Whites Only: Race in Oregon
There are whiter states in America, but when Oregon entered the Union in 1859, it did so as a “whites-only” state, the only free state to do so. One hundred and fifty years later, Portland is the whitest big city in America, with a population that is 72.2 percent white—almost ten percentage points above the national rate of 62.6 percent—and only 6.3 percent African American. In Ashland where I live, 322 residents identified as African-American out of a population of 20,733 in 2017. This week, I dug into Oregon’s unquiet history with race, a counter narrative to its image as a redoubt of crunchy, progressive, west coast liberalism. Here is some of what I’ve learned. . . .
Highway 395: A Road Less Travelled
Three weeks ago, Tony and I drove from Southern Oregon to Los Angeles to meet, at last, our newest grandson, born three months ago. Air travel, in these days of pandemic, was not in the cards. We followed Interstate-5 down to LA, the fastest and straightest shot from Southern Oregon to Southern California—the west coast version of I-95 in the east. As anyone who drives routes knows, tractor trailer trucks spill across the lanes. Our trip back to Oregon followed a far different route: the two-lane 395 along the east side of the Sierras. It may be my favorite stretch of road in the country, unusual and spectacular in unexpected ways. Indeed, John Muir’s footprints and name permeate the wilderness on US 395’s path through California. He had the right idea. “Keep close to Nature’s heart,” Muir wrote in 1915, “and break away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” . . .
Wild Swimming
On the same day that the US coronavirus death toll hit 100,000, I watched a mother duck with her ducklings and a group of swimmers in wetsuits share the early morning water at Emigrant Lake, five miles southeast of Ashland. The dis-ease that greets me each morning now gave way to the coo of mourning doves, the warm conversations of the swimmers, and the staggering sunlight. I’d come to the lake at the invitation of a neighbor, a 73-year-old master swimmer who belongs to a community of athletes, Rogue Valley Masters, for whom the fitness and camaraderie of swimming means the world. When COVID closed the town pool, the group headed to the 1.2 square mile Emigrant Lake for their sunrise workouts, arriving before the boaters broke the calm. . . .
On My Mind: From Dystopia to Hope
When my older son, Carl, was eight, he drew a picture of his brain, divided it into regions, then labelled them (“what’s on my mind”)—starting with the Red Sox, followed by geography, and ending with school. There were eleven sections in all. I pinned his diagram to my bulletin board at work. It always made me smile. A scan of my own brain, in this summer of discontent, leaves no smiles. As Wordsworth put it mildly, “The world is too much with us.” You won’t find the Red Sox or a list of state capitols occupying too much real estate in my brain, but you will find regions like these. . . .
Voting Re-imagined: Oregon Shows the Way
As interest over voting by mail skyrockets, Oregon’s vote-by-mail system has attracted national attention. 60 Minutes is the latest media outlet to showcase how Oregon has embraced voting by mail since 2000, when it became the first state in the country to end in-person voting. Mail voting for local elections had been the state custom since 1981. In the 60 Minutes’ interview, correspondent Bill Whitaker asked Oregon Secretary of State Beverly Clarno—a lifelong Republican—about Oregon’s experiences with voting by mail. (Colorado, Hawaii, Utah and Washington are the only other states where mail voting is the law.) “President Trump has attacked vote-by-mail,” Whitaker says to Clarno. “He’s called it dangerous. He says it’s the subject to massive fraud. What do you think when you hear that?”Clarno responds, “Try it, you might like it.” . . .
God’s Country
Last week, Tony and made a return visit to Harney County, a rural county in southeastern Oregon, a five-hour trip from Ashland. We’d driven there in June 2019, hoping to hike the remote Steens Mountain, which stretches for 50 miles across the high desert, and to watch migrating birds in the nearby Malheur Wildlife Refuge, better known as the site of the Malheur occupation led by Ammon Bundy in 2016. On that trip, snow still blocked the road up Steens and mosquitoes claimed the refuge. Early this October, the trail seemed clear although the wildfire smoke that cloaked the Rogue Valley touched here, too. At 10,226 square miles, Harney County is the largest in Oregon, larger in area than six U.S. states. It is also the most sparsely populated county (7,329 people) in Oregon, with a population density of 0.27 people per square mile. The high desert has an effect on people, those who live here say. It has a way of swallowing you up. . . .
Magic Mushrooms on the Oregon Ballot
Here in Oregon, the tug of war between “progressives” and “patriots,” that sometimes plays out on the streets, shows up at the bottom of the election ballot, too. In 2018, it was the Militia Men that claimed a spot. This year, it’s the psychotherapists. Measure 109 would set up a state-licensed psilocybin-assisted therapy system—psilocybin is the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms. The push is not entirely from left field. Science (for those who believe in it) appears to be on the measure’s side. Over the past decade, research at several prominent universities has shown psychedelics may be a better way of helping people with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD. Doctors treating terminally ill patients are finding that psilocybin can offer a new way of coming to terms with death. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted “breakthrough therapy” designation for psilocybin. . . .
Farm to Families in Southern Oregon
At eleven o’clock on a bright June day, as the sun warms the morning chill across Rogue Valley, cars packed with families line up at Jewett Elementary School in Central Point. One by one, they drive up to the school entrance where the school’s nutrition staff and volunteers pass out boxes filled with a day’s worth of food — a mix of pizza, sandwiches, and staples. Today there’s something extra, a box filled with fresh vegetables and fruits from local farms. By one o’clock, when the drive-thru food pick-up closes for the day, up to 1,000 families will have come and gone at Jewett and seven other schools in Central Point. “We always have food available, we never turn anyone away,” says Anne Leavens, school nutrition supervisor for the district. These siblings, and millions of children like them across America, belong to a largely invisible group, what the United States Department of Agriculture calls “food insecure”— “a condition,” according to the FDA, “in which households lack access to adequate food because of limited money or other resources.” . . .
The Hidden Life of Trees
How many trees can you name? Which trees are most common where you live? Do you ever stop to look at the trees that provide you oxygen every day? Botanists have a word for this: tree blindness. There are times, to be sure, when trees catch our eye and steal our breath — with their brilliant leaves in autumn, their fragrant blossoms in spring, their bows weighted with snow in winter. Trees can be destinations in themselves, too. My nearby favorites include Sequoia National Park with its General Sherman Tree, the largest tree by volume on earth, and Mojave Desert’s Joshua Tree National Parkwith its small, twisted bristle pines. Some of us are lucky enough to have an extraordinary tree grace our daily route, like the Atlas Cedar I pass on my morning coffee run, its branches spreading 60 feet wide, matching its height. Still, by and large, few of us can speak knowledgeably about trees. A friend puts it this way: “Folks tend to know a heckuva lot more about dogs and their breeds than the many-limbed creatures dogs use for a toilet.” . . .