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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2000)
Festivals, riots and cultural refugees round out Eugene ■ Ask anyone around here and they’ll tell you Eugene is a town that moves to the beat of many different drums By Jack Clifford Oregon Daily Emerald Eugene. Activist capital? Hippie haven? Police state? Cultural wasteland? Paradise found? All of the above? This city has more identities than Sybil, with personalities rang ing from “ideal hometown” to “a gussied-up, backwater burg.” When city founder Eugene Franklin Skinner arrived here in June 1846, the area was occupied by the Kalapuyas. The Willamette Val ley’s soil and the river served as the anchor that kept the Native Ameri can inhabitants in the area, as well as beckoned the early settlers. ^ ^ At some point, the restless ones burn out or settle down; they do so among like characters and... well, here they are. Steve McQuiddy former freelance writer Skinner’s original 640-acre dona tion land claim was in the area that is now the Fifth Street Market Dis trict and surrounding land in the Skinner Butte neighborhood. Skin ner and his wife, Mary, built their cabin on the west slope of what is now Skinner’s Butte. Fittingly, a flood inundated the couple’s first chunk of property dur ing the winter of 1852, causing the I Skinners to move to higher ground. Since the city’s incorporation in 1862, countless people have cursed Eugene’s rains, with little impact — the floods still regularly occur. We all know it’s not the eight months of crappy weather that draw people to this area. The Uni versity has its bright spots to be sure, but pales in comparison to an education at say, Stanford. And there’s no professional sports team to attract residents, although on any given day residents might be treated to a rousing game of Red Rover between anarchists and the Eugene Police Department. The appeal of Eugene may be its “lost in time” aura. The general consensus if you ask around is that the town’s clock runs about 20 years behind the rest of the coun try, former Eugene freelance writer Steve McQuiddy said. “Eugene is the end of the line, and it’s populated for the most part by refugees,” he said. “Everyone has already run away from where they were and there isn’t anywhere else to go.” “At some point, the restless ones burn out or settle down; they do so among like characters and ... well, here they are.” Yes, here they are, all 136,490 of them, which is the 1999 population estimate from the Portland State Center for Population Research and Census. That’s an increase of 3,000 from 1998, but city officials may have to form a committee to form a committee to verify those numbers. “The fact that the people in this place have more potential to do more marvelous things than any where else in the nation, and con Azle Malinao-Alvarez Emerald Local residents stroll past the eclectic booths at the city’s Saturday Market, one of many trademark events that make Eugene unique. tinually settle for mediocrity ... It’s mind-boggling,” McQuiddy said, while stressing that “Eugene is thin-skinned, but also a sweetheart ... I love the town.” Eugene has its faults, of course. Those interminable periods of bureaucracy when city officials . can’t decide on the simplest mat ters. A lack of resources spent on bettering the town’s cultural land scape. No decent dance club. The depressing drive from the airport to the city’s center. Rain, rain, rain. Activists who think it’s perfectly OK to cross someone else’s person al boundaries to make a point. Red i light runners. A severe lack of di versity. And more rain. But as McQuiddy pointed out, there’s enough to love about Eugene. A hike up Spencer Butte, either early morning or early evening. The smell of fresh bread from the Williams Bakery, just off the eastern edge of campus. The Eugene Cele bration. Ducks’ sporting events. The Pioneer Cemetery. Dancing with the masses at a WOW Hall show. Frog. Watching someone riding his or her bicycle in a downpour, but secretly wishing it were you. OK, maybe not that last one. Maybe the best thing about Eu gene is that residents don’t really strive to make it something it isn’t. We’re a medium-sized city, with just enough culture to keep the weekend drives to Portland or Seat tle down to a handful. So, if someone/something were watching the United States from outer space, and they used Eugene as a barometer to base their perspec tive on the country as a whole, how skewed would that perspective be? 1 ‘ It might be that Eugene is simply running a different race ... in a dif ferent direction,” McQuiddy said. “I guess a direct answer to [that] ques tion would be: about 180 degrees.” 1 OREGON POLICE CORPS $30,000 Scholarship Police Corps is a scholarship program paid for by the United States Department of Justice. Scholarships are offered on a competitive basis to students who agree to serve four years in a local police or sheriff’s office. Students accepted into the Police Corps receive up to $7,500 a year to cover expenses of study toward a baccalaureate or graduate degree. 1.800.848.3957 www.oregonpolicecorps.com Y’Yi Y: * • Yt
