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	Making Lemonade By Virginia Jones Garden of Roses July 19, 2010 http://web.me.com/virginiajones/Compsassionate_Gathering/The_Garden_of_Roses/Entries/2010/7/19_Making_Lemonade.html I made lemonade in case we were thirsty or if anyone we met was thirsty. However, I left it in the car and no one drank any. Nothing went the way I planned it to happen on the first day of the Walk Across Oregon on July 18, 2010, but it all worked out fine anyway. I had a program lined up for a Compassionate Gathering to be held as part of the Walk. First, the program did not work out. Then the person who had offered us donated space for the Gathering to take place in the Sellwood neighborhood pulled out due to family reasons. I had to tell some people who had planned to join us in Sellwood but not Oaks Bottom, to not come because we had no place to meet. We gamely went forward -- Mary Lou, Compassionate Gathering’s Secretary Treasurer, my children, Colin and Sidney, and me. I decided to make my daughter happy by going to Oaks Park amusement park, which is adjacent to Oaks Bottom, after walking around the Bottom, instead of walking through Sellwood. I thought that perhaps the larger number so people at Oaks Park would provide more people interested in our issue. We met at Sellwood Park as planned at 12:30 PM and then started down the trail around Oaks Bottom. But things were not through going wrong for us. A nest of bees took up residence in a tree next to the trail. When we approached the flight path of the bees, my children balked. They would not cross the bees to walk any further. I don’’t believe in abusing children to stop child abuse. So we turned around and went the other way. We ended up walking north on the Springwater Trail as opposed to south as I had planned. I told everyone to stop so I could take their picture. As I was struggling with the camera a jogger jogged up and offered to take the picture of all of us together. It turned out that she was a therapist who worked with abused children. She took our flyer and promised to tell everyone she knew about what we were doing. “You are doing good work. Keep it up,” she said. Next we walked to a frog pond on the north side of Oaks Bottom. Oaks Bottom was long a wetland, but it was devastated environmentally when it was used as a dump during the construction of the interstate freeway system through Portland in the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1990s reclamation of the wetland began. Bulldozers constructed some shallow pools. School children came and planted native plants. That alone brought the native, rare Pacific Chorus Frogs and and Red Legged Frogs back. The Pacific Chorus Frogs are tiny, the size of my thumbnail. They hatch out of eggs in the spring and then burrow into the mud as the hollows dry up in the summer. At the right time of year, they jump around these hollows, like thousands of tiny grasshoppers, but when you pick them up, you discover this hopping things is a frog. By late July, they had already retreated to their burrows. OK this isn’t about abuse, but I am a former Wildlife Biologist. I always found peace in nature no matter how depressed I was. When the humans hurt me, the animals were beautiful and healing. After visiting the frog hollow on the north side of Oaks Bottom, we walked back to the south side and went to Oaks Park. My son loves wetlands, but my daughter loves amusement parks. I bribed my son with ice cream and cotton candy to keep him happy while my daughter rode rides. My son hates amusement parks. I rode the Tilt-a-Whirl after sharing junk food with my kids and got nauseated. I am getting old these days, old and sensitive. Then my son and I left Mary Lou and Sidney at Oaks Park. Mary Lou’s feet were hurting her and Sidney wanted to ride more rides. We walked back along Oaks Bottom up the trail to Sellwood Park, up to where my car was parked. I decided to drive down to Oaks Park so Mary Lou would not have to walk more. I had never driven to Oaks Park before, only walked. I am a transplant to Portland. I don’t know every good place to go in Portland. And I love to walk. But as I drove to Oaks Bottom, I noticed Sellwood Riverfront Park. I had never been there before. It looked absolutely inviting. So my son and I parked there and walked through a wetland, that is part of the park, and up the Wilamette River the short distance to Oaks Park. When we got there, Mary Lou and Sidney joyfully told us they met another supporter. As Sidney was waiting to get on a ride wen someone saw her shirt that said, “Walk Across Oregon.” “Have you been on it?” the woman asked. “Yes, it is part of my mother’s organization,” Sidney answered. “You are doing good work,” the woman said, “Good luck to you.” Mary Lou decided that the distance back to Sellwood Waterfront Park was short enough for her tender feet. We walked back along the waterfront. My daughter bounced on the inflatable pier, and my son insisted that we spend some time in the wetland. My daughter doesn’t love wetlands the way her brother does, but she loves animals. We sat on the low railing of a foot bridge and watched polliwogs and water boatmen. Then we saw the snails. Snails were swimming in the water, not slinking along a rock but swimming in the water. A sparkling dragon fly came and lit on a rush plant near us. We were all entranced. So nothing went right, but everything went right. Portland is a tough nut to crack. Most of the other non-profits are too big to work with us. The news media is not interested in small events, but we still accomplished outreach and consciousness raising despite being small. Moreover we had fun. Life is like that. It often doesn’t turn out the way we planned. We can get all upset or we can go with the flow and something just as good as what we planned or even better happens. My kids want to go back to Sellwood Waterfront Park. It looks like the perfect place to have a picnic dinner on a 100 degree day. We don’t get many of them here in Portland, but we do get them sometimes. And admission to the park is completely free. To see more photos click here.
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