what is the american west?

i ask this question in all seriousness. what is the american west? what does it mean to you? what images arise in your mind when you think of the west? because if i think that the west matters - and i do - i've got to figure out what it is.

at first, it was the area of the louisiana purchase, and everything even further west - which was all occupied by other countries anyway. it's hard to imagine arkansas, parts of minnesota, and new orleans being in the west, but those areas were all acquired in the purchase. so perhaps part of the problem in defining the west has been that it is, in some sense, a relative measure - in part, it is simply the western portion of the united states, however the united states happens to be defined at that moment. this purely geographic definition is - or was - a shifting target. now, the U.S. census bureau defines the west as the 13 state region encompassing alaska and hawaii, oregon, washington, california, idaho, montana, nevada, arizona and new mexico, utah, wyoming, and colorado.

ecologically, there is a basis for considering it as all the land west of the 98th or 100th meridian. this meridian, which runs through the middle of the united states - generally marking the eastern boundary of the dakotas, and running near the eastern edge of nebraska, kansas, oklahoma, and the middle of texas - basically separates the arid from the non-arid; as the approximate line of 20 annual inches of rainfall, it marks a line of irrigation. it is where the dry summers of the west give way to the humid, wet summers of the midwest and east, where summer moisture can be enough to grow crops. it's true that you could define much of the west as this very characteristic - aridity. as wallace stegner said, 'you have to get over the color green'. it is the land of irrigation, of reclamation, of reservoirs and dry heat. even if the aridity definition excludes the verdant pacific northwest (and alaska and hawaii), the pacific northwest can tag along under the umbrella of limited summer moisture and low summer humidity. and, certainly the struggle for water has shaped much of our recent regional history. by including western oklahoma and texas in the definition, we bring into the fold two states with significant minority populations or histories. 

certainly part of the definition of the west is cultural. the west include states with large portions of minorities and the four states with no one majority race or ethnicity (texas, new mexico, california, and hawaii), and this diversity has shaped our common experience.

frederick turner, in 1893, considered the west equivalent to that area that was 'frontier' or very sparsely settled (under 2 persons per square mile), and he bemoaned the end of it. his pessimistic view didn't hold true, though -  although the overall population of the west has grown consistently over the last hundred-plus years, it hasn't been equally dispersed. there are still many places that are 'frontier' in terms of settlement. and the west encompasses major metro areas like los angeles and phoenix and seattle. so it's not just about rural, scattered population, although that is part of it, as is our shared, frontier heritage. in fact many of the connotations of the West are those relating to the Old West, to the glory days of outlaws, cowboys, immigrants, and wilderness. we also all share an exploitative past. western economies have long been focused on utilization of raw natural resources - whether soil, trees, or rangelands - for eastern capital concerns. all western states share a correspondingly heavy proportion of land federally owned. but are these shared experiences and characteristics enough to give a cultural definition to the west as a region separate from the rest of the u.s.?

these aren't all rhetorical questions. i really feel like the west is different, is unique, but why? it's the most diverse region of the united states. shouldn't that work against a common identity? we have the lowest rainfall and the highest rainfall, the lowest point and the highest point. the most diverse climates and ecosystems, from all of our deserts to our temperate rainforests. diverse populations. very different current cultures - from the liberal left coast to the libertarian intermountain west to the increasingly nativist arizona. so why do i identify so clearly as a westerner, and why do i feel a kinship with others who are from the west, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of background, regardless of occupation?

when i think of the west, i think of several key characteristics: immense, superlative vegetation (redwoods, sequoias, saguaros, douglas-fir). magical and unique land forms (canyons and hoodoos and monument valley). native cultures both living and ancient. iconic places like the grand canyon. small, resource dependent towns and economies; loggers, miners, cowboys. mountains, volcanoes, and geology for the layman to see and understand. the hopeful destinations of millions of immigrants, both foreign and domestic, and the repository of the constant american searching for a better life, just around the corner. wide open spaces, wilderness, parks and natural places - all of which is a function of that public, government-owned land. thank god for our public lands! trust me, i have seen hell (the private-ownership mecca of maine, for example) and it's not a pretty sight.

