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I've lived in Oregon all but one year, when I was in Alaska living in my truck and hiking the backcountry.

Oregon was always logging country until the spotted owl happened in the 80's. My dad retired from the logging industry in '79. Doctors said he had a 20% chance of a fatal heart attack the first year, 40% the next, until at 5 years he would most certainly be dead. 2 packs of Pall Malls for 40 years 'll do that to ya. He set to building a new place and within a year he had mom and I set up on a new spot on an acre in pine country, just in case something happened.

He beat the odds and lived to be 81, 22 years after the diagnosis. He was tough, he was an Oregonian. He split wood with a double-bitted axe. Never used a maul. Showed me how to hit the wood and let the axe tip over to one side to throw the wood apart. Taught me to throw an axe too, and I taught my kids. We hunted blacktail deer as long as I can remember and I still do. The first photo of me on a hunt was when mom tagged a big 4x4, her first and last. I was three. It's been in my blood since birth.

We had to grow a big vegetable garden and orchard with many different kinds of apples and pears to make ends meet. All the neighbors grew enough to share and we helped each other get fish and game too. Oregonians were a self-reliant bunch that stuck together and stuck it out. I count myself among the lucky ones. I didn't waste my life on drugs and booze, didn't go to prison for stealing a neighbors car or breaking into their shed looking for gas. As young as I could I worked, bucking hay or repairing neighborhood kids bikes, picking beans, paying my way into more fishing tackle any way I could so I could chase those rainbow trout in Mosby Creek. Most people thought Mosby Creek was just full of chms and suckers, but if you knew where to look, there were trout. I'd ride my bike 20 miles if I thought there was a shallow riffle that might hold a fish. Good times to be a kid.

Sometime in my 53 years everything changed, with the people, in Oregon. Now we have queers and skinny jeans. Meth addicts and legalized dope. Back in the day we carried jackpine clubs in the truck in case "hippies" decided to give us trouble out in the woods. Everyone had a 30/30 in the back window of the truck. Lots of jacklighting happened, no one really cared, folks needed meat and did what they had to to get it. Oregon always had a tough crowd. Mom played volleyball and some of those teams from up in the hills were some rough old broads. Loggers wives, she was too, but mom was a gentle soul. Loved the Lord and loved people. Never quit praying for my dads salvation, which, after 49 years, she got her wish.

Dad was exceptional in one way, he wasn't a drinker. If he had one Budweiser a year it was a celebration. He might have one sit in the fridge for a year or two, then one day, it was time. It was a good day when dad popped a Bud. Most of the loggers were heavy drinkers.

Mostly, we spent our off time working the garden or canning what we could for winter. Oregon was a great place to be, a kid could do it all.


Now we got skinny jean transplants and carpet munchers from California.