Earl BlumenauerI’m really not very politically minded, which is probably why I always seem to hook up with people who are. Anyway, I got an email at work last week about some sort of meet and greet deal with Earl Blumenauer in the board room at 2:30. Surprisingly, I had heard of him before. I knew he was a bikey bike supporter from an article I saw on Bike Portland. And according to the email, he’s a congressman. Or a senator. Are those the same thing? Like I said, I don’t really keep up. But I thought, what the hell, it’s an hour off work, and maybe he’ll talk about bikes, which would be cool. Plus, when I told the GF about the meeting, she said, I love him! so I knew he was OK.

So I show up to the boardroom at the appointed time and grab a prime seat near the door. I don’t know how long the meeting will be, but I have a 3:30 hair cut appointment that I don’t want to miss. Incidentally, somebody said that those boardroom chairs cost $2600 apiece. Are you freakin’ kidding me???

So Earl shows up (spoiler: I’m calling him Earl because we’re buds now), gets introduced by the CEO, and then suggests that we go around the room and each say who we are, what our job is, where we live, where we grew up, and what kind of things we’d like to hear about from him. How ’bout that! A politician wants to understand his audience! I was number two in the line around the table, and I said, Hi I’m Sue, I’m the webmaster [...] and I’d love to hear anything you want to say about bikes. Other people had more specific questions. A couple guys were clearly NOT fans, and they just wanted to yell at him about why he was not in favor of drilling for oil in Alaska. Some people wanted to know his plans for medical care, education, making MAX safer … all kinds of crap. I was all, blah blah blah just talk about bikes, K? but I kept my running commentary to myself. Except for posting it on my blog later (now).

Well, Mr. Squeaky Wheel got most of the grease and we heard all about how getting all the oil out of Alaska is a bad idea. Or a good idea, depending on who you believe. Personally, my highly uninformed opinion is that we should spend the money on improving modes of transportation that don’t use gas. Like BIKING. Then he spent a little time talking about MAX (that’s our light rail system, for you out-of-towners) and how it would probably become safer if fares were checked regularly, because it’s probably the freeloaders who are the main perps.

You understand that I’m paraphrasing everything and slanting it towards me, right? That is, after all, what media moguls such as myself are meant to do.

OK, enough of the meeting recap. Let’s get to the good part. The meeting ended just in time for me to make my haircut. I went back to my desk to get my haircut shirt, and then out to get my bike. When I got to the elevator lobby, one elevator’s door was closing, and I saw just Earl and his assistant in it. Sweet! I lunged for the elevator, jammed my arm in the hole, and said, Can I come with you? as the door opened back up. Sure, they said – probably because I didn’t call him a dumbass in the meeting, unlike some other people did in not so many words.

Of course, when alone with them, I didn’t know what to say. Luckily, he’s a politician, so he engaged me easily. He remembered what job I said I do. I said something dumb like Boy, that guy sure was pissed about drilling in Alaska. He said something back which I forget. Then I said the dumbest thing ever – Are you parked in the parking garage? Now, my thought there was that I wanted to know if we could keep walking together (since that was where I was going) or if this was the moment we had to part. He said, No, we walked. I said, Oh, duh! Of course I remember now that your office is 2 blocks away, and you don’t drive.  My bike is in the  parking garage, that’s why I was asking. Then he stopped, turned to me said, Bless you! and shook my hand. I guess because I was riding not driving. Or maybe because he wanted to ease my feeling of social awkwardness for asking a dumb question. Either way, he made a fan.

Well, there you have it – the story of how Earl Blumenauer and I became buds and why he blessed me.


This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am and is filed under Oh Nothing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.