I'm from here

I was walking around Mt. Tabor park today and getting some pictures of the views of Portland. I'm from Oregon, but still appreciate my hometown's natural beauty. I belong to a pretty social professional organization and go to their mixers and events and sometimes people ask me, "Where are you from?"

Since it seems most everyone in Portland these days is from somewhere else, I'm regarded as somewhat of an oddity. Most everyone is from California. Last week I was at a wine tasting mixer and ended up with two people reminiscing about the bay area in California.

Yes, I was born here, lived here most of my life. My parents were born here. Three out of my four grandparents were born here.

I'm realizing that it means something to be from here. It means you don't pump your own gas, you recycle bottles and cans and can't fathom a time when people didn't. You never have to figure out the sales tax on what you buy. If you're my age, Ramblin' Rod, Bumpity were the crappy locally produced TV shows. You probably can remember at least one member of the 1977 World Champion Portland Trailblazers. You might have had milk from the drive thru Senn's Dairy. If you grew up in the era of Tom McCall, the coming of Californians to Oregon was something akin to an invasion by Visigoths. A worse fate could have hardly been imagined.

If you grew up in Oregon sometime during grade school you did the requiste section on the pioneers- with a shoe box diarama of a covered wagon. I did mine in 5th grade. We studied pioneers all year. Miss McCord, our teacher told us this story: "When pioneers came on the Oregon trail, they had to make a decision whether to head to Oregon or to California. All the hardworking families chose Oregon. All the gamblers and prostitutes chose California."

I'm sure she regretted those words as soon as they left her mouth, not because she smeared Californians in such a broad fashion, but she had to explain the word "prostitute" to a classroom of 10 year olds. (Our knowledge of vice was such that we knew what a gambler was) It was a very enlightening day for me.

Anyway, I've found the transplanted Californians quite pleasant- perhaps its because of the circles I travel in I haven't encountered many California prostitutes or gamblers. I wonder how Miss McCord would feel about that...

As one of the few natives I kind of feel duty bound to share little tidbits of Oregon history. Mt. Tabor park provides an opportunity. If you climb to the top of the park there is a big statue there of Mr. Harvey Scott, a portly city patriarch. I'm sure many people stop to admire the statue and presume Mr. Scott was a fine founder of the city...and indeed he was...sort of.

My problem with Harvey Scott has to do with his sister Abigail Scott Duniway. Abigail was the leader in Oregon of the women's sufferage movement, trying to get women the vote. Her brother Harvey, one of the publishers of the Oregonian consistently ran editorials against women getting the vote.

I quite admire Abigail, not only because she is part of the reason I can vote today, but she has an incredible story. She and her brother Harvey and the rest of the Scott clan were pioneers coming over in covered wagons from Illinois. Abigail married and had 6 children and wrote a book about pioneer history. Her husband became disabled in a horse accident and Abigail had to support her family. She had several business ventures including a hat business. As a woman she realized how hard it was for a woman- not being able to enter into contracts without her husband, having no say in how businesses are regulated and run. Having all your assets legally belong to your husband and nothing legally belonging to you, simply because you are a woman. Having to cope with this convinced Abigail that women needed to vote and needed have rights and a public say...so, rather heroically and for many decades she crusaded for the women's vote in Oregon and Idaho. While her own brother used his not inconsequential influence as the publisher of the state's largest newspaper to thwart her. Luckily, Abigail at age 80 got to see women gain the right to vote in Oregon in 1912. She died in 1915 before women gained the national vote.

So, Harvey gets the big bronze statue in probably the nicest park in the city, plus Mt. Scott is also named for Harvey. Abigail has a demure little park in Southwest Portland and no statue.

I was at the park with Allie several years ago looking at the statue. I told her this story. She picked up a pinecone and threw it at Harvey's statue. Its become a tradition. J., Allie and I often picnic at Mt. Tabor during the summer. Allie says, "Hey, lets go throw pinecones at Harvey Scott."

Anytime I find myself getting irritated at Harvey's cool statue, I realize Abigail ultimately has the greater legacy, but still there is a measure of gratification of watching my daughter, future female voter give Harvey the pinecone pelting he no doubt deserves.

Oh pioneers!