Our campaign is rocking and rolling. The past few days, when the temperatures soared over 100 degrees, I wondered if any staff or volunteers would suggest reducing our schedule of events and activities. Far from that, our team managed the busiest weekend of the summer almost flawlessly.

Here we are at the Multnomah Days parade in SW Portland on Saturday:

Photograph by Robert Wilson
(who showed up to help despite working graveyard shift currently)

That's Stuart Fishman of the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555 carrying the banner. It was good to have two representatives of Local 555 sporting union colors in our group at that event. Members of Communications Workers of America Local 7901 helped out at the Hawthorne Street Fair, where Super-Volunteer Richard Ross captained our team. One of the great things about Public Campaign Financing is that unions and other endorsing groups such as OLCV can't give checks to support candidates - their members, like everyone else, can help "only" by showing up and talking with their co-workers, friends, and neighbors. Democracy in Action.

Parade-watchers in Multnomah Village gave us a delightful reception. Cheers, applause, shouts of encouragement - although I must report that some of those were for my young supporters who amazingly were out of bed at 10 a.m. to help. Carter Crail of Markham Elementary rode his bike, and Wilson High School graduates Colin Corbett (seen walking behind me in the photograph) and my son Luke who drove the Zebra Car, received lots of yelled good wishes. It was especially fun for me to reconnect along the parade route with SW neighbors I haven't seen in a while. One of those was Inge Stupak, a teacher at the excellent Little Lambs Preschool at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in SW Portland - now, and when my children were enrolled there 18 years ago. She found me after the parade and said, "We were wondering, is that OUR Amanda Fritz who is running for City Council? Yes it is!" It's been totally wonderful in this campaign, finding out how many people and groups all over Portland think of me as "Our Amanda Fritz".

After the Multnomah Days parade (the shortest of the summer), my team manned the information table in the village, while I drove the Zebra Car over to Raymond Park in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood in outer Southeast Portland for their community event, with lots of interesting booths alongside ours. I was given an impromptu briefing on neighborhood issues by a Neighborhood Association leader, including strolling up to SE 122nd - again with no regard for the heat.

From Powellhurst-Gilbert, I went to the Woodstock Neighborhood Association picnic at Woodstock Park. We couldn't have a table there unless both candidates participated, so I went by myself and my friend Terry Griffiths took a break from her pottery sales to introduce me to her neighbors.

Following that, I spent a couple of hours walking up and down Hawthorne, meeting interesting and delightful folks. One couple hailed me with "We saw you this morning in Multnomah!", proving that people other than candidates don't let the weather slow us down in Portland. That was the case at my next stop, a block party in Overlook (North Portland) where Steve and Nancy Rawley welcomed me with a tall cup of refreshing lemonade. The final two events of the day were in the relative cool of the evening- two parties in the Arnold Creek neighborhood in SW. Those brought the day full circle both geographically and in context, as both hosts are parents whose children (now grown) were at Jackson Middle School and/or Wilson High School with my sons.

On Sunday, we had a minor organizing glitch in that I was so engrossed in talking with neighbors at our booth in Lents Park, I almost missed the parade at Lents Founder's Day. We scampered and walked the last half turn, making that the Fastest Parade of the summer for our marchers. I didn't catch the name of the volunteer who delivered watermelon to our table afterward, seeing that I was too busy to come over to get it myself. Absolutely delicious - thank you for your kindness. That watermelon kept me going as I stopped by Oaks Park in Sellwood on my way home to change for work, and then put in my regular shift at OHSU. Where it was air-conditioned, and I got to wear nurse-shoes instead of candidate-shoes - yay!

A special thank you to volunteers Robin Denburg and Bob Fambro, who on Thursday and Friday evenings knocked on doors with me in high-90s heat in Concordia (Northeast Portland) and St. Johns (North Portland), respectively. And thank you to all the neighbors who opened your doors those evenings, and appreciated our efforts to bring the campaign to homes even in the hot weather. If I am elected, I will be out in neighborhoods citywide next summer, too - regardless of the temperatures.