maybe i haven't figured out exactly what the west is, but i do have my own designation of what states comprise the west. it's oregon, washington, idaho, montana, wyoming, nevada, california, arizona, new mexico, and just western texas. alaska and hawaii are too different in every way to be part of the shared west - although i'm glad they are part of the u.s. i gladly grab western texas, even though - as a state - texas is a big pain in the ass, and i'd never take eastern texas, with their SUV driving oil-drilling mavens and executives and revisionist textbooks. but western texas is as independent and idiosyncratic as the best of the rest of the west. plus, we've got to have big bend, one of the most beautiful places in the united states.

and colorado? why exclude colorado? don't even get me started on colorado. they have eastern butter, for pete's sake. you think i'm joking? i'm not. i have absolutely no basis for excluding them so summarily, but i do. because i'm a goddamn westerner, and have little use for top-down rules and designations.

i am serious, though. i'm curious what anyone reading this thinks the west is. write it in a comment, or if it's too long, send me an email.

map of federal land ownership from an article by David Kennedy. for his (much better) overview of the west, see http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2008/mayjun/features/west.html

looking up

as in, i was looking up today, in the hopes that things would follow suit.

sometimes i have a hard time remembering the beauty around me, and i find that a camera literally helps me focus my thoughts.

such was the day today. and who can resist the look of fresh maple keys?

of newly-grown dawn redwood needles?

of wild ginger, peeking out?

of the tropical look of about-to-burst azaleas?

and of cherry blossoms against a springtime oregon blue sky?

if that's not enough to keep me looking up, i don't know what is.

an interlude

i often find myself on the east side of campus, with some awkward amount of time to kill between events over there - say, somewhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours - that is just not enough time to warrant going all the way back to my office on the west side. yesterday was one such day, so i gravitated to where i always gravitate to -  the bookstore.

i love bookstores. when i walk in, a calm and yet excited - or maybe hopeful is a better word - feeling settles over me. calm because i am surrounded by my primary comfort source: books. i know, somewhere, hidden on the shelves, are the books that are most like old friends, that the very title of makes me smile. hopeful because i am reminded, again, that the possibilities for new learning and growth are endless, that there is always so much more knowledge and beautiful prose out there that i haven't read yet, that there's some other new best friend out there, waiting for me. at the OSU bookstore, first comes the entry way displays: staff recommendations, top sellers for indie bookstores, and the bargain table. this always warrants a quick overview. then i head to my favorite aisles in general books. is there a new, absolutely perfect tree or flower identification book out? new hiking guides, travel guides, maps that are calling my name? on to forestry/ecology, then gardening & quilting, then religion, a quick glance at some puzzle or music books, quite a while in history, then literature for the finale. sometimes i'll wander through the kids' section. and, even when not textbook shopping, i always head to the text book section. i always browse the forestry aisle (yep, the book i want is here - silviculture and ecology of western forests - but not a used copy yet; will check back later), but apart from that, i mostly check out what the undergraduate literature courses are reading this year. i check to see that i have a sufficient percentage of them, i look for new and interesting titles, and if there's a classic i need cheap, i'll grab a used copy. this year i'm pleased to see lots of familiar faces - slaughterhouse-five is still on the list, for example - and some impressive new choices - fight club, for example. (nicely done, prof!)

yesterday, though, as i'm going through my normal routine and circuit around the bookstore, it suddenly hits me: what am i doing? not at this moment, in the bookstore, but in a general way: what the fuck am i doing with my life?

what i am interested in, what makes me happy, what i enjoy and get fulfillment out of is perfectly represented by my wander through the bookstore: different places. trees & flowers. quilting. spirituality in its many forms/ideas. music. history. and most importantly, books. books, books, books. writing and reading. prose and poetry. fiction and non-fiction - all of it.

why does this matter? and why am i writing about it? because i am currently a phd student in applied economics. what is applied economics?  well, here's what it says on our web page:

The curricula provide, at both master's and doctoral levels, a foundation of rigorous courses in economic theory, and econometrics and other quantitative methods. Areas of concentration are available in international trade, public health economics, resource and environmental economics, and (for the MA/MS only) transportation economics. Students employ economic theories, principles, and methods to examine real-world problems with significant attention to data and institutions.

