The cascadian verdure has gotten me in mind of another mythical pastoral locale in New England. The first group of Caucasian settlers were merchantile people from thence, the fur trade well established in the 1840s.
As a matter of fact, after sailing around the Horn and up the Columbia from Astoria, they established themselves at the confluence of the Willamette and flipped a coin as to whether they'd call the place after Boston or Portland, Maine.
The mountain scene presents the Columbia River, a wagon road alongside which subsequent settlers rolled overland from the Missouri to people the fertile Willamette Valley.
Unlike the strangers upon the local slab in the middle of nowhere who depend on the artificialities of commerce to while away their groping lives, some people have a sense of history and place.
If I asked ten people when the Roosevelt Dam, which made 'The Valley' arable, was built, I doubt more than 20% would know and half'd not a clue as to whom the eponym refers to. But I wouldn't know where the hottest club is, would I? So, I'll settle for this tune and stay home.
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