Resolutions of the Seventy-Ninth Annual Meeting Portland, Oregon

Whereas, the Geography Department at Portland State University has hosted this seventy-ninth meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers with great aplomb, finesse, and savoir faire, and

Whereas, we have all received the rewards of their considerable abilities at organization that have resulted in a most rewarding program, and

Whereas we accord recognition to a vast array of coordinators, field-trip leaders, and volunteers, we render special acknowledgement of service to meeting honchos, Hunter Shobe and David Banis, and to field-trip chief, Barbara Brower, and

Whereas, nonetheless, your ever-vigilant Resolutions Committee has had forwarded to our control center from our extensive network of vigilators, a number of observances of acts and doings that need be brought to the attention of the APCG general population, to wit, and

Whereas, the Committee notes a particular particularity that when we met at Long Beach a few years ago, the local folks made extra effort to convince us that this huge concrete culvert was really the Los Angeles River, yet here in Portland we have a real river and no one mentions it, and

Whereas, Portland has offered special challenges to even educated geographers with its changing grid systems, multiple rail systems, secret location for the Women’s Network luncheon, and ability of even native PSU guides to get lost, and

Whereas, apparently nearly sixty-three percent of the Portland population has decided to open a restaurant of minimalist proportions, with a given side of the average parking lot offering roughly eighty-seven different ethnic operations, but only people with exceedingly long arms are able to use them because the order takers are all standing ten feet off the ground, and

Whereas, this committee feels somewhat abused in that the greatest fodder for “whereases” generally comes from field-trip events, yet we have been asked to report to you this year in a pre-field-trip time slot, robbing field-trip people of the special recognition that only we can offer, and

Whereas, some of this afternoon’s sessions have still not ended because the program stated “Friday Paper Sessions F—1:00 a.m. to 2:40 a.m., and

Whereas, Alec Murphy offered concerns about where goeth something called “Central Asia,” the committee suggests renaming this area of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and potentially, Afghanistan and Pakistan, simply “STANLANDIA,” no directional relations needed, and

Whereas, Professor Murphy in his presentation set a new international record in using the work “trope” forty-six times in one twenty-minute presentation, and

Whereas, Bob Richardson commented, after someone closed the door at the Business Meeting because of outside noise, “You don’t know noise until you’ve been to a Women’s Network Luncheon,” resulting in his permanent ban from future WNL gatherings, and

Whereas, the esteemed Professor Stuart Aitken of San Diego State University also set a record for number of mentions of oneself for one session in the printed program, appearing as Organizer: Stuart Aitken, Chair: Stuart Aitken, Co-presenter: Stuart Aitken, and finally, and surprisingly, Presenter: Stuart Aitken, and

Whereas, Cal State Fullerton’s Zia Salim presented his audience with what one can only call a “New Age” graph that, on a blank space, had three widely spaced numbers and nothing else—no line, no shading—and said “well, imagine if there were a line here” and then had the unbelievable temerity to directly threaten your Resolutions Chair with the warning, and I quote, “Crowley, this better not appear in the Resolutions Report,” which of course, guaranteed that it would, and

Whereas, co-authorship has now reached unheard-of geographic and numerical extremes, with a paper on the Yellowstone River Basin including folks from Eastern Washington, Saint Louis University, Montana State, and Rocky Mountain College, only to be trumped (and I use that word with great caution) by a world-record combo reporting on wildfire activity in southern South America that included folks from Portland State; University of Colorado; Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Argentina; the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina...