"Why Are All These Men Wearing Clogs?" she asked...

Writing for the New West Network and describing herself as a "hick" from Moscow, Idaho (though she's anything but), Joan Opyr visits Portland and describes the differences with her home.

At lunch yesterday, I dined on wilted spinach and duck breast salad. I might have achieved this meal in Moscow, but first I would have had to drive eight miles into town to buy fresh spinach, and then sixteen miles in the opposite direction to shoot a duck at the Spring Valley Reservoir.

... For dinner, I had a pan-fried oyster sandwich with melted gruyere and a remoulade sauce. Heaven. I could really get to like this Portland business. The food, the shopping, the politics – but then, what would I do with all my knives and my guns, my hunting gear, my military-surplus gear, and my gas-guzzling, toxic-fume spewing 1976 Suburban? I’m a Democrat, but I’m an Idaho Democrat.

She looks favorably upon our progressive community...

Portland is an essential part of the West, but it’s not the West that I know. This is the liberal, progressive West, a West still ruled by unions and conservationists and Democrats – strong, organized, confident Democrats who know how to win U. S. Senate seats and Governor’s races.

...and ponders a critical issue:

In Portland, I’ve seen a lot of men wearing clogs: brightly colored, rubber clogs. If they came to Idaho in those shoes, we’d think they were nuts. We’d worry that they didn’t have proper boots, or that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t know how to tie their laces.

Can urban Democrats from Portland make common cause with rural Democrats from Idaho – or Montana or Nevada or Colorado?

Head on over to New West Network, read the rest, and discuss over there.

Aug. 04, 2005 Posted in elsewhere.