pioneerpridecover

April 7, 2020

Pioneer Pride: Part 25-The End

From my senior year journal:

6-5-82

I won the $300 Ron Hite Memorial Scholarship today and it was a complete shock to me. I know the award had existed but I never applied for it so there was never any anticipation in me when it was announced. The shock and disbelief in me were acute. Then, as I was walking up, it occurred to me that I was damn lucky to get it considering some of the shit I’ve pulled in this school. I gained a new respect for teachers because some of them were willing to forget personalities and stress academics.

Ms. Lechner did not seem particularly overwhelmed at my selection and had kind of a cold staring look but I can forget that now.

Thank you for your support Mr. Winn, without it, I was dead and thank you for two good years. You were the only teacher who really encouraged me to excel. I appreciate it.

Reflections

This is my last journal entry of my high school career and maybe for my life. There is a certain sadness that comes with writing this page because I know that high school is over and I can never relive these days again. High school wasn’t really all that bad; I just tried to convince myself of that. There were times when I could of blown it up but all in all, it was a good atmosphere and excellent place to really start my life.

I’ve made so many dumb mistakes but there have been some good times also. I expect to read this every once and awhile and what I write next is something that I will read and try to follow for the rest of my life:

Be kind, speak no evil of others, think of others and most of all, be thankful for what you have.

The end of part 1 of my life.

Not yet, I’m looking around and I see people I will never see again and that is strange to me.

I feel it is important for me to remain in contact with people. Especially you Mr. Winn. I want to wish you a happy life and a rewarding career always try to be there for high school students who just don’t fit in all the time.

Goodbye Oregon City High School, it has been… interesting. Remember, I will be back, rather it be a movie or a book, I will finish one of the two. I have stories to tell, injustices to expose.

I will return.

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The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

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Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

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In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.