dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle’s blog

Almost 500 years ago, European Colonialists were negotiating with Native Americans to secure rights and security for some territory in their New World. As the story goes, they offered the tribal elders two options: a pile of glass beads from the Netherlands or a stack of woven blankets from England. When asked to choose between them, the negotiations broke down, because the Native American culture was unfamiliar with western reductionism that results in the either/or formulation. At each point, when pressed for a decision, the elders’ response was the same: “Thank you sirs, we would prefer both.”

Chip Kelly and his staff of football coaches at the University of Oregon will decide this weekend who will be the Ducks’ starting quarterback for the first game of the 2010 season. We’re more acculturated to an either/or way of thinking, so most fans will admit a slight preference for either senior Nate Costa or sophomore Darron Thomas, but how many of us wouldn’t prefer both?

We’ve been here before. Brady Leaf and Dennis Dixon were locked in a similar competition in 2007, and I offered something similar then. (See “Two Buck Ducks” http://www.dksez.com/?p=178) I promise I haven’t given sport advice since. But it’s bigger than sport. It’s part of the brand of Eugene, where we try new things and nobody talks us out of it.

Some things have changed since 2007. We have a new head coach, who’s young and aggressive and looks for envelopes he can push. Although he was an early adopter of the spread offense, he didn’t invent it. The image of the Ducks as brash and “one inch out of control” has been affirmed. They toppled USC and have Rose Bowl stubs to show the grandchildren. And they’ve perfected a unique pace for their offense that gives defenders less time to breathe, but also less time to think. That’s important.

Costa and Thomas have different strengths and styles. Choosing just one would be like trying to keep warm under a pile of glass beads.

Costa has been exposed to the system for four years, mostly from the sidelines, so he knows the playbook and the players. He can run, but at most schools he’d have become a pocket passer. He has passed with greater accuracy than Thomas this spring and fall. He’s also been the placeholder for extra point and field goal kicks, and heroically so. Arizona would have beaten the Ducks in 2009, if it weren’t for Costa’s composure.

Thomas is bigger, faster, younger. As one of those naturally gifted athletes, he’s lined up as a receiver and as a running back for the Ducks. He can play the game in the style of Jeremiah Masoli, where a broken play is just another play. If Plan A ain’t gonna work, just keep going down the alphabet and invent new letters if you have to. If you’re a defender, you can’t predict what he’s going to do.

Both quarterbacks play the same tune, but to slightly different rhythms. The difference between a marching band and jukebox jive isn’t the notes — it’s the spaces between the notes. In a game of split-second decision-making, that difference can be used to the Ducks’ advantage.

Now consider the physics of defending incursion on a football field. If a team is on its own 20 yard line, there are 4,800 square yards of turf behind them to be defended. That’s a lot of real estate. If the offense is closing in and begins only 20 yards from its goal, then the area to be defended is a mere 1,600 square yards. (Yes, I know. I have too much time on my hands.) Each defender has a perimeter one third as large.

Costa’s poise and precision becomes more valuable as you approach the goal, because everyone is bunched together. Thomas’s hip hop hustle works best when there’s an open field ahead. Thomas should take the first snap for the opening drive. And Costa should take the last. Thank you sirs, we would prefer both.

Will defenses know how to react to an offense designed to use the different strengths and styles of two quarterbacks on every drive? Will ESPN know how to react? We may hear from them what we hear all the time: “Only in Eugene!”

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs. He knows nothing more about football than what he reads in the newspaper.

