The train, carrying my mother and me, rattled into the
little inland port of The Dalles Oregon. I was seven years old, Mom was
twenty-three.
That first morning my senses were assaulted by the immense form
that loomed in front of the car. It was a mountain and coming from flat-land
Illinois, it was the likes of which I had never seen. My soon-to-be step-grandparent’s
house was situated at the bottom of the mountain, and every year High School
Student burned a giant “D” carved into the side of that hill/mountain/whatever.
Tires sometimes rolled into my grandparent’s yard--escapees from the hands of
some fumbling student trying to make his way to the burn pile.
This was a time before
The Dalles Dam was built across the mighty Columbia River and caused a lake behind it where once existed the best
salmon fishing on the planet. In earlier times it was said that the salmon were
so plentiful that a person could walk across the river on their backs.
Some say The Dalles means “The Narrows” for that portion the
river, called Celilo Falls, raced through a trough, having been virtually
turned on its side forming a tumultuous white water that was a natural fish
ladder. There Native Americans fished on rickety platforms built out over the water.
From those platforms they pulled salmon the
size of a small boy from the river only to dip into it again, and pull out
another.
Salmon dwindled after the dam was completed, some salmon can
still be seen throwing themselves up the man-made fish ladders on their way to
their ancient spawning grounds—that is the ones the river otters don’t gobble
up for the ladders act as a funnel shoveling fish into their mouths.
Our second move to Oregon, well mine, husband was born in
the Dalles, was from San Diego. On a trip to Oregon husband and I had stopped on the McKenzie River
and found a forest so lush, with little wild strawberries trailing across ferns,
and wildflowers succulent and open in the spring, that we decided here was an
area where we wanted to live.
Both our girls had graduated from high school and
were accepted into the University of Oregon. We caravanned up I-5, Husband
driving a Ryder truck, me in the car with our dog and cat. Daughter number one
and boyfriend were in one car, daughter two and husband in another. We arrived
in September and I found it to be a fine time to snuggle in and write, and behind
our house, although we lived in town, was a forested area that belonged to the
University. On December 21, it snowed, and daughter, dog, and I ran into the
forest frolicking and wondering why
everybody else on the block didn’t join us.
This was Eugene where forests and trees and green are as lush as The
Dalles is dry.
Our third move to Oregon was this last April. After we had
circled the Pacific Rim—Oregon to Hawaii to California, to Oregon, we returned
to family, hearth and home, to that area that had given us webbed toes in the
first place.
Oregon has bloomed for us, and green has glowed for us, the
sun has shone for us, and frogs visit our house because there is a pond close-by
where we can hear the frog’s singing. It brings back my former refrain, “The frog’s song calls the rain that settles the dust for our journey.”
Home in the garden:
