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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2016)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL February 3, 2016 11A B RASWELL e t a r b e l Ce Continued from page 1A with your Sweetie at the Village Green! s n o s a e S e h in t s l a i c e p s t n a r Dinner u a t s e en R e r G e h t t a sic u m e the v i l y Enjo ncing in & da ireside F nge Lou Featuring: Beef Bourguignon, Mahi Mahi Veracruz & Slow R - oasted Prime Rib much different store that’s long since become the site of the Cottage Grove Community Center. Back then, Braswell, who was born and raised here, was attend- ing classes at Lane Community College when he began bagging groceries at Safeway, and in the years since, he said the people and expe- riences that made the job enjoyable back then have kept bringing him back for decades. “Every time I thought about doing something else, I was offered a dif- ferent job at the store or a little more money, and here I am 50 years later,” Braswell said. He’s quick to point out that a lot of the little things about the way business is done at Safeway have evolved, though his inter- actions with employees and cus- tomers haven’t changed all that much. Of course, Braswell didn’t spend his entire 50-year career in Cottage Grove. For a 20-year period between 1975 and 1995, he worked at two Safeway stores in Eugene, fi ve different stores in the Portland area and a store in Vancouver, Wash. “When you’re an assistant ing around the corner. This week, Braswell said the store is busy preparing for the Super Bowl, and holiday gatherings are the focus in November and December. Summer brings a packed event schedule to Cot- tage Grove, and Braswell said Safeway works to stock the community’s needs for each of them. “We keep notes on the past history of such things,” he said. “That’s the — Safeway Manager nice thing about Roger Braswell being here so long; you can have ex- pectations about didn’t want to leave,” he said, what’s coming next.” adding that his father worked Now, Braswell will concen- at the Post Offi ce in Cottage trate on a new adventure, though Grove for a comparable amount he said he has no big plan for his of time. “I enjoyed my work retirement. and the people I work with, and “I’d considered going before, that’s what makes it fun. And 50 but I thought, ‘We’ve got a lot of years goes by a lot faster than work to do still, so I better stick you might think.” around,’” he said. “I haven’t re- Like many effective manag- ally thought about what I’m go- ers, Braswell gives much credit ing to do next.” to his employees. Braswell said his assistant, “You try to help as a resource, Tim Glenn, will take over in and a lot of times they’re the an interim capacity, though he ones that come up with the solu- added that the company hasn’t tion,” he said. “You give the best offered a long-term plan. you can in the way of encour- “I’m excited for him to get to agement.” do some of the things he hasn’t At a major grocery store, had time for,” Glenn said. there’s always something com- "Fifty years goes by a lot faster than you might think." W ATERFALL Continued from page 3A Reservations recommended: 541-942-2491 manager, you get moved around quite a lot,” he said. Still, Braswell always wanted to return to his hometown, and when he was offered the oppor- tunity to come back, he jumped at the chance. And so a 50-year career was born. “I didn’t have a plan to work here for 50 years, but I also other commitments had a way of cropping up to stall his prog- ress. “I started out writing it by hand,” Bachelder said. “I’d fall away from it for awhile, and it got to the point that I’d basically rewritten it a couple times. Then not long ago my wife bought me a laptop and said, “Ok, now why don’t you get this thing done?” Like any good husband, Bach- elder obliged, and his fi rst book, “The Wish and the Waterfall,” was released Jan. 1. And as if that’s not ambitious enough, Bachelder said the second in what could be a three or even a multi-part series should be com- plete by Christmas. “The Wish and the Waterfall” tells the story of a 14-year old boy who’s fi nding himself in trouble before relocating to a small Oregon logging commu- nity very much like Bachelder’s hometown. There’s plenty of In- dian lore and more to bring the protagonist around and trans- port him to another world where anything could happen, and there are plenty of “character models” from Bachelder’s ex- periences here that have helped tell the tale. “It’s a coming-of-age story, and it’s not necessarily unique as far as the concept goes,” Ba- helder said. “But the book has a life of its own, and it may grow beyond where I had envisioned it.” Reviews for the novel have been kind so far, and Bachelder said another aspect of his own adventure has been fi nding a ine’s Day Spec ia l Valent way to publish the book himself through a Eugene publishing company. “You tell people you’re writ- ing a book, and they say, ‘Oh, that’s kinda nice,’” he said. “Nobody ever really believes you, but the day a lady handed me a book with my name on the cover, there was quite a feeling of accomplishment.” Along the way, Bachelder said he’s become a better writer with the passage of time, and he’s expecting to be able to de- vote even more time to writing when he retires in July. “The Wish and the Waterfall” is available on Amazon and Kindle and at local bookstores the Bookmine and Books on Main. 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