Welcome to the middle of summer. It feels more nearly the end of summer, you say?
If you have young children, or you work every day with young children, or you’re a school-age child yourself, you’re excused. But otherwise, it’s past time for you to recalibrate your expectations and enjoy the best part of summer, which is still ahead.
I know commerce is blaring in your ear that summer is quickly ending. Those back-to-school sales are designed to be irresistible, even to those not going back to school. Don’t be fooled.
Look up. Blues skies mostly will continue for another calendar month. September comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lamb, with a few lionish days in between. It won’t be until sometime in October that our wintry grayscape will return.
2009 gave us the longest cultural summer of our lives. Memorial Day came as early as it could and the Labor Day waited until the last possible moment, giving us a traditional summer of 108 days. This year’s stretch between those holidays is closer to its normal length at 101 days, so it’s only fair that you grab an extra week. But as long as you’re grabbing that extra week, why not take a month?
I’m not suggesting you take a vacation — those can be hard work. I’m suggesting you lighten your steps a bit between your appointed rounds. If you feel guilty taking an extra month of summertime, think back and remember our June gloom. You didn’t get your fair share of sunshine in June, so you have it coming to you still. Enjoy it.
Eugene Celebration’s bad luck notwithstanding, here in the southern Willamette Valley, September weather usually betters June’s. Once the younger set has plunged back into their school routine, the beaches and bike paths are much less crowded. For those of us with childrearing (mostly) behind us, the best of summer is right around the corner.
I’m not surprised that you need help to recognize the middle of summer. Middles almost always go unnoticed. Our culture is deeply captivated by beginnings and endings. Newspapers are partly to blame. Birth and death announcements are free, but coverage of everything in between is less than guaranteed.
We naturally prefer the lines that are more clearly drawn. Who ever knows when they’ve reached the midpoint of anything? Except you, today, here, right in the middle of a glorious Oregon summer.
How will you spend it?
On this point, I defer to retired South Eugene High School teacher, arts advocate and occasional civic activist Laurel Fisher. She has convinced me that our strident tone and self-important stride might be remedied with three simple words: Read More Fiction.
You don’t have to go to the beach to give yourself permission to read a beach book. For a month of your life, try not to better yourself. Relax. Pick up a page-turner. Indulge some guilty pleasure, but skip the guilt. Save the self-help tome for another season. Promise yourself to be content — if only for a few weeks — with the world and your life and yourself, just the way they are.
Sure, the world needs improving. The planet is careening toward ecological disaster! Your cell phone is giving you brain cancer! Antibiotics are losing the battle against biotics! Life as we know it is disappearing! October is soon enough to be spooked by all that.
Fiction can immerse you in a different world. Fiction makes no effort to keep its facts straight. Whether it’s J.K. Rowling’s Quidditch matches or G.K. Chesterton’s “Man Who Was Thursday,” gravity needn’t apply. Lack of gravity can work as levity. You will be lightened, if not enlightened, by spending imaginary time Elsewhere.
That escape can be helpful. When you return, the real world will be waiting, mostly in the condition that you left it. But you will be refreshed, better able to see and do the improving that it requires.
Balancing checkbooks and rotating tires can be tackled the same way flashcards and multiplication tables once were.
It’s time to relearn this lesson: it’s good to be rested, at least once a year. And it’s not too late. Summer’s only half over.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs.

Cities endure by adapting, mixing the permanent and the transitory into a cocktail that mimics the recipe of life. This week I loitered in Chicago, where I learned that skill half a lifetime ago.
The buildings have retained their shapes, but often not their purposes. The form of the cityscape looks familiar, but I can hear a flight attendant’s warning: “… contents may have shifted during our flight.”
The German restaurant my bride and I would visit once a week is now a Mexican restaurant. There’s a McDonald’s and a Walgreen’s now around the corner from our first apartment. Each is open 24 hours. I cannot tell you what each replaced. Maybe a radiator repair yard or a mom-and-pop upholstery shop. It wasn’t my mom or pop, and so I don’t remember.
Our favorite hot dog stand has survived. It used to brag about its 39 flavors of milk shakes. Now it has 61. (“Try our new Mountain Dew milkshake!”)
I find myself walking the streets, hunting for nostalgia amid all the newness. Like digging through other people’s recyclables, hoping to collect a few overlooked deposits. At a nickel apiece, only volume will make it worth the trouble. I’m collecting barely a pocketful of familiar sights. But I have to remember — nothing here is obligated to my memory. Hundreds and thousands are living their lives. This place now belongs to them and not to me.
Our favorite German bakers retired years ago. A young couple took over, added cappuccino and espresso, but they couldn’t attract the same clientele. My friend Glenn remembers that they closed abruptly. Slow and steady change is not so easily noticed. Glenn bought his house in 1979 and has never considered moving.
“It’s now a Mexican bakery, and it’s thriving,” he tells me, pointing as we round the corner.
“Has the neighborhood shifted?” I ask.
“Nah. It’s always been a mix, of course. It’s mostly hispanics coming and going to that bakery, but it’s still mostly white folks in this neighborhood. I honestly don’t know where they’re living.”
The billboards on the arteries tell a different story — in Spanish.
Glenn doesn’t pay attention the same way a billboard company or a restaurateur pays attention. He doesn’t need to. Change was always part of the formula. It was a big reason he and his wife chose to leave the suburbs for the city over 30 years ago.
It’s only when change comes quickly or unexpectedly that residents feel alerted. Those who cannot abide change never arrive in a city, or they soon leave. Cities that refuse to change are known best by archaeologists and historians.
Chicago’s building stock solidly supports the change of its residencies. Chicagoans haven’t yet settled on a new name for the Sears Tower, now that Sears has moved its headquarters to the suburbs. America’s tallest building was bought by Willis Insurance, and the skyscraper’s new moniker is in danger of becoming “the Big Willie.” It will take a decade of common use before the name is as solid as the structure.
The opulence of Chicago’s skyscrapers has diminished as they have become more numerous. As buildings provide stability for a fluid shift of uses and people, the buildings-as-cityscape flow impermanently over the bedrock of the street grid.
Make no mistake. Roads are the closest thing to permanence in city life. Ask the Romans.
Chicago was platted in 1830. The street grid looked like a publicity stunt for a graph paper company. The coordinated numbering of the streets and houses followed in 1909. Edward Brennan, a facilities manager for a Chicago music company, delivered sheet music and pianos all over the city. He campaigned tirelessly for elimination of duplicate street names and other anomalies. Brennan fought for order amid the chaos, and he won. Almost everything looks new to me in Chicago, but I’m never lost, thanks to Brennan.
When I return to Eugene, I will pay less attention to the buildings and even less to the proposed uses for those buildings. Roads connect it all. Whether it’s EWEB’s redevelopment plan, our greater urge to reconnect downtown to our river, EmX’s next stage of expansion, or the upcoming community discussion about our urban services boundary, roads last longest.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) grew up in Chicago and left in 1984. He writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs.