let's see - do you see books in there? trees? quilts? beauty and the search for meaning? no, me neither.

yet that's what i'm doing. and that's why i haven't blogged lately. why the quilt books i check out of the library languish on the end table until, a couple of testy overdue email notices later, i reluctantly return them. why the trails i want to hike again have remained unsullied by my boots. why i haven't been to my inspiration point since february. because i am studying, continually, a subject that is as foreign to me as chinese and that provides me with no passion, no inspiration - in fact it sucks out my soul.

yesterday morning, before this, i sat in my microeconomic theory class and worked on the  problem on the right. that was it. that's what we do.

in just 10 short weeks i have two exams to take: on june 18th from 9am to 1pm four of us will solve 6 of these microeconomic theory problems. if we pass, we continue on to study - hopefully - something genuinely interesting. if we fail, we can try one more time before leaving the program. on june 16th, from 9am to 1pm, is another exam that will be even worse, if possible - over quantitative methods.

i'm not trying to complain too much about being a student and having to take qualifying exams. everyone has to do it. i choose to come back to school, after all - no one twisted my arm. obviously i do find some aspects of economics interesting. i'm just realizing that i will have very little time and inspiration to write between now and june 18th, may have very little soul left after that, and i expect it will take me a while to recover.

and, that i'm still trying to figure out what i'm doing with my life. and these mini-identity crises always take up so much damn time. 

"Can one know one's self? Is one ever somebody? I don't know anything about it any more. It now seems to me that one changes from day to day and that every few years one becomes a new being."
--George Sand

pilgrimage

sunday morning i got up in the dark. i threw some food, the binoculars, and a plant book in my backpack, a change of shoes in the car. i kissed the boys good bye in the pre-dawn and headed west. as i drove and sang loudly and watched the forest wake up in the sunshine, shedding its fog coat in glistening drops, i realized there were two things i was doing. one was simply, going home. but the other was, pilgrimage.

how did this come about? let me back up. a couple of weeks ago, two newcomers to the state asked me what my favorite place in the coast range was, and why. (actually, that's not completely true. only one asked me. the other just mentioned the coast range in an offhand way, which i took as sufficient invitation to expound on the best places. so really there was only one direct solicitation.) the 'where' answer came easy - cascade head. the 'why' answer - well, i had to think about that. and i realized there were two reasons why - one, because it's just a beautiful place; what i think of as the absolute reason. the other is more personal - a relative reason.

i arrive at the lower parking lot to the sight of the salmon river estuary emerging from the early-morning winter mist. ah, the salmon river. it might seem strange to love such a beleaguered, unspectacular river. but that river is the connecting tie, the binding cord running from the house of my childhood about 2 miles upstream - past the hatchery, where i spent bored hours watching the fry, where the rough, red-headed salmon returned to in all their fearsome, dying glory; running through fields and grazing horses; past my home 'town' - to this joining of river and ocean, at the base of the steep, grass-covered headland. no, it's no rogue river, or umpqua. there's no miles and miles of wilderness, or rapids, or much wild fish runs anymore. it simply starts in the coast range and powers through the forest downhill to the ocean, passing only trailer parks, lawns, blackberry vines, and abandoned buildings. but it feels somehow both accessible and familiar; knowable and lovable. this morning, there are birds calling through the mist, and the promise of sun coming in the diffuse light. and, best of all, not a soul in sight. eager to get into the woods, i turn away from the river, and head up the trail.

cascade head - long a place i associate with happy memories of my youth. was it totally familiar, this trail? did i recognize every step? no. in fact, i rarely use - or used - the lower trail. we almost always came from the forest service road on the top. partly that's because we weren't a real big hiking family, despite spending a fair bit of time in the woods. we definitely tended toward the 'hick' variety of backwoods oregonians, as opposed to the 'hippie' variety. the other is that back in the day, that road wasn't closed half the year. at least, not that i remember. it's possible that it was. we definitely had a local's view of cascade head and, in that utterly inexcusable yet endearing local way, probably never really realized there may exist rules to follow, or that they might also apply to us, and not just to people from portland. in fairness, my mother certainly would have followed rules, once made aware of them, but i'm not sure even she would think to seek them out. and my father - well, let's just point out that for fun, as a youth in butte, montana, he and his friends stole dynamite from mines and blew it up. clearly 'following rules' was for wimps.

