A delightful October visit lets all the air out of a government lie.
Guest Article by Sheldon Clay
I spent a lovely long weekend visiting family in Portland OR. If I had believed the frantic pronouncements of our hallucinogenic president I would have spent the whole time dressed in a helmet and flack vest, looking like a reporter embedded with a Ukrainian infantry unit.
Instead, no more than a light sweatshirt was needed.
It was a string of gorgeous fall days. Roses bloomed in the bright sun outside the window, in one direction a vibrant yellow and in the other a delicate peach. We picked figs off the tree in the backyard. My 10-year-old grandson smirked knowingly when we called ourselves “fig pluckers.”
Nowhere was there any sign of the “burning hellhole” of war and violent insurrection that we keep hearing about from the regime whose obsession with manufacturing excuses to send an invading army into Portland is proof that power isn’t just a force for corruption, but also for delusion.
I covered a remarkable amount of Portland geography in my few days there and never encountered the war zone we keep hearing about from the wanna-be authoritarians running the government. I discovered just the opposite. An abundantly peaceful city full of people doing the patriotic duty of pursuing happiness. If you want details, here are a few items from the little notebook that traveled with me.
- I drank more good coffee and good beer than I am accustomed to, and I am accustomed to very good coffee and beer.
- Halloween decorations were coming out. I noticed even the ones that tried to be frightening managed to do it with a charming dash of irreverent fun.
- I visited an elementary school that has a redwood tree complete with treehouse on the playground. This is not a thing we have in my hometown of Minneapolis.
- I sat in a crowded backyard on a balmy evening and listened to live music while families and kids danced all around us.
- I watched Tula the baby elephant frolic with his mother at the excellent Portland Zoo. If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing a baby elephant up close, I’m here to tell you it alone would be worth a trip to Portland.
- We walked everywhere because there’s always so much nearby. The streets of Portland are narrow and full of bicycles and pedestrians, which is a dumb thing to mix with speeding conveys of military-style vehicles packed with thuggish federal agents. A note for the would-be invasion force from a safety-conscious parent.
- I walked up Mt. Tabor on the east end of the city. At the top you can see Mt. Hood further to the east, Mt. St. Helens to the north, and a grand city stretching out to the west beneath you.
If any of this sounds like the “organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officials” spoken about by the shadowy Trump man Stephen Miller please let me know and I won’t do it again.
Sunday morning, I’m sitting in the window with a cup of coffee. The high hillside rising from the opposite side of the Willamette River is shrouded in the early fog. The tall radio antenna at the top pokes through the gauzy tendrils of mist like a skinny Eiffel Tower painted red and white. The first rays of sunlight glint like liquid fire on the windows of the high buildings downtown and for a moment I think there you go, Portland is burning. The helicopter that had been buzzing like an annoying gnat over the waterfront the previous day was gone. The news is a Federal Judge blocked the deployment of soldiers to Portland as an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power. Her opinion, and I would remember to offer a special note of thanks for it at mass later that morning, mirrored what I had witnessed throughout my time in Portland. The president’s words are “untethered to the facts.”
It is impossible to spend any amount of time in Portland and reconcile your experience with the words coming out of the federal government. Strangely, that had a good effect on me. It made me more aware of the people and city around me and I’m happy to report what I saw was smiles. Moms, dads, kids, friends enjoying the pleasant weather while it lasts. It was infectious and left me hopeful about the state of the nation even if, as I finish writing this, the status of Portland’s legal defense against Trump’s cynical attempts to deploy the army against them was having further ups and downs in the court system, as you knew it would. The bigger picture is this. Attacking the people you were elected to govern is a dumb strategy for success, and everywhere on the ground around me in Portland I had the pleasure of watching it fail.
Going against America is still a sucker’s bet. For at least one sunny fall weekend the good people of Portland proved the bully in the Oval Office to be the sucker.
About the Author
Sheldon Clay’s talent helped Harley-Davidson with their advertisements. He wrote ads for Porsche to sell their products. Now he often writes ads for television and the internet. Not so long ago, he decided to write whatever he felt like writing in addition to his other endeavors. Plus, sometimes in his free time, he roars around on his motorcycle.
His short stories for Medium are always worthwhile.
This article was previously published on Medium, October 23, 2025. It is reprinted here for my readers with Mr. Clay’s permission.