I should have promised myself that it would be my last. We don’t identify endings for ourselves very often, so there’s no telling how many curtain calls we miss. Instead, we recycle sorry scenes from our middles. The proverbial “fat lady singing” begins only after we’ve ducked out the stage door — maybe for some fresh air or a quick smoke. The oncoming truck doesn’t slow enough to see the difference.
One can get quite philosophical, lounging on your front porch for an entire Saturday afternoon. Hosting a yard sale is thankless work.
The ad in the newspaper was listed under Garage Sales, but most on my block don’t have garages, including me. It was certainly not an Estate Sale. Nobody had died. Estates are like eulogies — what looks like just a large mess (a house, a life) gets organized into something valuable, but only after you can’t take credit for any of it.
It was not a Help Us Make Rent Sale, which pop up in surprising neighborhoods the end of each month. And it wasn’t one of those I’m Lonely for Human Interaction and Pardon the Cat Hair on the Trinkets Sale. It was not a Moving Sale, and not even a Moving On Sale. Nobody was breaking up and ridding their viewscape of reminders of some particular past.
It was a Lighten the Load Sale, a Share the Bounty Sale, a Pilgrim’s Progress Sale. But traipsing around with directional signs and a staple gun just after dawn, it felt like an I’m Getting Too Old For This Sale.
We opened at 8 AM and several cars swooped in within the first few minutes. These synchronized salers had plotted their morning, measuring locations and start times to cover the most sales in the shortest distance. Most drove pick up trucks. Some didn’t even stop their engines as they surveyed my wares.
“Tools?”
“Records?”
“Jewelry?”
Good thing I wasn’t looking for conversation.
Books were the first to go, especially those that never had been read. Ebay resellers, no doubt. Nobody buys both “What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School” and “Conversations With God” for their own reading pleasure. I’m glad folks have learned to do this, and if it keeps them from having to host yard sales to make rent, I’m glad for them.
(I bought a book once at Smith Family that I considered a real find. When I got home, I opened the cover and read my name on the inside. I’d forgotten I’d ever owned it. I’m so Oregonian, I can recycle myself.)
The pace soon slowed. Familiar neighborhood faces stopped and inquired why I owned a fog machine, and for the first time I learned their names. An old friend came by, just to sit and chat. I had a nervous moment, worried that I might be selling items I had once bought from people I know. Or worse, a gift long separated from its giver, at risk of being unintentionally reunited. False alarm.
By lunchtime, things were so slow I feared I might start sounding like the cat woman in the house dress with a full set of “I Wuv You This Much” figurines. I tried to read a magazine, but nonchalance is hard to project when your hot air popcorn popper is going for 50 cents.
“We could just end things early,” my son suggested. He knows stir crazy when he sees it.
“My word is my bond,” I muttered, barely able to hear myself.
But the final hour was better. Some people came back, haunted that somebody else might have claimed that pond liner or the electric screwdriver. The threadbare “Star Wars” sheet set was no longer hidden under a larger pile and got snapped up by a college student who couldn’t believe his luck.
At 3 PM, the remainders were being boxed up for St. Vincent de Paul, Goodwill, NextStep, and Smith Family Bookstore. I could have done that on Friday and skipped all this. Was half a Saturday worth $76.75? I’m not sure.
The gleam in that college kid’s eye was almost worth an Oregon summer Saturday. I’m glad those Star Wars sheets found a good home.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs.

