Echoes and Moments

Portland, Oregon from Washington Park. It was a beautiful Sunday, with sunshine breaking a midday shower, as sprinkles of rain fell among the brilliant bursts of red, yellow, and pink in the Rose Garden at Washington Park. The green space, thick with groves of tall Douglas Firs, armored with bark hardy against whatever ecological changes shaped this landscape before this city grew up around it, was no doubt named for this nation's first President. He was a man who owned a stately plantation, fought the majority of his military career in the Royal Army of King George II and III, and owned many slaves before writing their freedom into his will. A politician second and a duty-bound soldier first, his actions shaped the course of this land, even though we stood on the other side of the continent from the battlefields of the American Revolution. In fact, the city of Portland, as the largest urbanization of the state of Oregon, is quite close to the end of the exploratory path trac