From Portland, OR to Grants Pass, OR
From Portland, OR to Grants Pass, OR
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The motel I'm staying in has me in a room on the first floor. Actually it is more like a half basement. The people upstairs have been in the shower for hours, not usually a bad thing, but for some reason they started at 5AM. The plumbing is really noisy. I resist getting up but switch on the television. The Weather Channel convinces me that rain is falling and will continue to fall in Oregon to my south. The announcer repeats how this is an unusual weather pattern, as if to taunt me! So my plans to cut over to the Oregon Coast and spend the day there is derailed by rain. Or I could go ahead and just be miserable. I didn't think so either. I decide I need a good breakfast if I'm going to deal with a day with a lot of rain. I stop at a nearby International House of Pancakes (IHOP). I absolutely hate their pancakes but their egg dishes are pretty good. I buy a local paper to read while I eat. I like to do that -- helps to connect me to local issues. I've included the article to the right from Tuesday's paper. I've always been enamored with aspects of so-called 'hippie' culture and don't really see many negatives. I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this era of history. It is easy to say that the generation was too idealistic or naive. While the exchange seemed casual, I think it was rooted in values that we would all be better served by returning to rather than turning away from. After breakfast, I find an onramp to I-5 south. Turns out to be harder than I expected. The first hundred miles or so is mostly dry, but I can tell that rain is definitely coming. I stop near Corvallis for some gas and I still haven't put on my rain gear. I've noticed that there are a fair number of hitchhikers in Oregon -- much more than you would see in California. On the ramp back onto I-5, I notice a man looking for a ride. His appearance catches my attention. His face is very pale and his gaze is vacant. He is wearing a white shirt and red pants. He stands very straight with his hands at this sight. He seems to watch me as I pass without turning. It reminds me of a Twilight Zone. There has been some very light intermittent drizzle but not enough to even get the road wet. It finally starts to rain about 20 miles south of Corvallis. The rain comes suddenly and I'm stuck in a section of road with no off ramps. I have to go about four miles in light rain before I can pull off safely to gear up and get the cameras under cover. The next hundred miles or so is tough going. There are a lot of big semi-trucks on this stretch of I-5. And as usual, they through up a lot of road spray. Lumber trucks, particularly when unloaded, seem to pull the most moisture up off the road. I make stops at rest stops near Cottage Grove and then again north of Sutherlin. It gives me a chance to dry off a bit although it is not a cold rain so I'm fairly comfortable. At the rest stop north of Sutherlin, two vans pull up on both sides of me as I'm parking. One is an old Ford Econoline van. Four young men, probably around 20 although as I get older, making those estimates is getting harder, get out. They're from British Columbia. They head over to a large cypress and talk and stretch their arms and legs. The other van is a nearly new Chevy Astro. Four middle-aged men get out. They decide to talk to me. I give them the twenty minute overview of my trip. I finally ask, "Where are you headed?" "Oh we're going to an ex-smugglers convention," answers one of them. I'm confused. For a second, I think they are telling me the punch line of a joke without the benefit of any lead-in. I ask for clarification. Well it turns out that in the 70s and 80s, they made their livings importing and marketing illegal compounds. They all met while in prison and are literally driving from Portland, Oregon to a meeting of ex-smugglers at an undisclosed location in northern California. They've all flown from Hawaii to Portland for the convention. Turns out they mostly live in Waimanalo or Kailua. When I was a small child, we lived in Waimanalo and my older sister when to high school in Kailua. They ask me if I have anything suitable for use in their 'pipe.' I tell them no and suggest that they ask the young guys. We look over at the four guys who are now engaged in a game of hacky sac. We look back at each other and both say, "No, I don't think so" in unison. Back on the road, the rain starts to let up. By the time I stop for gas in Roseburg, I can take off my rain gear. Roseburg is another gas stop. Getting back onto the freeway, I see the man in the red pants hitching a ride. This time he definitely looks at me. I mentally note that if I see him again, I'm flying home immediately. Interstate 5 becomes interesting as I head south. The road has to cross a series of passes; Canyon Creek Pass (2020 feet), Stage Road Pass (1830 feet) and Sexton Mt Pass (1956 feet). The road twists and turns providing a great riding experience. The only downside is that while the road is well-banked, the mix of traffic requires some of us to slow down. Other people, apparently thinking a speed limit sign is an imperative, proceed at full tilt no matter the situation. It really annoys me to have a mini van on my ass while I'm sliding around through turns. I finally pull into Grants Pass. This is the town where my mother lived after grandfather retired from the Army. She gave me the address of the family home knowing that it had been sold and demolished many years ago. I had been there once for a few days back in 1963 when I was 8. The memory is funny and wonderfully pervasive. When I got to the block, I knew it without confirming the address. The street was the 'right' width. The ridge line of the mountains matched my memory. Really eerie.
