Margaret and I live in the Hawthorne District in Portland. My dad calls it "Hippie Town." It's a pretty bohemian part of town and it fits us really well. When we first moved into the area, there was a Hare Krishna temple near us and we would always see orange-clad, shaved headed youths with bongos and pamphlets. Not long after we moved in, my family was visiting from Idaho and one morning Margaret, my brother Jayson, and I went down to Noah's Bagels for breakfast. Sitting in the shop, all of a sudden we heard shouting, clapping, and honking, and when we looked out the window, the street was filled with STREAKERS! There was probably about 50 of them, of various ages--I even remember a little kid maybe 6 years old holding hands with his mom on one side and his dad on the other. The only thing they had on was running shoes and hearts and flowers painted on their bodies. I remember Jayson saying, "This would NEVER happen in Idaho." (I'm assuming that's because it's so cold in Idaho that they wouldn't get any male runners, but that's just a theory.) The runners ran down the road, with a city bus right behind them, since it couldn't pass the throng. The run ended a block down from Noah's, and from there, the runners just dispersed. That was the more surreal part of the morning--walking home from breakfast, every block we looked up had a naked person or two casually walking to their own home. It's one thing to see a group streaking, but it's another thing entirely to see a person strolling through a residential neighborhood naked. It was then that we knew that Hawthorne was the right neighborhood for us. Unfortunately the details of the annual "Freedom Run," which we later found out takes place every April 1st, are closely guarded--because if the authorities knew about it in advance, they would stop it. I guess we'll have to wait until we see the next one, and then strip down right there and join in--and hope we can find our clothes when the race is over (and I also would hope that it is a particularly warm April 1st!).