PUBLIC GOOD IS GOOD ENOUGH?

The idea of doing something for the ‘public good’ is a high standard in America.

Why?

Because the public, of which we’re all a part, is so broad.

What’s good in one place is not so good in another, but no one talks about the ‘public bad’ as a goal.

Or do they?

Every year brings fresh faces and new voices to us, the public.

They seem like overnight wonders until we learn about the ten or twenty years they’ve been doing the same thing, a decade or two we didn’t know about.

Public ‘do-gooders’ working under the radar of ‘look at me doing public good stuff’ are a rare breed.

Even they take a hit now and then.

 

Portland issued a combined sewer overflow (CSO) advisory for the Willamette River Tuesday as the city’s Big Pipe system hit 100% capacity.

People should avoid contact with the stretch of the Willamette River downstream of the Ross Island Bridge — U.S. 26 — until Portland lifts the advisory.

Clackamas Water Environment Services (WES) also reported an overflow of wastewater into the Willamette River early Tuesday morning due to heavy rainfall. 

The overflow occurred from a manhole near 610 McLoughlin Boulevard in Oregon City, just upstream from the Arch Bridge. Signs have been placed to warn people about the spill.  

The public is advised to avoid contact with the Willamette River between the Oregon City Arch Bridge and the Abernathy Bridge for 24 hours due to the possibility of bacterial contamination, WES said.

 

Overflowing sewer manhole in a street sounds bad.

As an amateur environmentalist the message I’m getting is avoid contact with the Willamette River.

 

Now a new year starts.

 

Public Transportation For Public Good

I started using public transportation living in Philadelphia where I took the Broad Street Line from Center City south to Oregon Avenue.

I had to be the only rider getting a laugh from moving three thousand miles from Oregon to ride a subway to Oregon Ave.

A couple of years later I was riding the RR train from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Again, I was probably the only rider pretending it was a carnival ride.

After I came to my senses and moved to Portland I rode a bike.

My Mom asked who I thought I’d be dating with my mode of transportation.

 

Mom: Where would she sit, on the crossbar? Who do you think you’ll find on a bike?

Me: A biker.

 

I met a girl in the neighborhood and told her the story about my Ma as we walked NW 21st near Lovejoy.

We laughed.

The next day she bought a bike.

 

After we got married and moved to the suburbs I started riding Tri-met #12.

Over the years a group of us met on the bus every day and it felt like a community.

One member of the group was a sassy young woman who liked telling me about her bad dates.

On a hot summer day the bus was packed, overloaded with sweaty people and poor air circulation.

It was so crowded some people couldn’t reach a strap or pole to hang on to.

I had enough reach, the sassy lady didn’t, so she hung on me.

She hung on through the bumps of the 405 overpass, hung on through the swaying turns from 6th to Barbur around Duniway Park.

We were resigned to the discomfort and awkwardness of public transportation, apologizing over and over.

 

Her: This is better than some of the dates I’ve been on.

Me: If the guy was driving the smallest car in the world.

Her: As long as it had a good sound system to dance to.

 

We rode like that, accidentally grinding and laughing all the way to Barbur Transit.

I told my wife the story when I got home.

We started shopping for a second car that week.

I’ve written this story before and it hasn’t changed.

To much.

 

I met a young professional lady on the bus who got off at the transit center and drove home.

She asked me if I’d like a ride since she lived near by. Yes, and like a good husband I immediately introduced her to my wife.

It was a good routine.

We stood together on the bus then got in her car and started stopping at the Fireside for a drink on the way home.

On one crowded trip she said, “This feels like one hot, long, slow dance,” and started swaying with the ride from the high pole. “We’re gonna need a drink after this.”

It was so funny I had to tell my wife.

We bought a second car a month later.

 

For The Public Good 

Here in Oregon it’s easy to pick and choose a town, a county.

There’s some consistency with the trees, which do a public good by themselves.

There’s downtown, there’s the lights. 

You should be able to go downtown, do what you planned on, and go home, not worry about getting accidentally pulled over, or seeing someone get swarmed by non-identifiable people in masks.

Yesterday I wrote what no one wants to read, a single blogger’s take on what the U.S. Constitution is all about.

It got three readers, which is sort of sad if I were a sad-sack writer.

Of the three views I doubt one finished, which might seem sad, but not here.

One of the motivations for writing a blog, for being a blogger, is writing on topics that fester.

Reading social media is an exercise in festering writing. 

Here on BoomerPdx festering is treatable. 

There’s help:

 

Thomas Jefferson: Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Me: Mr. President, we are the people, they are the people, and we have a ruler.

TJ: An elected official.

Me: Yes.

TJ: And he shows little regard for my work?

Me: I think he forgets where he is, you know, the we the people part.

TJ: You’re saying it’s more like ‘wee on the people?’

Me: We the Pee Pole.

TJ: That’s not right. Do you still have the Magna Carta?

Me: I do.

TJ: Get it out.

Me: Is that an order.

TJ: It is.

Me: It’s not an illegal order.

TJ: Well . . . Let the reminding begin.

 

PS: Helpful?

 

PSS: Not helpful? 

 

Lately I’ve seen bot-attention from China. How have they addressed the freedom and liberty here? 

With three hits. They ignored We The People.

That’s not helping the public good.