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In a fleeting friendship, sometimes thank you goes unsaid. Margie Boule, columnist The Oregonian, Tuesday June 26, 2001 It was a more innocent time, Frani Grover remembers picking up hitchhikers, moving to Astoria (Oregon) to live on her own for the first time in 1973. She was in the habit of taking risks back then, "I was 19 years old and was just totally idealistic," says Frani, who is a Portland-area real estate agent today. Some people advise risk-takers not to walk out on those limbs. But people like Frani turn limbs into bridges. Frani had been sent to Astoria by her mother, to look after an older sister who'd fallen in love with a man in the coastal town. "A lot of good I was," Frani says. "She married him anyway." Frani got a job as a nurses' aide at the local hospital; it paid $1.85 an hour, just enough to cover rent on a small furnished apartment. She liked the freedom, but she and her boyfriend, Mike Grover, missed one another. Mike was in Gresham attending Mt. Hood Community College. "We became engage," Frani says. "He asked my father for my hand, and my father said, 'I don't believe in long engagements.' So we decided to get married in 30 days. It seemed logical at the time." Frani was the first of her friends to marry, so she had no idea how much work was involved. Frani's mother agreed to make the arrangements. Frani offered to make the wedding dress. "I had taken sewing class in high school," she says, "but I didn't have much experience." Who needs experience when you have confidence? Frani brought as she recalls, "white eyelet and lining and a pattern" one weekend on a visit to Portland. "Altogether it cost $30." On her way back to Astoria, aboard a Greyhound bus, Frani struck up a conversation with another passenger. "She had boots, a backpack, brown hair loosely pulled back, and was a few years older." The woman told Frani she was going to Astoria for two weeks for a job and planned to rent a room. "So I invited her to stay with me in my apartment. I had an extra bed. It seemed like the most natural thing to do. And she accepted." Frani didn't want the woman to pay her anything. I was just excited about getting to know someone new. Every evening she would ask me what she could do to compensate me. And I'd say, 'Oh, no, I don't need anything. I'm just glad to have company.'" The young woman introduced Frani to cream cheese and sprouts on a bagel -- "the strangest thing I'd ever seen. But delicious. I still enjoy it." They had adventures. "I didn't feel the pressure I should have, knowing the weeding was only 30 days away," Frani says. Finally 10 days before the ceremony, Frani had to face her responsibility. She had a wedding dress to make. "That night I got out all my stuff and laid it on the floor: the fabric, the pattern, the thread." Frani read the instructions and was overwhelmed. "I thought to myself, this is why I took sewing lessons. Somehow I had to pull this off." But her roommate must have seen her fear. The next day, before she left for Portland, the woman mad an offer, "She proposed she take it all and put together my dress for me." Frani never had seen her roommate's work as a seamstress. She had no idea where her roommate lived; she didn't even ask for a telephone number. "I consented thinking, 'Hooray, I've been rescued from this impossible task.' I just sent it off with her, which totally panicked my mother." Frani, on the other hand had complete confidence in her new friend. It was warranted. Three days before the wedding, the young woman showed up at Frani's Astoria apartment with a wedding dress that was, in Frani's words, "just perfect." The simple, floor-length dress had a sweetheart neckline and long fitted sleeves. "I put it on, she took some pictures, and she left. We never spoke again." Frani and Mike still are married today. They've had a good, happy marriage. "We had seven children, six of them girls. I've done a lot of sewing." Frani says with a laugh. Not long ago the first of the girls got married; Frani made dresses for the entire wedding party. As she did, she recalled the woman who made her own wedding dress in 1973. "I suddenly thought, 'I've never said a proper thank you.' She has no idea what happened to me, or that I've told and retold the story of the dress. I can't even remember her name. Back then, the woman's act of generosity had seemed to Frani "like a lark. A casual, kind of hippie exchange. I did her a good deed, she did me one. But now, after all these years, it feels unsettling to think we took it so lightly." Frani is hoping a woman somewhere in the Northwest will read this story and recognize herself. Frani would like to send her a photograph taken at a little church in Gresham, where Mike and Frani were married. "And I'd like to fill her in on what's been happened since and find out what happened in her life. I want to tell her she did a good job, and she played an important part in my life. I'd like, finally, to say thank you." |
Tomorrow, I check out Grants Pass and then head down to the California coast.
No pictures today due to rain or threat of rain.
Depart Portland, OR on Interstate 5 heading south.
Arrive Grants Pass, OR
(c) 2001 Thomas N. Engler Revision Date: 07/18/2001
