JOIN OREGON HISTORY FOR THE PEOPLE

Oregon history is full of familiar names and places we remember from Mrs. Kraus’ third grade class.

Statues around the state show them as they were.

Their exploits are logged in libraries and museums.

The Oregon Historical Society at 1200 SW Park, Portland Oregon is both museum and library.

That’s a 2 for 1 if you’re keeping score.

Yes, it’s open to the public, but if you join you’d be a part of yesterday’s Summer Membership Celebration where history was on display inside and out.

 

On a perfect Portland late afternoon I walked across the SW Park Blocks from the Portland Art Museum.

It looked like the top picture, a blue beacon welcome awning to guide first time visitors.

 

Outdoors:

 

 

And in:

 

 

These are the people history depends on, who join in a cause to tell the story, the save the story, for the future generations.

They look like the same people I walked past when I moved to Portland in 1980, except the party was out on the Broadway side.

Back then I was twenty-six and it was festive and jovial, just like yesterday.

Now I’m seventy-one and it felt like more than festive and jovial, it felt like a message.

 

Today we hear about young people, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, who live online, in isolation, feeling like there’s no place to go for a break in the bleakness.

Everyone feels the same way now and then, which isn’t to diminish the moment, but to highlight the step toward a different awareness, of being around history people with so much in common you shouldn’t ask or you might get an hour of  their area of historical focus.

“Now David, I’m glad you asked about the sturgeons in the Willamette River. You see, they gather at the bridge supports.”

 

Boomerpdx Historical Focus

Any day with a spread like this is a good day. My wife would have loved it.

She’s a lady with her finger on the pulse of the moment, and this was her kind of moment.

A recent retiree last week, she’s making plans. Coming downtown was one of them.

Since I like to think I’m still a down to go downtown guy, it’s always my plan.

But something came up on her way out the door, and I kept going.

 

 

She missed the martial arts demonstration which would have reminded her of the Greco wrestling practices I used to hold in our garage with the kids.

One day a lady’s group she and her mom belonged to came to tea during practice and I had the guys show them their moves.

They loved it.

Was I surprised to see this? No, because the Oregon Historical Society is willing to step beyond the traditional.

If history feels stagnant, you’re doing it wrong.

Maybe it’s a good time for you, or someone you know, to step beyond the same old same old?

It’s time to get out mingle?

Portland has its moments of bliss and beauty.

Yesterday felt like one of them.

 

PS:

On a cool summer evening, soft wind in my hair, I walked down Broadway to the Benson and back up the Park Blocks.

A flood of memories came up with each step on the old sidewalks.

Was it bloggable? Coming soon.

 

PSS:

Stay tuned.