The Last Resort

I love the Eagles. I really do. I love the harmonies, the tightness of their sound, the care given to things like tone and intonation.



So I'm sitting here. By myself. Rekindling my love for a band some people I know discard as ancient.



And this one song keeps hitting me. Everytime I pop in this song, I am rivetted. It's called the Last Resort, and it's somewhat a historical narrative of the American West. It was once this place of freedom and adventure. Dangerous, but if you made the journey, it was a dream come true. The last words of the last verse are absolutely astounding. I'll let you look them up, or better yet, listen to the song. It's one of my all-time favorites.



I love the northwest. I love the rain and the relatively mild summers, the green, and it's somewhat-hippy leanings. I am also a student of history, and never cease to find crummy things that people have done to others, no matter how good their intentions. So when I visited the river front last night, the lights of Portland and headlights reflecting off the water, I was torn. Sure, it was nice to look at. But how many people that lived there before Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Robert Gray were displaced because having them there didn't fit the national interest: raping the land of it's naturally abundant beaver population? I wondered what the Columbia River looked like before Portland, before Vancouver, before the Hudson's Bay Trading Company. No Bonneville Dam. No I-5 bridge. Just river and whatever plants or people were there before. I expressed this idea, which was quickly shrugged off as Brandon being a hippy. This seems to happen a lot.

While I am quick to gripe, it would have happened anyway, the westward spread of civilization. And I do like living here.

So I guess it's a mixed bag.

I still would want to be displaced or killed because I am interferring with commerce and still use a harpoon to catch salmon.

Call someplace Paradise, kiss it goodbye.