Musings of an Oregon Girl

I was born in Eugene, Oregon and raised most of my childhood in the country town of Crow, Oregon. But, between the ages of five and ten years of age, I lived in a cozy housing tract in Springfield, just outside of Eugene. There, I learned the important milestones in life, like how to ride a bike, blow bubbles with juicy fruit gum, climb trees and play endless games of “Kick the Can”, and “Red-Rover.” Interestingly, it is in this very neighborhood that I find myself once more being tethered.

Last fall, my already frail father suffered and survived a burst appendix. We didn’t think he was going to make it and in fact, he was on hospice for six months until he was unceremoniously dropped from it because he just kept on keeping on. Although my dad is frailer than he was a year ago, his strong logger’s heart has served him well and his wit is a life force of its own.

The nursing home where he now resides is just a couple of miles away from our old neighborhood, and even more special, when I visit my dad I stay nearby at the home of my high school English teacher who, along with his wife, have been my friends for…well, let’s just say, “What are a few decades between friends?” In fact, my friends actually live next to the elementary school where I learned letters formed words, and words helped you learn about the adventures of Dick, Jane, and Sally.

In short, my life is coming full circle. But within that circle are concentric rings that bump into each other, providing me with memories spanning from childhood, my high school years with my teacher, and as dad and I wave from the sidewalk of his nursing home to the crowds of Oregon Duck fans going to the next game, some of my college years.

Recently I walked to my childhood home from my friends’ house and stood in front of it, remembering. I remember sitting on the planter near the front door and laboring with my signature fevered tenacity how to tie my shoes. I remember how a large tree, which used to stand in the front yard, was pushed over by the relentless dark angry winds of the Columbus Day storm. In addition, how I thought “Columbus Day” was what everyone named that storm, and didn’t really quite get it that there was this guy named Christopher who actually took credit for discovering America, or something, on that day.

It is in the back yard of this home where I saw my first bearded iris and fell in love with its sweet delicately curled purple petals and pollen-filled fur trim. We had a huge fragrant lilac that my five siblings and I would pick bouquets of for our mom each May Day. We would jam their top-heavy blooms into our flimsy paper cones, knock on the door, and run away as she tried to find us to give us kisses.

We lived across from a filbert orchard and in early fall we would line filberts across the road and hide in the trees and holler and whoop as cars would drive over them, hoping fiendishly that the drivers would worry they had just driven over young fragile children’s’ bones.

I remember one neighbor had a paper birch tree with its white peeling bark and strikingly contrasted toothed green leaves. I found it so fascinating I was often reprimanded for taking “samples” of its bark for my nature collection. Our own back yard had two very large black walnut trees that in the fall would rain down awful green and black slimy round pods onto the soggy leaf covered back yard. These pods held walnuts in them that my grandmother would drive from her home in the country to help us pick-up. My parents would bring them to a place to have them cleaned and dried and when they came back, they were a handsome honey brown with hard deeply grooved shells. My mom and grandmother baked all year with the meats from those walnuts and I was incredulous that something that started out so ugly could end up tasting so good.

I’m thankful for the richness of memories. Sometimes they are just a vignette, sometimes an emotion, and sometimes if handled carefully they are a story, strung together with images, voices, and lessons learned. They are the “who we are” through the “who we were” parts of us. I am an Oregon girl. Go Ducks!