in truth, i haven't been up here for years. a ridiculous number of years. and i've certainly had the chance. i've played tour guide for several groups in and around the area. and i always expound on how beautiful, how unique, how much i love cascade head - but i haven't come up here. it occurs to me now, walking through the quiet, that maybe, deep in some corner of my heart, i wanted a pilgrimage to this place and recognized that, for me, pilgrimages are best spent in solitude, not among a large chattering group. for once i don't want to share the memories i have of this place with anyone else, while i'm reliving them.

even though the trail itself isn't familiar, the forest itself is. it is beyond familiar; it is like a natural extension of my existence. the trees, the feel of the ground, the bird songs, the smell, the colors of green, grey, brilliant blue, and red; all so familiar it is almost difficult to think of them in parts, in pieces. it is like trying to imagine one single cell of your skin. it is hard to take apart; it just happens to be this thing you're wrapped in, not in any way separable from yourself or your existence. this is what being in the coast range forest feels like, to me. i expect this comfort, welcome it. i was craving it. part of me wants nothing more than to lie down in the moss, the way i used to as a kid, in the little chunk of siuslaw national forest that was right behind our house - that really was my backyard. but i'm also anxious to see the grasslands this time, and so i continue on.

the interest in the grasslands is new and different - and yet still connected to memory. last week i had to track down the grassland plant communities on cascade head. these aren't detailed in the forest service guides to plant communities in the coast range. so i dug out my plants book and started flipping through.

now, my amateur botanist enthusiast career started in grade school, when a terrific teacher taught me how to press, identify, and mount plants. of course i started with the obvious, pretty, showy bunch - the wildflowers. since then, my affection has been focused on trees. but an odd thing happened the other week as i looked through the book. there were some it seemed i could remember, quite clearly. then, i found a phd dissertation written in 1984 for OSU's botany department classifying plant communities in coastal grasslands in oregon. eureka! his classification species jived exactly with what i picked out from the plant book. although i hadn't realized it, i was paying attention in this place i loved so much, all those years ago. in fact looking at the illustrations brought back a flood of memories - the feel of the downy panicles against my palms in spring, the soft feel of the fresh spruce growth, the sunshine so readily felt in the open area, the sound of the waves rising from a thousand feet below. again, some secret little corner of my heart was paying attention, was speaking to me. that's when i knew i had to get back out there.

of course, on this sunday in february, bright sun notwithstanding, it's winter. there's no panicles for my palms, no spruce buds to rub against my cheeks. but it is just as beautiful as i remembered. the grassland is just as open, the view is just as spectacular, the cliff just as frightening. the way the estuary spreads out below you and you can truly appreciate how essential that ecosystem is - when all else you see is cliffs, hills, and trees, you can see how vital that shallow water, that sheltered area is. now that i've learned how rare these coastal grasslands are - and how cascade head was declared one of the best examples of them in the 80s, and was added to the UNESCO world biosphere reserve list - now that i've learned that it was so special to the tribes it was a vision quest site - it's even more beautiful. it is, in every way, an absolutely special place.

as to why i love it so much - that relative reason - well, it's one of the few places from growing up that i only have positive memories of. the thing about having a parent that sort of cut a drunken swath through a small town - and then died young - and being a person with the affliction of memory - means that most places in this, in my home area, in my comfort zone, are a mix of good and bad. in a very specific way. home - lots of both. north bank road - good and bad. otis, rose lodge, lincoln city, all the bars and places in there and in between, the beach, portland, grand ronde, seattle, airports, grocery stores, john day, eastern oregon...in all those places each good memory is tempered by a sad one.

except - and this is so key - except cascade head. how did it escape such association? was it because we always went in the daytime morning, before the scotch got flowing? i even flirted with the thought that my memory might be faulty, and i should verify this with my mom - but good lord, why would i ever seek out such a truth, if it existed? why would i ever willingly pawn off this place of good memories for just yet another, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum boring standard ordinary place of good/bad memories?

