From northern California, I flew to Seattle, Washington to speak at Third Place Books, which hosts many community activities, including a Farmer’s Market.  The store was named after a concept in sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s book The Great Good Place, which suggests that people need three places to enjoy a rewarding life.  The first is home, the second is work or school, and the third is for community ‘where people from all walks of life and all social levels interact, experiencing and celebrating their commonality as well as their diversity.”  I visited friends and enjoyed several excellent vegan Thai dishes (and learned that Seattle is famous for its Thai food).

Seattle, like some other west coast cities, has experienced significant human population growth, and with it, a loss of wild areas.  But citizens are trying to undo some of the harm.  I came across a park with a recovering wetland in a neighborhood with a sign explaining how residents remembered hearing frogs here, before the natural habitat was destroyed.  Saddened by the loss of frogs and their evening songs, the community took steps to restore the wetland, hoping that their amphibious neighbors and melodious natural harmony will return. 

From Seattle, I traveled to Portland, Oregon where I saw some old friends and met many new ones.  I did a presentation before 150 people at the historic Clinton Street Theater and visited an all vegan mini-mall.  It was encouraging to see the conscience, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of these vegan businesses who stand as an antidote to the cruelty, injustice and recklessness of industrialized animal agriculture and its tragic personal and planetary impacts.

The slogan “think globally, act locally” was ringing in my head as I was leaving the Pacific Northwest.

 
Gene