two

Strolling down Milwaukie Ave from where I park to the Starbucks I see the huge plate-glass window is entirely boarded up. Yet I continue, and yeah, they’re open and the barista Bekah’s already getting what I want – an order without lips and tongue – and after a while a worker comes in to go up to the roof of the building for something and after a while more someone says, “The air conditioning is back on,” and then there’s this smell like burning, which happens as I’m about to leave, so I go to the counter and say to Bekah and the managers Heather and Brooke, “This place is a mess. The windows are covered in wood and the roof’s on fire. And still, it’s my favorite place.”

And that brings three laughs, and there I go again saving the planet. One giggle at a time. And a few hours later I’m walking in Laurelhurst Park and a young guy just off the tar path is walking back and forth looking down at the ground, so I ask, “Did you lose something?” and he says, “No, I’m picking up litter.” And there he goes, saving the planet again, a piece of trash at a time.

I don’t ever have far to travel to find heroic acts, which sometimes are my own. Plus, speaking of heroes, never mind the Laurelhurst Park bench phone call which followed all this.