there was a brief year or month or maybe just a day, when i was about 10, when my dad got a new camera and really loved to try it out. it was at the height of my wildflower pressing days. he actually made me a flower press - lord knows how he figured out how to do it, but he did. i can still remember the exact feel of the plywood cover, of the elastic straps and screws that bound together the layers of newspaper and blotter paper. in that rare moment, that confluence, of our interests, we got up before dawn one day - at least one day - and drove the old highway from otis to neskowin, through the national forest. stopping for pictures, stopping to collect wildflowers. he taught me how to use his camera, and i took this picture of a snag, and of foxglove. we ended up at the new highway, crossed it, and continued on the forest service road across the top of cascade head. i remember the sun, and the feel of the panicles on my palms. and i remember a good day, a spectacularly good day, just me and my dad, in a good place, in a spectacularly good place.

this sunday, up there, on the top, i feel like a kid again. my soul feels unweighted, my heart light. i relish the breeze, the solitude, the sounds of the waves and the birds. as i descend back down the trail, i stop briefly and tug out some hairs, and let them glide through the air. long ago, when i lived on the reservation, i was taught about traditional uses of wild plants by a tribal elder. she taught us that every time we munched on wild onions, dug up camas bulbs, or chewed up rattlesnake-plantain leaves for a poultice, we should leave something behind in thanks. a bit of tobacco usually was the choice. i don't have tobacco with me these days. but a bit of hair will do, too. something to acknowledge your taking, something to leave behind. i may not have taken any plants today - i know, now, not to gather wildflowers in protected areas. i'm a little better at following the rules. but i sure took something from that place. i took a little bandage for my heart. i plugged up a tiny hole with sunshine, bird song, and good memories. i paid homage to the ocean, to the trees, even to the grass for the first time, and to the river that connected it all. like any pilgrim i went seeking something, and found it.

the best team in the world (that's no exaggeration...)

ah, winter (and fall, and spring). as the rains settle in and the geese move overhead, a young girl's thoughts turn lightly to...basketball.

basketball! the sport of champions! and a sport that we oregonians have a unique relationship with. why is that? is it because it's a winter sport, easily played indoors, just when we PNWers need something to do inside? well, maybe that is a portion of what motivates our love.

or, is it more accurate to say that it's the sport that we as oregonians have a unique fan-atic relationship with our one and only fabulous team over?

what is it that makes the blazers fans and our love of our team unique? one is the way we express it. i've heard about 'sports towns', with lots of fans and major league teams and the sort of love that expresses itself by upturning cars and setting them on fire after the team wins. we don't really have that here. i've been puzzled before by new jersey or new york folks at sporting events, yelling "get a real player in there!" i was shocked, shocked to the core. that's not how we roll in the PNW. we're like parents, cheering on a kid. we have one team, just one, just one hoped-for and prayed-for baby upon which to shower all our wishes and expectations. just one vessel to pour into all our collective dreamed of sports hero-dom. that's certainly part of it; the fact that we have only one major league team. but that's not all of it.

it's hard to explain, the way we feel about our team. another way of saying it is that we're no detroit, putting up with criminals just to win games. true, winning seasons are nice, but overall, we just want nice people. we want the kind of guys you could bring home to your mother. it's no coincidence that clyde drexler, one of the most universally nice guys ever, is one of our most-loved players ever. the truth is, that oregonians actually just like having a nice, pleasant life. we live in eden - it's kind of hard to put on a hardened, cynical, heckling front when your heart is full of singing birds and flowers and when everyone you see is smiling and pleasant. we like our cheerful life, and we like watching our sports in a positive frame of mind. we want to root for the good guys, and if they win, so much the better. what's that? oh...you want to talk about...*that* time, when the players weren't good guys and the fans weren't behind them? well, this fan blog put it better than i can:

"Roughly 5 seasons ago, Blazer's management recognized that if the Trail Blazers want to become a viable, competitive and successful basketball franchise again, they would have to repair the damaged relationship with the city and the fans. First order of business, fix the Blazer's tarnished reputation. By gutting the team and replacing the coaching staff, they made a pledge to the community that the Blazer's organization was ready and willing to reestablish the ever important bond between a loving but disillusioned fan base and wayward Blazer team. Through a series of calculated moves and a new commitment to draft and sign only those players with the highest moral quality and character, the Blazers reconciled with Portland and the era of "character and family" has been in full swing ever since."

