TOM McCALL WATERFRONT PARK SUNDAY

We’ve heard the same thing all out lives: Get outside.

More than once we’ve said it to others.

How often do we tell ourselves to ‘get outside?’

That’s what I told myself Sunday and outside meant Waterfront Park in downtown Portland, Oregon.

I knew my audience.

Sunday on Waterfront Park was different than Saturday. This was the ‘man in the street’ report from Saturday:

One man said he went to Waterfront Park alone to stand his ground for a better Portland. He went alone to address the problem between protests from the left and the right, the protesters and anti-protesters, the far-right and far-left, the facsist and anti-facsist.

All alone. When I asked why, he said he wanted to show people coming to town to rumble that love was the answer, not a rumble, a riot, or some ass kicking fandango.

Was he looking for trouble? This was not a troubled man, but a man of peace, a peaceful man who had fought in the ring since his early years. He was a knock out fighter who chose a different path, a quiet man who uses words of peace and calm.

He was also experienced in public speaking. He asked the police before he took the field to check the mood. Smart move on his part.

The lasting impression on him was the intelligence level on display by the bussed in crowd. He said it felt like ignorance was contagious, and the group with the most to say couldn’t form a sentence on their own.

Waterfront Park Sunday

I parked near Saturday Market with my group. They had vendors to make orders with, I had a beer and listened to a loop musician record a stand up electric bass, then a classical guitar, then more bass, more guitar, until the final song sounded like he deconstructed Kansas City.

While I waited from my party I walked to the edge of the park and got some sun. Took off my shirt for more and felt the peace of the park.

With my back to the river I looked over Front Avenue, past the large expanse of green that rebounds every year after the Rose Fest Fun Center carnival, Cinco de Mayo, the Waterfront Blues Festival, and every other event that needs a thirty six acres.

What it doesn’t need is an ugly memory of unnecessary violence. It doesn’t need an example of the wrong thing done to the wrong people in the wrong place.

Waterfront Park has that one covered.