(HOST) The Holiday Travel Season has just begun. And commentator Bill Mares observes that while we usually travel to places that are new and unfamiliar, every so often a trip results in a strong feeling of deja-vu.
(MARES) Recently I spent a week in Portland, Oregon, a city of 600,000 residents, about 15 times the size of Burlington. On daily walks of four or five miles through its streets, parks and hills with my college roommate, who lives there, I kept wondering – Why do I feel so at home even though I’ve never been here before?
It wasn’t just that the streets were full of bicycles and Priuses and the political color was solidly blue. It wasn’t just the huge Saturday farmers’ market in a downtown city park. Nor was it just the presence of 18,000 students at Portland State University.
While Burlington trumpets its waterfront to tourists and residents alike, Portland cherishes its downtown Wilamette River walk. While we gaze at sunsets above the toothy Adirondacks, Portlanders see snow-capped Mt. Hood in one direction and Mt. St. Helen’s in another.
While we have our Centennial Field for UVM and Single A Lake Monsters games, they have PGE Park for Portland State games and the city’s Triple A Beavers baseball team.
Both cities have good regional orchestras. Both cities are awash with coffee shops and saloons full of micro-brews.
At the same time, certain differences did stick out. Despite its size, Portland treats its pedestrians as royalty. Pedestrian crosswalks are wider, more frequent, and more strictly obeyed than in Burlington. Comfortable, modern, electric trolleys carry people all over the downtown.
With a far more temperate climate, Portland’s large parks are more like gardens than our leafy adjuncts to soccer and baseball fields. People flock to their well-maintained paths all day long. Portland has a distinctive Rose Garden, a serene Japanese garden, and, downtown, a Chinese garden which was shipped stone by stone from Portland’s sister city, Souchou, China.
Yes, we have Borders, Black Crow, North Country and Everyday bookstores. But they have Powell’s Books, an entire city block of books so numerous and multifarious you need an 8-page color guide to navigate the stacks. There’s a book signing almost every night. The week I was there, Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central and John Dean of Watergate fame were in town.
Finally, I was amused by a Portland sporting hybrid. The Sunday of my visit was the annual Portland Marathon, advertised as the world’s most "walker-friendly" marathon. City officials kept the streets open eight hours for the thousands of entrants who tramped or trudged the 26 miles. I know I have run my last marathon; but it’s enticing to think of going back to Portland and walk one. My power-walking roommate said he might join me.
I felt right at home.
Bill Mares of Burlington is an writer, former teacher, and legislator.