(http://www.bustabucket.com/)

let's recap: management realized that to be a winning franchise, they needed to have the fans behind them, 100%. maybe that goes along with the whole small-market thing. let's face it, in los angeles, you can easily alienate half the population and still sell out every night; there's so many people that you can always find some lowest denominator willing to root you on. but that doesn't fly here. when the team was established, oregon - the whole state - had only two million people, maybe a third of that in the entire greater portland metro area. you can't alienate them, there's nobody else around!

i've been teased before for being fans of players who aren't as good as their billing, or aren't maybe all that good at all. my only defense? they are blazers, and i love my blazers. we are loyal. we're no LA, putting up with egomaniacs in order to win games. we're loyal to the core to our players because we like nice players and we want them to be loyal to us, too. we know anyone good can be courted away by a big, sexy, major market at any time (like hedu turkelo's rejection of portland last summer for toronto, a 'real' city. ouch!) our only hope is to shower them with love and devotion in the hopes that...that...the players will either love our adulation or just be unable to break our hearts by leaving. doesn't matter. the end result is the same. we need them here - we need them more than glamorous places like LA or new york.

and, to some extent, there's just no analyzing my love for the blazers, there's just no way to break it down into understood parts that make sense. isn't that what fandom is all about? that 1 + 1 make 3? that it just maybe doesn't add up?

suffice it to say, that i grew up loving the blazers. my folks lived in portland just before that glorious year we went to the championships; they went to many a game of the fledgling team for the two years before relocating to lincoln county in 1972. growing up in the glory years of the blazers just meant they were a ubiquitous presence, a constant feature of state pride. well i remember the "blazers" signs distributed in the oregonian during each playoff session in the 80s and 90s, and how every car, every window was emblazoned with them, no matter where in the state you were! i remember being at the portland symphony one year on a sunday afternoon when we were in the playoffs. during the applause break between pieces, a tuxedo-ed man briskly walked across the stage to the conductor and whispered in his ear. he turned to us and said, "blazers are up!" and the whole place burst into cheers. somehow, that's what's so unique about oregon and our fan-dom - that the people at the symphony are just as interested to know what the team is doing as the folks across the river at the coliseum.

why are we so close to our team? that i can't say at all for sure, but i can see it might have something to do with acquiring a team that so suddenly did so well - winning the championship just four short years after being established. in one sense, it doesn't matter that we haven't won since then. we don't mind being the overlooked under-dog team. we are the overlooked, underdog state, sandwiched between our more famous neighbors. it's our cross and we'll bear it happily! having tasted glory, having burst on the scene, we know it's possible; until then we are happy to revel in our overlooked status, happy to quote the statistics of clyde when he was overlooked for the first dream team that was assembled in 1992; happy to be indignant that brandon roy was once again not selected in the fan voting for the all-star game (the last two years the coaches have voted him in; let's hope they are wise again this year. he is a super star, after all - and did i yet mention that he's a PNW native?!). we love being our small place, our small market, our happy loving delirious fans cheering on our one-and-only sports team.

as finally the NBA writer bill simmons realized, as answered in his 'mailbag' feature earlier this season after a book tour stop brought him to portland and he caught a game at the rose garden:

"Q: Did your book tour include a stop at the Rose Garden for Pistons-Blazers last week? I hope you checked out the way the Garden treats Greg Oden. Every time he does something basic, the place explodes like he dunked from half court. They are just willing themselves to think he will be good.

