Support what you love

Our disappearing heritage  

I was shocked to read that the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden in Los Angeles, California, was to be sold by UCLA.  Can you imagine this happening to the Portland Japanese Garden?  

A group of individuals and local and national

organizations stepped in to try to save the garden and the sale was halted in 2011.  The garden has been closed and not maintained since then, but a recent court action resulted in a settlement to take the property off the market and create to plan for its future. Read about it on the HCJG website (link above.).

In Lake Oswego, we have historic homes, properties and neighborhoods that are continually threatened and in need of preservation, maintenance and care.  To preserve the physical elements of our cultural and historic built environment, it takes 1) people who care, and 2) money.

My personal interests are architecture (especially mid century), gardens and natural areas.  And of course, local politics.

My list, and yours too, could go on forever.  The point of this post is to remind us all that if we want the things we love to exist in the future, we need to take care of them today.  If the cultural resources of our city, state, country and neighborhoods disappear, how do we define ourselves as individuals and as a people?  If we lose our uniqueness and historical touchstones, how do we grow an attachment to the place we call home?  Change is a given, destruction is not.