Where we live

On June 26, 2008, Bob Welch, columnist for The Eugene Register Guard newspaper, wrote the following article to visitors and athletes who came for the Olympic Trials.

IF YOU'RE VISITING for the Olympic Trials, welcome to Lane County. Take your (running) shoes off and stay awhile. Dip your feet in the Pacific Ocean. Not to worry; you should feel your toes again by Labor Day.

It's just one of those little things we offer around here as deterrents to becoming another L.A., which we fret about obsessively. We've backed off former Gov. Tom McCall's visit-but-don't-stay edict from 1971, but only slightly. Another such deterrent: rain. Most of us love it, knowing the secret truth: It only falls twice a year. All winter and all spring. But it keeps down the dust and population. . . .

Sorry about the pollen. Like the NBA playoffs, it sometimes goes on too long. Some perspective: Lane County is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined but only Oregon's fifth-largest county. And stretches from sea level to ski level. If you really hustle, you can walk the beach at sunrise; stop at the back-to-the-'60s Glenwood restaurant in Eugene for granola, yogurt and fruit; catch the last of the morning rise with your fly rod on the McKenzie River; playa quick nine at Tokatee Golf Course and climb to the top of the South Sister - elevation 10,358 feet - by dark. Where else can you build a day like that in a single county?

Of course, it's also a place where you can get flashed by dozens of nude bicyclers who are protesting oil dependency. Or read a letter to the editor taking to task Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore because he favors athletic competition. ("Why, exactly, is it important to run faster than someone else?")

Around here, the only thing that people get more worked up about than politics is potholes, which are plentiful. I've lived here 19 years and it's the one cause that brings liberals and conservatives together . . . .

Yep, we tend to be a passionate lot who dare to go places others have not. Think Bill Bowerman. Think Ken Kesey. Think a hitchhiker on Interstate 105 with a cardboard sign that says "Mars." Remember, if a bit quirky -- we don't pump our own gas, for example -- we come from cantankerous stock that willingly put up with a few thousand miles in covered wagons to get here. (You think you've got pothole problems, try the Snake River Canyon by wagon.)

Paradoxically, Eugene is extremely laid back in its cantankerousness, the love child of lumberjacks and the free-thinking University of Oregon.

The '60s came to Eugene and, like a tattoo, never left, giving this place a character that's sometimes lovable and sometimes loatheable. (Excuse the made-up word, but, then, this is Eugene, where thinking outside the box is encouraged. Has any other Olympic Trials devoted five outside basketball courts to valet bicycle parking?)

Just east of Eugene, across Interstate 5, sits Springfield. Imagine two cousins who share genetic roots and two rivers, the Willamette and McKenzie, but little else. They're the Patty Duke and Cathy Lane of municipalities. Springfield, with can-do earnestness, is the up-and-coming city shedding its lumber-town image and Eugene the perpetual hipster forever trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. It wows you one minute with the likes of the annual Bach Festival and unnerves you the next with the likes of the city council talking to death all sorts of proposals, from pothole fixes to hospital sites.

For all the attention Eugene and Springfield get, they compose only a snippet of Lane County, which is 80 percent forestland. Beyond these cities, home to 60 percent of the county's population, you'll find dozens of communities, no two alike. Lane County is Florence, a coastal town recently chosen as the nation's top place to retire, and Vida, a McKenzie Valley burg to the east where rafters stop for breakfast. It's Cottage Grove, twice named an All-American City, and Coburg, which somehow balances antique hominess with motorhomes.

It's hippies and grass-seed-growing Mennonites and fishing guides and philosophy students and sailors on Fern Ridge Lake and hikers on Spencer Butte (the one to the south of Eugene) and everything in between and beyond. But if anything binds us, it's a passion for this place we all call home. And we're glad you've stopped to visit that home. Get comfortable. Explore. Run Pre's Trail. At Hayward Field, cheer like you're a kid again, which, when you think about it, is what it's all about. Eat fresh salmon and crab. Test our valley wines. Ask questions. Sure, even stick those toes in the Pacific Ocean. Just don’t try pumping your own gas.