Fifth Friday Footnotes, Follow-Ups and Far-Flung Fripperies:
• Many have asked how our front yard neighborhood potluck went. Almost 20 attended the first “Sundays at Six,” plus a half dozen others who sent regrets. I invested only 40 minutes for set-up and 15 minutes of clean-up. It was simple and easy. Why not start one in your neighborhood?
• Fifty two weeks ago today, three Americans were hiking in northern Iraq and wandered into Iran, where they have been held as suspected spies since. I was in almost the same location one year earlier, but didn’t end up in the same spot. Please don’t forget them.
• When did the term “hippie heritage” stop being an oxymoron?
• My son bought a car with heated leather seats. By comparison, I drive a go-cart. I’d say we swapped generational places, except I never had a heated seated place.
• I have reason to believe Market of Choice is in league with some shadowy avocado cartel. How else could they have the lowest prices all the time? I ruled out the theory that they’ve made a pact with the devil. There’s no way Satan would allow all that good Lutheran church music instead of Muzak.
• Is it terrible that I recognize “almond” first as a color, second as a flavor and third as a nut? Yes, I think so.
• I don’t hear as well as I did when I was younger. I hope it’s not just that I care less what people are saying.
• It says something about you, but I don’t know what: if you turn the knob as you close a door.
• I hope someday to be bored enough to read every word on a Dr. Bonner soap container.
• “Nope” is due for a comeback.
• It was fun for a while, but now I feel scolded by the rhythmic “Wait” at our talking crosswalks. Can we record 100 different voices and loop them, like the automated library return slots?
• Next year I might try to watch the entire Eugene Marathon from a midpoint location. If I begin training now, I might have the necessary endurance by May.
• “For Sale” is a strange Britism (is that a word?). Our selling signs should say “Buy Me!”
• I’m beginning to resent when public toilets don’t automatically flush, relying on me to pull a lever. This can’t be good.
• For reasons I can’t explain, finding a parking place that doesn’t require me to back out of it gives me a quiet joy.
• Success and happiness are easily confused, but dangerously so when it’s your own. They share similar soil, but root from different places.
• Any recipe with “mock” in its name I’m likely to enjoy. I realize this says more about me than the recipe.
• You can explain political persuasions best with condiments. He who adds ketchup liberally nurtures a liberal optimism. She who scrimps and saves, leaving mustard for another day is being conservative.
• People who back into their own driveways are trying to tell us something.
• “Don” is both a noun and a verb. Hmmm.
• I’ve made myself hard to figure, not hard to find.
• I don’t “get” licorice. Anise bread at Anatolia is as far as I go.
• My mattress is made of memory foam, whatever that is. I just hope it misses me during the day.
• Some household items should be sold as subscriptions, replenishing themselves automatically. I’m thinking about sponges, flowers and toothbrushes, just for starters.
• Do you clip your toenails with your foot firmly against a surface or with your toes dangling in the air? I’m sorry, but those are the only two options.
• Can a polymath be good at many things, if math is not one of them?
• I hate to admit it, but I started almost enjoying the four-way stop at 29th and Willamette. It was slower, but neighborly. And when I was in a hurry, I could avoid the corner with a little forethought.
• Speech therapists will tell you their success always comes down to three factors: locution, locution, locution.
• Who was Saran and did we ever properly thank him or her for their Wrap?
• When and how did a person’s weight become so completely removed from their choices? If people insist they’re helpless, don’t they often end up hapless?
• Do you know where your hap is?
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) published the Comic News in Eugene for a decade. Now writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs, among other things.

