numerous campaigns, decided to build the Hôtel Royal des Invalides.

Is the man in the brown jacket a former soldier who’d spent time inside the hospital? Were his ancestors a part of Louis XIV’s wars?

Was he part of the French Resistance in WWII?

Whoever he was and whatever he did, he was my Mr. France, an old man pacing along year after year after year.

Maybe you know someone like this? Maybe you are someone like this?

Paris Walk vs Tigard Walk Is Still A Daily Walk

Walk anywhere in Paris and it’s hard not to feel like it’s all a park.

How do people live there and concentrate enough to do their job surrounded by centuries of beautiful architecture.

You won’t have that problem in Tigard, a city established in 1961, which means I’m older than the town I live in. No one in Paris can make that claim.

Tigard: 1961 with the oldest house from 1860.

Paris: 52 BC.

The old man is walking where Romans once marched, where occupying German soldiers marched in the 1940’s. Paris is the chocolate frosting on the eclair for invading forces.

If I put my tan sports coat on, clasped my hands behind my back and took a walk, the closed to an invasion in Tigard was when the city voted to annex unincorporated Bull Mountain.

In the 2004 general elections, the city of Tigard won approval from its voters to annex the unincorporated suburbs on Bull Mountain, a hill to the west of Tigard. However, residents in that area have rejected annexation and are currently fighting in court various moves by the city.

To show the flag, Tigard installed city limit signs up and down Bull Mountain Road, “Entering Tigard” and “Leaving Tigard” over and over. Unincorporated Tigard relies on Washington County support. The problem is that the unincorporated housing property in Tigard can have large lots.

Joining Tigard might raise their property taxes to the point of a forced move. That was the battle cry. And not the only one.

A Tigard Daily Walk Up The Road

I’ll be re-enacting the Paris walk in my tan mohair jacket, hands clasped, shoulders curled inward around my bowed head, REI walking shoes and black jeans completing my contemplative pioneer ensemble.

Up Bull Mountain Road I trudge, taking a right on Benchview, a left on High Tor, and there’s the battle line a few lots in. One of many lines for property protecting long term home owners.

The first houses on High Tor look like the first houses on any street off Benchview, beautiful two story custom 90’s tract-housing in HOA neighborhoods.

A block or two up High Tor and it’s single-story seventies houses on big lots. Not an acre here, but some of those are further up Bull Mountain Road.

Look for me on the backside of Bull Mountain walking slowly toward Roy Rogers where lush fields and a chicken ranch selling fresh eggs near Scholls Ferry gave way to apartments, or condos, or townhouses. However you see it, it’s high-density.

One difference between these projects and the multi-storied compact apartments in SE Portland is one of them is openly auto-centric and the other pretends it’s not.

“Our residents are bike people so we don’t need parking.”

The thought hurts my head while I watch a steady stream of new suburban-life city quitters, small-towners moving up, and busy body lost drivers looking for the next battle line at Tile Flat Road.

I look at the picture at the top and remember what happened just after I took it:

A high-speed motorcade blasted across the bridge towards me with lights flashing and sirens wailing and drifted a high-speed left turn on the wide street in front of me as a reminder I was in a big city.

That guy didn’t flinch.

He makes me think of who’ll be walking the same path in another three hundred years.