It has been years since I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely northwest city of Portland Oregon. Portland is one of those places that stays with you long after you leave. The distant Mt Hood beckons as a kind of terrestrial anchor holding the Cascade Range tightly to the earth, so high that it catches the clouds themselves to leave desert beyond. The Multnomah tribal name for Mt Hood is Wy’east. Its mythology is filled with legend– stories of love and sorrow and of great battles won and lost.
Portland is called a “walking city” with downtown streets festooned with public drinking fountains called Benson Bubblers. They are named after philanthropist Simon Benson, who donated the money to establish the fountains in 1912.
I am old enough to remember drinking from the water hose in the heat of summer, and even old enough to remember bending down to drink from a cold underground spring, tadpoles visible on the bottom. How times have changed. Our water now comes to us in plastic packages delivered by large industrial trucks with colorful advertisements on their sides.
Portland asks us to remember earlier, simpler times. The bubblers are tadpole free and mountain clean, a simple gift to all who pass this way.
whoisfenton 