Except for casserole recipes, I don’t often look to the editors of Parade Magazine for inspiration. I thumb through it most Sundays as quickly as I can. I would ignore it altogether, but I can’t bear to waste any part of my newspaper. Come to think of it, that’s probably also why I find casseroles so satisfying. I admire new ways of using little bits of leftovers that otherwise would have gone to waste.
In May, Parade Magazine’s cover story featured clever and innovative housing designs. The editors rounded out the issue by gathering heartwarming stories of people meeting their neighbors. One of those sidebars caught my eye.
A neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio has an informal program they call “Wednesdays on the Porch.” A different resident each week hosts a potluck for the neighborhood from their front porch.
After eight years, 75 different participating families, and more than 130 porch parties, Doug Motz described his brainchild this way: “It’s a time for sharing — opinions on new restaurants, how to find good painters and home-repair people. And the nice thing is, the hosts don’t have to worry about cleaning up inside.”
Last month, I found myself beside one of my neighbors in a day-long meeting focused on building a deeper sense of community in Eugene. He and I agreed to start our version of a roaming neighborhood potluck — Sundays at Six.
We’re inviting anyone who lives on our small stretch of road between two Dari Marts, about a block and a half long. I’m hosting this Sunday, my neighbor and his wife will host the following Sunday, and we’ll see what happens after that. Ice and charcoal are all we’re providing, plus maybe a table or two. Since everyone attending will have come from very nearby, each of us will bring our own chairs and drinks and utensils. We’re not promising even bathroom privileges.
Our block has a mix of young families and retirees, renters and owners, bicyclists and SUV-drivers. If we were a recipe, we’d boast a wild array of flavors. But we don’t really mix. I hope Sundays at Six will stir things up.
“Six weeks is all you get,” my brother Bill insists. “If you haven’t had a new neighbor over at least twice in the first six weeks, there’s no hope. After that, somebody could always ask what took you so long — why now?” He lives in the south, where social rules are more rigid and less spoken, but his point still holds. We want to make it easier to connect with neighbors, long after that six-week grace period has expired.
Our neighborhood is just like yours, filled with busy, timid people. We don’t dislike our neighbors. But we secretly fear they may dislike us.
So all we’re sharing is our front yards, something we already share with anyone who passes by. I’ve donated a small Weber grill that has been painted gold, with bold lettering announcing “PARTY.” The grill will travel to front yard of the next Sunday’s host, as a subtle sign. Neighbors can simply walk down the block and look for the distinctive golden grill.
We hope that good things will follow naturally — borrowing a cup of sugar, carpooling to an event, sharing garden bounty, watching a neighbor’s house while they’re away.
Don’t confuse our hopes with an agenda. In fact, we’ve agreed that Sundays at Six may spawn but must itself never become so organized that it requires maintenance, governance and leadership. Whoever hosts this Sunday gets to choose who will host next Sunday, but that’s the extent of the structure.
If somebody brings a croquet set, maybe we’ll have a game. If somebody wants to play music, others may choose to listen. If we learn that one neighbor makes the best mustard, more of us might start bringing bratwursts.
It will be whatever we decide to make it, except without anyone doing the actual deciding.
As with any good casserole recipe, the whole will become greater than its parts. If my neighbors and I concoct something tasty and distinctive from all the ingredients we have close at hand, I’ll admit it started with something I clipped from Parade Magazine.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) is executive director for the local chapter of American Institute of Architects. He writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs. Look for an amazing recipe for Savory Ginger Rosemary Squares. He clipped it from a newspaper.