A: Yes, I did. And the best way to describe the crowd's support for Oden: It's like watching 15,000 parents rooting for their kid, only all 15,000 parents fathered the same kid. If he ever explodes for 30 points, 20 rebounds and eight blocks in a game, you'll have to carry each deliriously passed-out Portland fan out of the Rose Garden individually like they were victims of smoke inhalation in a burning house. (The funny thing is, everyone in Portland is nodding right now. And yes, I know he's had a couple of inspired games this season. You don't need to e-mail me the stat lines. No, really. Save us both the time. Let's not put too much pressure on him. Baby steps.) I also was startled by Portland fans arguably (see, there it is!) liking Rudy Fernandez as much as, and maybe even a smidge more than, the great Brandon Roy.

Two other things shocked me. First, that's the whitest NBA experience you can have that doesn't involve the words "Salt," "Lake" and City." They didn't play hip-hop either before the game or during the game, each team seemed to have more African-Americans than the entire crowd and the pregame video right before the introduction of Portland's starting lineup was a local grunge band singing "Ballroom Blitz." And second, during a second-quarter timeout, my buddy House and I ran into the concourse to grab beers and noticed there was NOBODY else in line for anything. We felt like Will Smith in "I Am Legend." There was no sign of human life other than the workers. Everyone else stays in their seats. At halftime, those same people pour into the concourse like it's halftime of a football game. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know whether the Blazers have the most loyal, passionate, dutiful fans in the NBA, but at the very least, we can say nobody else tops them.

Here's what I took away from my Rose Garden experience: Portland loves the Blazers the same way a single mother would love her only child. The city's revulsion toward the "Jail Blazers" makes a lot more sense to me now. The team and the city are intertwined, and if one side isn't holding up that bargain, it's even more painful than usual. Anyway, I couldn't be happier that I got a taste of it. Great NBA city."

'scuse me. i've got to catch the end of this game...blazers down, team plagued by injuries, it's the classic rise-from-below story of an overlooked potential superhero! right?!

peace, love, and understanding

i mentioned montana yesterday, and suddenly there i was again - missing montana. sometimes that happens. it was one of the few places i lived where i woke up every morning and looked at the rugged mission mountains rising above the lake and concretely - not abstractly - thought: i am blessed.

every place has its own unique feel, its own unique combination of culture and social norms that make it fascinating. one of the nicest things about montana is the strong libertarian streak. now i'm a solid democratic socialist; i believe very much in the role of government and why it's important for us to pay taxes and support each other. socially, though, there was something very nice about living in a small town that still had a lot of "don't tell me how to live, and i won't tell you" attitude. you know the joke, "montana, where the men are real men, and so are the women?" of course, the down side to that is that you get more than your fair share of cults, separatists, and militias. not that that doesn't make life exciting. still, it makes me nervous to find out that groups are stocking piling AK-47s in underground bunkers (see the church universal and triumphant; not to mention the "montana freemen", and of course who can forget everyone's favorite recluse, the unabomber?)

the biggest problem, though, was the racial intolerance and intolerance of gays. as an example of the latter: i lived on an indian reservation. while enrolled in a "native american images in film" class at the tribal college - yes, a course dedicated to exposing and exploring the stereotypical ways that natives are presented in film - a fellow student busts out with "i'm all right with everyone but gays. i mean" - she says, maybe sensing that this is sounding a little prejudiced and she might want to show how understanding she really is - "i guess they are all right, as long as they stay away from me and my kids." in other words, men can be men, women can be men, women can be women (grudgingly); but much else...

here's another example, that is somehow quintessential montana. to begin, you have to understand that for the last bit of my tenure out there i was 21, very solo, very un-gainfully employed at a mcdonalds in a town of 3000 people, clearly not getting any kind of a 4-year college degree, and, to add to this laundry list of incredibly attractive characteristics, very pregnant. there was a guy who often came through the drive-thru there, clearly on his lunch break, with a stethoscope draped around his neck. he was young and fairly decent looking, in a sort of manly-man/cabela's way. i'm sure he was in a pick-up truck; i'm sure there was a gun rack. even though he wasn't local, it was clear he fit right in. so one day he asked me out - me! now, i didn't know anything about kids, but i had heard that they got sick all the time. who better to have hanging around then a doctor? besides, it wasn't like i was getting asked out a lot. so, i accepted. he suggested that we drive to missoula to go dancing. that sounded fine, but even a rookie like myself knew to play it a little safer, so i insisted that my roommate come, too. so he agreed and enlisted a buddy of his and we all rode down together to a bar in missoula, me with my big belly, my roommate j., the doctor, and some random hunting buddy of his.

