;)
Earlier this morning, I happened to glance out the window and noticed a long stream of police cars with lights flashing on the St. Johns Bridge. So many, filling up the eastbound lane. I went out to the porch to see what was going on, hearing helicopters overhead and had a moment of dread -- don't let it be a jumper, I whispered to the universe. There's been enough sadness and death this week.
I saw that the line of emergency lights spanned the bridge, across the river and down Bridge Avenue leading up to the bridge, and further down Hwy 30 SB. And then I remembered that Rainier Police Chief Ralph Painter's memorial is today.
The little town of Rainier, Oregon is located just a little way up Hwy 30 from us, about 40 miles. You pass through it if you're headed to Astoria or are taking the Lewis & Clark Bridge across the Columbia to Longview.
Their police chief, Chief Ralph Painter, was shot and killed last week trying to disarm a violent man in a store. By all accounts he was a good and decent man and well-loved in a small, close-knit town. He had seven children and twelve grandchildren. He was a drummer and long-distance runner. He was thinking about retiring to teach new police cadets.
Law enforcement and emergency services personnel from all over the country and even Canada planned to come to his memorial service. The town quickly realized that there would be far too many people for their little town to accomodate, and the service was moved to the Chiles Center at the University of Portland, just a few miles from our house here in North Portland.
The processional included hundreds of police cars and motorcycles, fire trucks, and ambulances. Our postman came up the steps as I was on the porch and we watched together in silence. He wondered quietly if every police car and fire truck in the state was slowly making its way across the St. Johns Bridge. It sure looked like it.
Mark Twain supposedly said, "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." It's advice I think about often, and try to remember when I get caught up in my own pettiness. I fail more often than I succeed, but it's still advice I think is worth heeding. It seems Chief Ralph Painter thought so, too.