I celebrate Do It Yourself Diversity Day each July, but this year’s version had a special spiritual twist.
Sunday, July 11, 2010, 6:15 a.m. The alarm won’t go off for another fifteen minutes, but I’m awake with a list of details in my head. Preparation is key.
6:45 a.m. I’m showered and dressed. Hawaiian shirt. Parachute pants are dust colored (that will be handy), they unzip into shorts for the midday sun, and they have as many pockets as a clown suit. Plenty of time left for tea and newspaper reading. At least something about this day will be normal.
7:35 a.m. The Episcopal church up the hill has what they used to call the golfers’ service. I’m hoping to hear John Brombaugh’s last local pipe organ. I’ve left enough time to walk there.
8:00 a.m. The early light plays tricks with the stained glass facing east and a cat is wandering between the pews. The service is quiet, attendance sparse. No organ music. “We hug at eight o’clock,” a parishioner explains, during the passing of the peace.
8:55 a.m. I needed a partner for the day willing to tolerate the unexpected. Laurene Larson is a guidance counselor at South Eugene High School, so that sounds to her like a day at the office. I promised to meet her at 9:45. I walk fast.
9:44 a.m. In line at the downtown LTD station, waiting for a bus and Laurene, whichever comes second. Jubilant Fairgoers stand in line, comparing sun block ratings with strangers. Laurene arrives second, so the first bus leaves without us.
10:10 a.m. We get seats on the second bus to the Oregon Country Fair, but they are not together. I ask the fellow sitting beside me if he’d be willing to switch with Laurene. She waves; seats exchanged. The Fair makes it easy for strangers to ask and receive. Hugging is allowed, but optional.
10:40 a.m. Off the bus and in line again, this time to enter the Fair. Will they hold us there for twenty minutes? The Fair opens at 11. Nah, they let us in early. Rules are barely an impediment at the Fair. Speaking of rules, “Is it OK if I use your name in the newspaper?” I ask Laurene. She smiles. “Of course, use it five times!” Lucky for me — I’d already used it four times.
12:40 p.m. Dr. Patch Adams is on stage talking about mental health care reform. He and his colleague Dr. Carl Hammerschlag effuse about community’s contribution for achieving mental health. An involuntary “Amen” slips out of my mouth. Twice. Both these M.D.s are wearing clown pants. I wonder how many pockets they have.
2:02 p.m. On the bus back to Eugene.
2:46 p.m. Walking into the air-conditioned Hult Center, exactly on time. The Oregon Bach Festival crowd wears just as much make-up as they do at the Fair, but applied to different body parts. The smell of patchouli is gone. In its place is a mixture of Chanel No. 5 and assorted talcs.
2:57 p.m. In our seats, feeling like Dorothy of Oz, only in reverse. Fair musicians wear every color invented, plus a few that have no names. The Festival orchestra is a strict black-and-white affair. But the jubilation is much the same.
4:15 p.m. Two curtain calls and cryptic program notes leads me to believe “Elijah” is shorter than I recall. We step outside, pass Kesey’s statue downtown, pretend to snap his suspenders for good luck, and hop a bus back to the Fair.
6:57 p.m. We’ve spent half the extra time at the Fair, and half on the busses back and forth. Does LTD employ a “sparkle sweeper” to prepare their vehicles for everyday life on Monday?
7:04 p.m. We enter First Christian Church a few minutes late for the 107th interfaith service commemorating 9/11. The spirit here is deeply akin to what I’ve seen everywhere today. “The remedy of fear is awe and curiosity.”
8:39 p.m. I used almost all the day’s sunlight to view spirituality from diverse angles. I empty my pockets. My son is curious (if not awed): “How was it?” I smile.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs. This weekend, he will be emceeing the Graand Kinetic Challenge at daVinci Days in Corvallis.

Brian Logan never wears pants. The former general manager and still barista bravissimo of Theo’s Coffeehouse spends his days behind a serving counter, so you may not have noticed that he always wears shorts.
“I don’t even own any long pants anymore,” he admits. He’s not militant about his clothing choices. He keeps a pair of dress pants in case he gets invited to a wedding, for instance, but he hasn’t worn them in five years. He doesn’t know if they still fit.
“Maybe I’d have to borrow a pair.” He clearly isn’t seeing long pants in his long future. But what about those few days when it gets really cold? “Wool socks, layers, a scarf.” Even his answers are short.
I asked Brian whether he notices others who eschew long pants year round. “No, not really,” he answers, then pauses, as if a new idea had just entered his head.
When out-of-town friends test my contention that we have the perfect climate, I tell them on any day of the year, I can show them men in shorts and women with jackets.
We celebrate a diversity of dress codes in Lane County. Look over a symphony audience and you’ll find the occasional tie dye, but if you look harder, you might be surprised to see how many are wearing sandals.
For years, meteorologist John Fischer wore standard newscaster garb on KEZI, knowing the camera would never catch his naked toes peeping out his Birkenstocks.
On the other foot, you can wander through Saturday Market wearing neatly pressed duds, but people are likely to suspect you’re either a visitor or Up To Something.
If we sometimes take ourselves too seriously, you wouldn’t know it by how we dress. We’re more honest than most in this fashion, wearing our hearts on our sleeves, or on our lack of sleeves.
But tolerance is tested at the extremes, and I could feel my own getting wobbly when Shirley Gauthier called. She’s a committee chair for the Willamettans Family Nudist Resort near Marcola. They and their affiliates across the country are attempting to stage the world’s largest skinny dip this Saturday, Guinness requires witnesses, and so came the invitation.
“Do I have to look?” I asked, after first establishing that I would be allowed to remain fully clothed.
“The word they use is ‘witness’,” Shirley replied, as if deferring to my wordsmithery skills. We know from following criminal justice that witnesses often are not very observant, so the bar was set comfortably low. I won’t be required to count; only attest that I was there and that the event occurred.
Judging is not appropriate for an event where all the pretense of clothing is dropped. You cannot dress down those who are not dressed. We differentiate ourselves by what we wear, so without it there’s only who we are. And so my role seemed more of a bystander than any sort of overseer.
My friend Linda encouraged me. “Please DO observe! What an opportunity! To see the diversity of skin-encased beings, from the young to old, obese to sleek and tanned, from the apple shape, to bean, pear and plum.” She made it seem more like a fruit salad than a parade of humanity. And who doesn’t love fruit salad?
I accepted. And the best part? They’re giving me a commemorative T-shirt, which seems as appropriate as a gold-plated hot fudge sundae for a Weight Watchers convention or an engraved crutch for winning a track meet. But hey, it’s their party. I’m only there to watch, or observe, or witness.
Never mind this weekend’s event will likely attract fewer nudists than a different fete west of town. They will have plenty of witnesses near Veneta.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs at www.dksez.com. Saturday’s skinny dip is free for visitors. Registration begins at 10 AM. The skinny dip is scheduled for noon. The Willamettans is a year-round licensed RV park with a pool, hot tub, sauna, volleyball, tennis, rentals and camping areas. More information at www.willamettans.com or 541-933-2809.

