Ah, yes. The sternwheeler *Portland*. A vessel, you see, born on the unforgiving waters of the Willamette River. Built in 1947, a time before the screens devoured our souls, a time when such a boat was not merely an artifact, but a living, breathing component of the working world. It was a tugboat, yes, but more than that. It was the last operating sternwheel tug in the United States. Think of the sweat, the toil, the relentless hum of its engines pushing against the currents, against the very indifference of nature itself. Forty-three years it served, guiding ships through the liquid arteries of the Pacific Northwest, a silent testament to the human struggle against the colossal indifference of existence.
Observe its form. The towering smokestack, a black monolith reaching towards the blue, indifferent sky. The layers of decks, like a tiered wedding cake for the lost and the longing. And that name, "Portland," emblazoned on its wheelhouse — a simple declaration, yet it speaks of a city born of trees and rivers, a city eternally entangled with the water that sustains and threatens it. Now, it rests, a museum piece, moored, its true purpose evaporated by the passage of time. A hulk of steel and wood, a skeleton of its former self, yet still possessing a quiet dignity. It embodies the relentless flow of history, the way progress, like the river, carries all things eventually to the shore of oblivion. A strange, melancholic beauty, is it not?