Portland in October

Oregon.

Now, I had wanted to take along my good camera, but the battery was dead and I couldn’t find the battery charger. So, I said to my wife, “Wife, I’m not going to bother taking the other smaller digital camera (the one that takes really great pictures).

After all, I’m only going to Portland.

My first morning, ever, in Portland greeted me with sunshine. They told me this was rare in the Northwest. However, from the eighth floor, I was nearly blinded by the brightness emanating from a row of sugar maples — red, orange — beautiful.

Beyond the trees, there was a spectacular city skyline.

Beyond it — a bridge over the Willamette River. Of course, that was nothing I would actually want a picture of to say, remember my trip to Portland.

Nah.

And, oh yeah, from the other side of the hotel on a clear day one could actually see Mount Hood.

Who’d want a picture of that?

By Friday afternoon, the conference was winding down. For unknown reasons, Homeland Security or some other alphabet soup organization decided to play terrorist games on the guests of Portland as well as all the citizens who work downtown.

They stretched a yellow, do-not-cross-or-I’ll-taser-you-bro, tape everywhere. Half of our group was trapped in the mall across the street — forced to drink Starbucks coffee and eat Cinnabons.

The horror.

Other hotel guests were trapped in the lobby walking around half-crazed because they just want to go back home to Toledo.

Or Scranton.

Our leaders eventually made the command decision to press on — that’s what they kept saying. “Let’s press on.”

So we did — with half of our attendees.

Just before lunch, we were lectured by a happy-go-lucky Air Force medical examiner. A medical examiner with PowerPoint slides — just before lunch.

I couldn’t wait.

Apparently we needed to see various crime scenes with internal organs along with explanations as to why these organs were in this slide and not safely and comfortably in the internal confines of their owners, but I didn’t understand why.

I did not want to see internal organs before I ate lunch — or any other time for that matter.

But that wasn’t all.

We all got to see — and it was really nice of him to include this — the intricate color details of a full-body autopsy; not to be confused with a necropsy, i.e., the slicing and dicing of a dead animal that contains, say a partially digested dead human (final slide), but I digress.

Maybe we can have him back next year.

Last Point:

A friend had warned me that folks in the northwest were very anti-Southern. He said he was walking behind some local Army guys at a conference a few years ago and overheard their conversation ridiculing people from the South. And not southern Washington or California.

So I’m walking out of the hotel towards the adjacent mall for lunch. As I walked (in uniform), a girl’s voice from across the street yelled, “hey.”

I did not look.

I don’t usually respond unless the request is a little more specific to me like, “Hey, Paul,” or “hey, Army dude,” or “hey, moron.”

But on the third “hey” I turned and saw two girls on the other side of the street on a sidewalk by a beautiful park.

Now that she had my attention, she yelled “thank you.”

I was ashamed for not turning sooner.

Several more times that weekend, someone would tap me on the shoulder and say thank you for your service.

I think maybe Portland’s not so bad.

Maybe next time I’ll bring a camera.