“Fireworks are a very important part of our tradition.” Was Bryan Beeban speaking as the assistant general manager for the Eugene Emeralds, or simply as an American? No matter.
Yes, these are hard times. But we’ve seen harder. Not you and I specifically, of course. But our nation has been through darker periods than this one. And if darkness is good for anything, it’s good for writing your name in the air with a sparkler, or oohing and aahing at a colorful burst exploding overhead.
The Emeralds have ended their early-July ball games with a bang every year since 1987 and this year will be no different, except for the fact that it will be.
Beeban again: “This year, the Eugene Active 20-30 Club will be doing their show from Alton Baker Park at the same time as we’ll be doing our show. Since they are only a quarter mile away from PK Park—”
Let me interrupt Beeban in the middle of his sentence to interject that anyone needing hard evidence that the center of Eugene is moving northward should consider the city’s fireworks displays. For decades, the best shows originated at Civic Stadium and the Lane County Fairgrounds. Now they’ve both hopped the river. OK, back to Beeban.
“—everybody will be getting two shows for the price of one.”
Or for the price of none. Call it the rooftop factor. Anyone for miles around whose neck works properly can watch “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air” for free.
Fireworks displays are not inexpensive. The Ems’ show costs more than $12,000, but pyrotechnics — now the featured coda to every Friday night game — brings more fans through the gate. Other fireworks displays have a harder time meeting expenses.
The Eugene Active 20-30 Club’s display — their 64th in a row — costs roughly the same as the Ems’. They will distribute postcards to those watching the show from outside the gates of Arts and the Vineyard, directing them to a paypal link to donate for the show.
“People may not understand that our fireworks display is actually a fundraiser for the children’s charities our club supports,” Keith Engel told me. He’s the 20-30 Club’s Freedom Festival Sponsorship Chair. “We’ll have volunteers in the field making sure people stay out of the drop zone, so it shouldn’t be hard to give them these cards as well. I don’t think we have enough volunteers to ‘pass the boot’ and collect cash donations, the way the fire department does for its fundraisers.”
Funny he should mention the “pass the boot” technique. That’s just what you might see if you’re driving on Route 1 north of Reedsport late Sunday night. Gardiner’s leaders are seeking permission to do exactly that to pay for their show.
“Every year we manage to raise the money,” says part-time Gardiner resident Mike Quartararo. “Sometimes it’s a miracle, but it always happens. We tried donation jars by cash registers, but that didn’t bring in much. Rounding up $3,000 in a town of 283 people can be a challenge.”
Funny he should mention “can be,” because that’s where Oregon fireworks come from. Heather Gobet, Marketing Director for Western Display Fireworks, described her office in Canby, Oregon as “pretty crazy.” She then told me exactly how crazy. Their staff will stage 300 displays in four states this weekend.
Her great grandparents started the company 62 years ago. Her 16-year old son, David, is helping out in the shop this summer, marking five generations of putting the “works” in fireworks.
Gobet can tell you where all the sky shows are happening across the state. The biggest this weekend will be at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland and the Mill Casino in Coos Bay. Shows also have been purchased by Florence, Creswell, Brownsville, and Oakridge, just to name a few.
You may not care. If your plan for Sunday night is to tote lawn chairs on to your roof and exercise your neck, here’s the link for donations to the Eugene Active 20-30 Club: http://www.eugene2030.org/donation.html.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) grew up near Chicago, chasing lightning bugs. The Eugene Active 20-30 Club also welcomes donations mailed to P.O. Box 365, Eugene, OR 97440.

