Portland, Oregon reigns as royal US town of many colors with annualRose Festival

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GHN News Ed - The City of Roses has initiated its annual Rose Festival event with the unveiling of crafts and carnival fun along Portland, Oregon’s Willamette River, but the color and variety of beauty is as evidenced by the Portland people as in any single ideal that Oregon might profess.

A sunny afternoon well spent includes a walk along the river, as those rays of warmth linger on the water before tucking in behind a cloud or two.  But Portlanders pay no attention to the ever-present rain when there is so much appeal from beauty all around.

On the Memorial Day weekend, Portlanders were out in force to celebrate the annual opening of the Rose Festival, a series of events that culminates in the Rose Festival Parade and the crowning of the Queen, something that has been a part of Portland for many decades.  The Queen is selected from high school seniors throughout the City of Portland and is the highlight of high school life to be among these chosen few.

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That beauty in the Portland green, coupled with a festival’s appeal, is reinforced by watching folks just amble by or sit on benches with their peers, enjoying the events.  The cosmopolitan community of a city on the move is no better shown than photographs that reveal the many racial and ethnic groups that predominate  the Portland scene.  Whereas Portland was once considered in the 1950’s a fairly provincial town,  that small town look and feel is gone to be replaced by miniature neighborhoods, each with its own cultural stamp, that weave together to make the whole fabric of Portland one of color, vibrancy and styl lie.

Watch the Portland people in their unique, special ways, a visual memory that will last for time to come.  See a young man kneel and make his love and lifetime wishes known, surrounded by folks who smile and wave to see young love in bloom.

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Those who seek a holiday somewhere beauty grows are apt to stand and wonder at Rose Festival time in Portland, when the town unveils its best before the world, as it is doing over the first few weeks in June, to declare to one and all its prominence as the city that values green as well as all the colors of the rainbow in its flowers and its folks.

Portland, Oregon's no spring season of discontent

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Carol Forsloff - Portland, Oregon, wet and still wintry with rivers at flood stage, joins other cities in a season of discontent. Weather reporters speak of disasters in other places, but Portland is moaning also from the weight of too much water.

While the wild weather has created wide havoc around the country, few commentators speak about the West Coast, specifically Oregon, except to mention the temperature, along with other regions on the U.S. map, but there are aberrations in Portland weather that speak to the climate’s topsy turvy ways as well.

Portland is known as a place where hats and umbrellas are a must for most days, but as June approaches the wet weather won’t let up, except for an occasional peek from sun, mostly with one eye half open, before the rain comes again and folks have little chance to get out from under the eaves, the hats and the umbrellas for a walk down the street, let alone a walk in the park.

Roses aren’t coming up either, as the bushes of beauty have been delayed by prolonged cold, wet and very rainy weather. Temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s don’t promote the pretty flowers that bloom in spring, especially Portland’s fairest, the roses that have made the city a special place because of them.

Rose Festival week begins with the fair along the river, with the faithful folk used to the constant drizzles by now out to have fun in spite of gray days, proving once again that native Oregonians have well earned their title as ducks.

The rivers have risen so the mighty Columbia and Willamette junctures have created delays in traffic flow across the main bridges, as they are raised again and again to allow the boats to get out from under, as some are too close to the bridge tops for safety on the rivers where sandbagging has prevented overflow into residential areas. On the other hand, there has already been flooding in low-lying areas.

Portland welcomes rain to keep its evergreens ever green and to continue to wear with pride its very green status for the look and feel of nature, but the rainfall has become a topic everyone talks about in a city that never has had to talk about it as much before. So count Portland, Oregon in with all the other areas of the United States, that have either too much water, as in rain for Portland and river flooding, or not enough as in the Southwest where fires have taken over for want of rain at all.

Portland will celebrate its Rose Festival days ahead, bravely and optimistically, while wishing all the while for the sun to be out long enough to sit and have time to smell the roses—wherever they might be, as they are too few in number for the crowds who love them so.