Last weekend, my wife and I road-tripped South to one of our
favorite weekend destinations. Portland
is a great place to visit, and a fantastic place to eat. We had beer and sandwiches at The Side Door, a
wonderful foodie experience streetside at Clyde
Common (one of my absolute favorite Portland restaurants – I took my best
friend and 6 of his best friends there when he got married this spring),
brunched at Jamison, and assuaged our sweet
tooths at Cupcake Jones and Cool Moon. It was, as always, a wonderful culinary
treat.
As we wrapped up a post-brunch visit with some good friends
from San Francisco and prepared to get in the car for the ride home, it
suddenly occurred to me that I’d missed my One Piece on Saturday and was
dangerously close to missing Sunday as well.
I perked up and looked around Jamison Square. I saw people – lots of people – milling about,
having fun, strolling the street. And…
no garbage. I thought back over the last
24 hours. We were out on the street, out
in public, in a very lively urban city, for two days, and not once did an
errant soda bottle or diaphanous garbage bag waft into my view. Either Portland is one of the cleanest cities
around, or I’m losing my touch.
I strolled around the park, and after hunting a bit, managed
to find a discarded hamburger wrapper and nearby, the discarded mylar covering
from an energy bar. And into a nearby
trash bin it went.
Rock on, PDXicans – keep it weird, and keep on keeping it
clean!