“Festivals are important to the life of a city,” said Ethan Seltzer, a professor at Portland State University’s School of Urban Studies and Planning, “because they are inherently optimistic.” Seltzer was discussing “livability and localism” last Sunday during a panel discussion that was itself part of a festival — the 15th annual International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Conn.

New Haven’s unemployment rate exceeds the national average, and its population of chronically unemployed remains stubbornly near tragic. “During these difficult financial times, we resolved to maintain our festival,” said IFAI Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie. “If anything, we wanted to have more choices, more activities, more free events.” They cut expenses 30 percent this year, but have maintained a full schedule.

“The object is to create an immersive experience,” Seltzer continued. “I could describe the ideal, but how many of you were on the New Haven green last night for that gospel music concert?” A third of the room’s hands went up, including mine. “Then you know! The Blind Boys of Alabama got the crowd going, and did you notice how people relaxed their usual boundaries?”

When people are having that much fun, they stop caring how close they are to strangers. Caught up in the moment, I’d say “Amen.”

A middle-aged couple approached our patch of lawn and asked if they could claim the open space between our picnic blanket and the stage. We welcomed Mara and Hayne, after they assured us they had not brought lawn chairs. We bantered good-naturedly about the “chair people” and the “blanket people,” wishing that there was height-limitation zoning for free concerts. But the truth is, the lack of rules heightened our enjoyment.

If we’d wanted a safer experience, we could have chosen a restaurant or stayed at the house. Instead, we made new friends. We mixed our dips with their chips. Seltzer calls it “surprise without fear.”

“Cities are a fundamental human achievement.” These ideas ooze from Seltzer’s pores. “Citizens must be empowered to solve their own problems when they can, and that often requires dealing with strangers who live nearby. Having fun together helps that enormously. Livability is socially constructed. Livability is a legacy for a lifetime.”

And so, let us turn our attention to Eugene’s own festival, celebrating its 40th year. For the late-night crowd, the Oregon Bach Festival began last night at downtown’s newest restaurant-club, “Cowfish.” The Bach Remix started at 10 p.m. and who knows when they finished. (Register-Guard entertainment reporter Serena Markstrom was probably there, tweeting.)

George Evano, Director of Communications for the Oregon Bach Festival, refers to the hip-hop pre-opening as “broadening the concept.” OBF has become more expansive, precisely because it knows what it’s about.

“Three things,” Evano told me. I imagined his digits extending as he counted. “First, Johann Sebastian Bach — old guy in a musty wig, right? Well, look closer and you see a man driven by inspiration and creativity, freely adapting from popular culture. He was shameless. I mean, the man stole from himself!” So OBF has adopted Bach’s penchant for borrowing the best from anywhere they find it.

“Second, a vertical approach to education.” Evano is ever mindful that the festival grew out of the University of Oregon. Free lectures with Q&A are the entry level for education, and it builds from there. High school choral programs, master classes for professionals, and special programs for seniors. It all fits inside OBF’s identity.

“Third (and maybe this should have been first), a commitment to performance at the highest level.” Evano didn’t actually say the part in parentheses, but I’m pretty sure I heard it. Pink Martini and Bobby McFerrin fit here, to the delight of audiences every year.

Surprise without fear.

Executive Director John Evans has added a fourth broadening, and that’s geographic. “He really wants to emphasize that the Oregon Bach Festival is for all of Oregon,” Evano said. This year again there will be events in Portland, but now also one in Bend.

The Opening Ceremonies will fill the Hult Center lobby tonight (6:45 p.m., free), followed by Verdi’s “Requiem,” with Helmuth Rilling wielding his baton for the 40th year in Eugene.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) returned from the east coast just in time. He writes a weekly column for The Register-Guard and blogs.