The West Coast connection

I was inspired to search out a team with whom I could practice while in Portland next week. (I'll be joining the Wicked Paddlers Club on Tuesday night). Imagine my surprise when this post appeared on the blog for the American Association of Law Librarians (AALL) conference, July 12-15:

Portland culture - dragon boats
July 10th, 2008 by Laurie Daley ·

When you come into the Oregon Convention Center and get close to
the registration booth, you may notice a large, colorful boat hanging from the
ceiling. This is a dragon boat, and it is part of a group of boats
Portland received several years ago from its sister city in Taiwan,
Kaohsiung. Portland is the only city in the United States that holds races
with this decorative style of dragon boat; most races use a smaller, faster, and
lighter style of boat. The Portland race is held during Rose
Festival in early June, and has 92 teams with rosters of about 22 people on each
team – 20 paddlers, one caller, and one tiller. Teams are mostly from
Portland, but come from Washington, California, and Canada.

I’ve
paddled for five years on a women’s team, the Oregon Women Lawyers Dragonflies;
and it’s a lot of fun.