After waiting impatiently at the bus stop for about 10 minutes, no buses in sight, I thought, hey, I'll just walk down and intercept the protesters somewhere near the waterfront at the end of the route. Action is the magic word, after all. I like to walk.I'm not much of a joiner, but I wasn't going to miss out on history in the making, even if I only caught 500 yards of the route, skulking at the end of the pack. So I trudged on down to the river, equipped with hiking boots, a long hooded raincoat, an umbrella, and my old intermittently functioning Sony Cybershot digital camera. The rain was steady but not terribly cold, just a typical winter day in Portland. After the snow, ice, and 20-degree days we had last week, the air felt almost balmy. I was glad to be on the move toward something.
As I got closer to the route, I saw groups of people and families coming toward me, dragging waterlogged signs and wearing funny pink hats. They were talking and laughing, clearly done marching, signs forgotten. I crossed under the Burnside Bridge in Old Town, at the site of the Saturday Market, now vacant for the winter season. On one side of the MAX rail line, a horde of people were lined up to catch the train. On the other side, sheltered by the bridge overpass, was a line of sleeping bags and makeshift tents: a small contingent of our very large homeless population, wrapped like mummies, most likely too exhausted and demoralized to protest for better lives.
I caught up to the marchers as they walked east on Pine, a couple blocks from the river. I found some vantage points off to the side to take some photos. Then I walked with some other loners through parking lots, not of the crowd but with the crowd, so to speak. Moving in the same direction, anyway. I carried no signs. As I stopped for a light at a street corner, a young girl with blonde wisps poking out from under her hood gave me a wide grin and said "Hi!" Somewhat surprised and not a little bemused, I returned her greeting and crossed Naito Parkway to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
The fast-moving Willamette River was the color of a day-old McDonald's latte, punctuated with floating branches and logs. By now I was pretty done with crowds, and my feet were killing me. I took some pictures to prove I was there. Marchers milled around in clumps, proudly displaying their signs: Women's rights are human rights, Not my president, and my favorite, Viva la vulva. Some marchers were still on the move, headed south toward the Morrison Bridge, where some kind of stage was set up. Music and voices boomed over a sound system. I skirted all that by walking along the river front, heading toward the bus line that would take me back to NW Portland and my car.
At the bus stop, I commandeered the butt-sized bus bench to rest my aching legs and feet. I would have given up the seat to someone else who needed it. A woman with a walker joined us, but her walker had a built-in seat, so I stayed put. Someone with a smartphone said buses were delayed because of heavy loads. I waited a few minutes. Then I thought, I could be here all day. Maybe the streetcar would be a better bet.
I heaved myself up and started walking away from the river, toward 10th Avenue, where I knew I could catch the streetcar to NW Portland. The rain slowed. I heard a drum beat and realized I was watching the end of the marchers, the last walkers moving slowly north on 4th Avenue. I took some photos of overflowing garbage cans and piles of discarded protest signs and kept moving. By now my right ankle was bruised from the unforgiving ankle support of my right boot. My left heel burned with a blister. My step was neither lively nor steady at this point.
At 10th Avenue, I found the streetcar stop flooded with hopeful wanna-be riders and no streetcar in sight. I walked slowly along 10th (downhill, thank god). I contemplated going into Powell's Books to see if the giftcard I'd carried in my wallet for two years was still good, but I feared if I stopped moving, I'd not be able to start again. By this time, I knew that my chances of catching the streetcar were slim to none, so I put my head down and decided to power on through.
The rain stopped. The wind came up, but the breeze refreshed me. As I trudged over to Johnson and turned uphill to head back to 24th Avenue, I wondered what if anything I had learned about marching, protesting, and political grievances. If I were a truly evolved human being, probably I could have transcended the murderous pains in my legs and feet and focused on the meaning of life and the pendulum that swings us from love to hate to love to hate. But the untrained human mind is easily distracted by pain. Nothing much came to me except... shoes. I need better walking shoes.
Eventually I spotted my car halfway up the block. I plodded to it, opened the door, and sank wearily into the driver's seat, wondering if my feet would ever forgive me.
Today I looked up my route on Google maps to see how far I actually walked. I'm embarrassed to report, my route was two miles long from my car to the waterfront. I walked another half a mile south to the Hawthorne Bridge. Then I walked back to NW Portland, more or less along the same route. All together, my trek was easily five miles long. The march itself was only 1.3 miles.
