Dear Liza,
Last Saturday was Portland’s Rose Parade, and we took the number 75 to the Red line train to get there. It was a delightful, sunny, breezy day, and thousands of folks had lined up before we got there!
Fortunately, we found a spot by the rose hedge along MLK Blvd. that was just right. Bees buzzed and flowers bloomed just for us.
The Parade had all the things a parade should have.
High school bands with great cadences,
Silly floats,
marching groups from Portland and around the world,
Therapy llamas,
and kids to share it all with.
There was also political drama, as we should have been able to predict. A group of protestors were demonstrating against the U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Gaza conflict and moved into the path of the parade.
Some of them laid down in the street snd blocked the road, so the marching groups just bunched up and went around them.
I couldn’t get very close, but here you can see, from left to right, the flags of the Peace Corps group as it marched by, the police line, and the Palestinian flags carried by the protestors.
The irony was a little heavy handed, but so it goes.
Everyone behaved themselves as well as could be expected, and the parade continued with the Police maintaining their line. It all made for a busy, entertaining, perfectly Portland Saturday morning.
And when it went from “Lots of Fun” to “Way Too Much Noise”, we caught the Red Line back to the Hollywood neighborhood and walked up to Fleur de Lis bakery for quiche and coffee and some quiet jazz by these two lovely people.
When our tummies were full and our souls at peace, we bussed back home for a well-deserved lay down.
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 