The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1911-06-22
VALLEY DELIGHTS
THOS. W. LAWSON
BUILD FOR ALL TINE IS HIS ADVICE
God Has Loaded Hood River with the
Best Of His Plenty, Says the
Noted BOStOnian.
By THOMAS W. LAWSON.

What do | think of Hood River?
That's the same question they asked
me the other day about Portland, and
my answer is the same-the most ideal
spot have ever seen. When | gave
the Oregonan my impression of Port
land had been but a week in your
marvellous state. Since then / have
spent ten days active days, in Hood
River Valley. After a busy business
man, and one who students two-legged
men, three-eyed women and things,
and critters and flowers. has hobby
horsed the world for brain grub for
almost half a century, he habits him
self to the quick sponging of the past,
present, and future of each locality
he lights on. Ten days in new spot
means to him a finished course in the
study he has laid out for himself.
There are two defects in the study
most men-busy men-make of the
away-froni-h0me community. They are
biased when they start out-they start
out wrong. Their bias skewgees their
vision at the beginning of their inves-
tigation and their wrong start consists
of hooking elbows with the biased men
of the community they are studying.
Both are natural as we'll as common
defects. | happen to be without either
in my look-over of Hood River Valley.
A mana busy man, invades "A new
community either for the purpose of
proving the soundness of his precon-
ceived good idea of it, or for the pur-
pose of busting that idea. In other
words the reason for a mana busy
man, being in new community for
investigation is self interest, and he
naturally lands right off the reel in the
arms of those motived by self interest
in the arms either of the booster or
the knocker The ldegreed student of
things Worldwide in time habits him
self to doing new community in his
own way, the way experience has
taught him is the only way to get at
the everyday -in-the-year local condi-
tiOn.
When | landed in Hood River your
good towns people-your Commercial
Club, your bankers, your merchants
and your ranchers pounced on me with
heaped basket OF tnat upen-handed,
open-hearted courtesy winch is fast
making them famous outside Oregon,
and beyond the West and even Amer
lea; banquet, a smoke-talk, an end
less chain of aulomobrie excursions.
ETC., etc., but |, like the selfish brute
am, sneaked them all aud Just poked
out by myself. | know how it is with
myself when ] am nome and not a
stranger. | just like to show off all
our home beauties. never take him
through the back door and by the way
of the kitchen to the best room-no,
guess not, it might be wash day, or
corned and-cabbage day. and who
wants to show off cabbage-aromaed
wash suds, and yet how essential it is
to the stranger on getting the-real-
conditions of -the-country bent to actu-
ally know whether the natives fad is
soft soap or Paris eau de vioete:
whether the fashion is cabbage IN
Erin-fumed Draw or liac-hued cold
slaw. Human natures the same the
world. over. and Hood River is no ex-
ception-visitors are welcomed to Hood
River with the Wecomer's best bib
and tucker, so just poked by myself
for ten days in an effort to find out in
my own way if all these maryels of
nature and people and conditions
social and dollarwise-were real, and
well, Hood River like her big city
brother, Portland, is in a class all by
herself If had seen what | had seen
during the last ten days, and | were
under, forty with my future in my hat,
never mind whether | were poor, or
we'll to do, | would vote myself a
chuckle- headed chump unless planted
that future in the wonderful soil, ex-
quisite climate, most God like scenery,
and superb social conditions which
| have found at Hood River during my
| ten days poke-abou Indeed it made
me sad to think of what had lost by
spending my life back there in the
East and | just love the East at that,
and Boston well, | worship her every
crooked street, quaint lane. and moss
covered tradition and habit.
Take my word for it-I mean my
word as an expert in such matters in
the coming decade red-booded man
will be able to garner more of that
sort by all combination Health,
Wealth, and Happiness, in this Oregon
paradise, than IN any other spot on
earth that | know Of, and in saying
this have in mind the tremendousness
of the say. In my travels | have been
asked time and again to lend my voice
or pen to the booming of this, that or
the other locality, but have always
answered, "My conscience would twang
at putting any place on earth ahead of
grand old Boston" but at last | am
compelled to doif my bonnet to your
wondrous advantages.
No, there is not an atom of bias or
selishness behind this boost, for all
my home and business and Investment
interests are in other parts of the
world, and have not as yet--a dollar
investment in Oregon. My statement
is merely my simple tribute to truth
my simple tribute to the remarkable
conditions | have actually seen and
| felt, and personally known. In my ten
days have critically looked over your
people, cautiously pinched their earn
estness, prodded their ambition, anal
yzed their enthusiasm, and plumbed
| their faith; | have tramped the or
chards of the West Side and the East
Side, paved over the soil of the Lower
| Valley and the Upper, | have climbed
your mountains, and fished your rivers,
have butted-in at the children's pic
MICS, and the Indians pow-wow, and
but what's the use, can only repeat
it is superb. grand, glorious your
future as | see it, and see it plainly.
Do intend to invest-That's hardly
fair question, for they tell me that the
produce of the crossing of bee hive
with cyclone is not deuce high to
your real estate man once he hits the
trail, and have a supsicion that some
of these centipedian dollar chasers
have spotted me in my hutterings round
one or two particularly juicy looking
orchards.
Now that have anwsered all your
questions and as | may lug away few
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