my roommate j. was a thorough cowgirl who worked on a dairy farm - a real montana-style woman - who also happened to be lesbian. she wasn't in the closet, but i think wisely had decided to pick her battles; her friends and family knew who she was, but she didn't broadcast it. we settled in at the bar and the boys quickly started drinking beer. i, of course, couldn't drink at all. i guess it was starting to seem like just being a doctor wasn't enough to make this guy attractive, so to entertain myself, raving liberal and gun-control nut that i am, got into it with them on social issues. as the evening progressed (degenerated?) it turned out that they were also both raving homophobes. she and i were getting thoroughly annoyed before this; by that point in time, we were ready to go. we had a motel room nearby with two double beds. standing our ground, we insisted that neither of us would be sharing a bed with one of them, thank you very much; we'd take one, and they could take the other. which was fine by us, but they absolutely could not do it. one of them ended up sprawled on the ground at the foot of our bed, as if merely touching the bed of another male would somehow brand them a queer for life in montana eyes.

i don't remember the ride back north the next day, but i bet it was pretty quiet. and certainly i never got asked out again. in fact, doesn't it almost sound like the start to a bad joke? "a liberal, a lesbian, a redneck, and a hunter walk into a bar in montana..." only i can't imagine how the punchline would go and how it could end without someone getting shot. no matter. eventually one realizes that "live and let live" can be a pretty shallow notion. and peace, love and understanding can be far away, even in paradise.

drying out

i staggered into the shop like a traveller in search of an oasis. "i need something for my skin!" i whispered through cracked lips. it is december, and hasn't rained in several days. and my skin is reacting like i've been sun bathing in a desert in august. it is red, itchy, and deperate for moisture. it reminds me of my first winter in montana, where the dry air and hard water gave me a rash on my back.

back in the present, my sister says, "i'm turning into an alligator. my feet are completely cracked."

on the news cast, the weather forecast begins cheerily: "you can put away that lip balm and moisturizer! the rain is coming back."

it's true northwesterners can be pretty wimpy about some things. we are so completely adapted to moisture, that a cold dry spell in winter throws us for a loop. what are we not wimpy at all about? well, rain, of course.

"During the long winter vacation it rained continuously, the sky a low thick motionless rain-cloud, the warmish wet-cold season without dry corner. After day-long rain it rained all night, the dark liquescent, dripping from trees. When he woke in the night to heft his life, he listened to the rain as natural history, the Pacific extending over the land. Huge sopping clouds floated over breakers threading the beaches and struck against mountainsides, rain pouring from an armada of smashed hulls, drenching the craggy crawling forests, drowning green hills black, soaking the grass-lit fields. In the dark Levin remembered the rain of his childhood, blown in wind against the faces of tenements, engulfing the leafless backyard tree in foaming bursts; but when it had ended - after a day, three, a week - it had ended and enter light, the worshipful sun. Here was no sense of being between rains; it was a climate, a condition, the water burbling, thick, thin, fine, ubiquitous, continuous, monotonous, formless. Once in a while he saw two rainbows in the same sky but after rainbows it rained. Wherever Levin went he went in rubbers, raincoat, umbrella; the only other man he saw with an umbrella was Professor Fairchild. Students stood bareheaded in the pelting rain, talking leisurely, even opening a book to prove a point. Meanwhile Levin had grown neither fins nor duckfeathers; nor armourplate against loneliness."

--from "A New Life", by Bernard Malamud

Bernard Malamud, who wrote "The Natural" and won the pulitzer prize for "The Fixer", taught in the English department at OSU for four years. During that time he wrote "A New Life", about an english instructor from the east, teaching for the first time in a beleaguered liberal arts department at a small agricultural school in a town called Cascadia. Although OSU wasn't so excited about the portrayal at the time, we happily claim Malamud now. And although "A New Life" isn't his best work, it's great read for those who know OSU and Corvallis.