One should probably begin a memoir about growing up in Oregon City in the 70s and early 80s with something about the paper mill because Oregon City was a paper mill town first and foremost. You could smell it in the air, see it in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It stood on our side, the better east\nside of the Willamette River, and was the largest employer in town:\nthree shifts and the shift whistles that could be heard up on the\nbluff and beyond, all the way to my home. The mill employed union\nmen, fathers of some of the boys I played with and the girls who were\nmy first crushes. Back then, some graduates from Oregon City High\nSchool worked at the mill in the summers to pay for college tuition.\nThis included females. They drank beer and smoked cigarettes with\nunion men, some of whom were their fathers. The mill closed down in\n2011 after something like 175 years in continuous operation as a\ntimber-related enterprise. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for what will become of the old mill\nsite, I can only hope they leave behind a little of the metal and\nmachinery and let us get up close and feel the spray from the falls,\nhear its roar. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of the\nfalls, there was that time in my youth when a houseboat plunged over\nit, broke apart, and a team rescued a naked man and woman who somehow\nsurvived and perhaps later told the most incredible drunken,\nlove-making tale of all time, but one that never made it into print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nAnd something else about the falls, on the bluffs above, on the\nOregon City side: Oregon held its last public execution, a hanging,\nin surely what must have been the most picturesque setting for\ncapital punishment in American history. That the last thing a dying\nman heard was the falls must have provided some comfort. Today, a\nplaque commemorates the site and is one of my favorite destinations\nwhenever I return to town. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIf you really think about it, and know the history of Oregon City, it\nshould have ended up as a major city of the West. It started out as\nthe capital of the Oregon Territory and charted San Francisco. But\nthings didn’t work out. Or maybe they did and that’s why I am writing\nabout Oregon City now. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Near the mill, there were men catching\nsalmon and sturgeon from downtown sidewalks. A couple of fishing\nworld records were recorded from those sidewalks. I always marveled\nat watching men and women and boys and girls casting into the river\nor reeling up the line, as I drove by in the various Volkswagens of\nmy youth. I only wish someone had taken me there and taught me to\nfish. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was absolutely no consciousness\nin any of us growing up in Oregon City that wild salmon were going\nextinct in the Willamette River Watershed. We weren’t even vaguely\naware that the river had recently been somewhat cleaned up by an\ninitiative championed by Governor Tom McCall. Not a single Oregon\nCity teacher ever taught me anything about the Willamette River or\nsalmon. Not a single field trip to any of Oregon City’s rivers. We\ncould have walked to them from the high school and rode the\nhistorical municipal Elevator in the pursuit of learning history! We\nwould have walked right past the John McLoughlin House, which all of\nus had already visited in elementary. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I might also add that in all my years\nof attending public schools in Oregon City, I never learned a single\nthing about the Native Americans who inhabited the area before the\narrival of the pioneers, and who, of course, disappeared through\nmurder, disease, drink and treaty swindling. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But suppose teachers back then taught\nme about degraded watersheds, wild salmon and local genocide. Would I\nhave been really interested or even cared? I wonder. I have my\ndoubts. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From my senior year journal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
9-9-81<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a new breed\nof American teenagers. Out is the disco-fried half-hearted student of\nthe middle to late 70\u2019s. In is the mass media developed clone who\nis oblivious to the meaning of independent thought and concern for\nthe future. Just to sit among them is to wonder what type of older\ngeneration they will breed. Uneducated and uncaring of today\u2019s\nsociety ills. What caused this degeneration of the American youth?\nStudents a decade ago, no matter what their methods of proving it,\ncared. Maybe it was not for the overall good, yet it showed an\nawareness that earned respect. Now everybody is contented, or so\neverybody says. I just don\u2019t know. Nobody really cares about our\nworld. Only their social rank and if they have enough clothes to\nwear. It\u2019s sad. And it\u2019s probably going to get worse. Today\u2019s\nteenager is nothing more than just that, a teenager.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One should probably begin a memoir about growing up in Oregon City in the 70s and early 80s with something about the paper mill because Oregon City was a paper mill town first and foremost. You could smell it in the air, see it in the sky. It stood on our side, the better east […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,74,942],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-coast_history","category-oregon-city","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5857,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855\/revisions\/5857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}