Oregon150

Oregon Start to Finish

Shayla
Waldport

by Shayla
Waldport, OR
I didn’t move here, I was born here. I don’t know anything else. I live on the coast where it’s sunny one hundred days out of the year. That’s a lot of rain and it’s also cold. During our summers 70°F is hot. If you subtract weather from the equation you get smoked [...]

Child of Oregon

Andrea Fleck
Coos County

by Andrea Fleck
South Beach, OR
When asked what Oregon means to me, my mind immediately conjures up impressions from my childhood-playing outside in the damp and mud with the next door neighbor kids, we would steer our bikes and go-carts through the wooded trails located directly behind our houses on Shady Lane.
I would sometimes accompany [...]

Life in a Tidewater Town

Diane Novak
Reedsport

Contributed by Diane Novak
Reedsport, OR

Dorothy Weiss provided this story for the ‘I Remember, I Remember’ exhibit at the Umpqua Discovery Center in Reedsport.
“The train brought my family from Coos Bay to Reedsport because there was a sawmill in Reedsport where my dad could work. Mom packed us up, put the cat in a picnic [...]

Diving In

Vicktoira
Agate Beach

by Vicktoira Murphy
Newport, OR

When most people think of Oregon they think of either think of how rainy it is, how green it is, or the ocean. When I think of Oregon I think of family and how fun it can be, like taking hikes or just swimming in the ocean and rivers. But when I [...]

Imprisoned by Mother Nature

Kc Steensen
Oregon

by KC Steensen
Newport, OR
I was born on the Oregon coast in Newport, and brought into this world by a loving family. Only to be imprisoned by a possessive Mother Nature. No matter what time of year, it is always raining, always windy, and always the same temperature.
However there are amazing breaks in the tempest, amazing [...]

the green magnet

megan alcorn
newport oregon

by Megan Alcorn
Newport, OR
My parents forced me to move here. I became a prisoner of the relentless rain and lime green mold. I came to hate the rain along with all the other bad things that follow Oregon.
A few months into this place, however, I began to notice the green; it started to draw me [...]

Not freaking out

Michaela
Newport High School

by Michaela La Puentes
Depoe Bay, OR
With so much rain you would think people would think about using an umbrella or at least on special occasions. But instead they just walk around in the rain like nothing’s happening. It was funny because two years ago it started to rain in California for the first time in [...]

South Beach Jetty

Skylar Mathew Morris
South Beach

by Skylar Mathew Morris
Newport, OR
When I was a young boy, I used to venture down the South Beach jetty, imagining joyous times, riding my bike, with music blaring in my ears from my headphones. I lived in a small house, infested with all sorts of nasty critters; this became my castle, my playground. I would [...]

Our Feet Dangle…

Jessica Abney
Nye Beach

by Jessica Abney
Newport, OR
My first summer at Shakespeare Camp and I was scared, scared of messing up the entire production of “Two Gentlemen of Verona.” I played the part of Launce, a crazy old man with a dog. I wasn’t the only one who felt this nervous. Christy and Jennie felt the same. We [...]

A New Wilderness

Jonathan Martinez
Newport

by Jonathan Martinez
Newport, OR
Malls, shopping centers, and intense traffic were my California wilderness. Then a friend presented an opportunity my family could not ignore. This opportunity would tear me away from my life; my friends, my school, my paradise.
But I didn’t know I would find a future and a new wilderness in my new home, [...]

The Wild that We Traverse

Katherine Rose
Yachats River Valley

by Katherine Rose
Yachats, OR
Ancient REI, Columbia, Gortex and other well-worn articles of outdoor gear collect themselves at the doorway from the recesses of our basement. The bright aqua and cool greens of the thrift-store-special-equipment wear the scars of the wild of which they have traversed. The small threads of the backpacks and tents [...]