Lumber Country

I had the idea of re-exploring Oakridge and Westfir on the way home.

They are the eastern Lane County towns that are ever on the verge of reorienting their economies to something else besides lumber. But whenever I go through, which is not often, they never seem to have quite made the transformation into vacation and retirement meccas, like other central Cascades and high desert towns. My theory is simple: on scrutinizing the detailed DeLorme atlas, I saw that those same railroad tracks by the lake go right through the middle of Oakridge, and even worse, through tiny Westfir, day and night. Only there I know they blast their horns at every crossing. But more than that, it’s clear that old lumber towns bear the ugliness and poverty those companies engendered, in the stripped-away dignity of men and families who were indebted to the company that used them. Unlike poor farmers, they were landless, and utterly dependent. Dr. Josey’s class wars are still here, but no one seems to want to admit it. Today’s featured photo is the one thing the lumber company left that is attractive enough for tourist bureaus.

Before I left Odell Lake, my last evening contained a couple of pleasant surprises. Returning from my hike, I felt sticky all over, and had thereby attracted a thick coat of trail dust. Time for the coin-operated showers. I ran a couple of dollar bills through the change machine in the camp store and walked out to them, towel around my neck. I was happy to see there were no dirty, grumpy hikers about, and no one had left it a mess either. I closed myself into a clean and cozy shower room, and reached into my pocket for my handful of quarters. Then I saw the slots in the machine already full. Eight quarters standing at the ready, just push and go.

Ohhhh, yeah. The PCT thru-hikers would still subscribe to that tired “Pay it forward” mania. Can’t say hello, but surprising a hypothetical human (who of course will do the same ritual of virtue confirmation, thus to nobody’s actual benefit) makes one all warm and fuzzy. I didn’t technically need the quarters, but I used them. And no, I didn’t play. I kept the quarters I had brought. I do need them for my laundry at home, and happen to be out of them. So, a low-income, apartment-dwelling, pay-laundry-room-using old woman is who you helped out–and I am glad for it since it puts off my trip to the bank for a few days. But I don’t believe you would have wanted to give those to me, the ruiner of the ritual, had you known, because you refuse to give me the time of day. It was a pleasant surprise my mind turned bittersweet. I wonder if I should have been too proud to take that faux charity, or too wise to let it make me feel resentful.

But delighted, at least, with my fresh cleanliness, I had retired into Janet for the evening and was reading and snacking in lieu of dinner, when I heard someone calling to me outside the window. It was Joe, who asked me if I liked kokanee. Yes! He said “Be about four minutes,” and tromped off. I asked after him if they would like me to bring over some beer, and he said no. In four minutes I walked over to their camp and he had a Traeger fired up outside, chock full of lovely pink fillets. He had been out that morning before six, and had caught a goodly batch. He said they smoke and can them, which took me back to my childhood. I asked if people called them “bluebacks” and he said that was an old-timer term. I found a photo of a kokanee from the internet, but for some reason the back turned out green, when all those I’ve seen are dark blue.

Then he said “Will you eat two, or three?” I guessed I would eat two, just to be reasonable, and then said hello to Pam, who I had just noticed sitting inside their big RV. Joe hustled past me with his plate of fish and took a seat across from her and started shoveling them into his hovering trap. Getting the picture, I smilingly said, holding my plate of hot fish, “Am I meant to take these over and eat at my camp?” I received an affirmative, and said cheerfully, “All right then! Thank you for sharing your bounty, Joe!” I’m talking like a character from a Stella Gibbons novel at the moment, naturally. I did appreciate having borrowed British politeness at the ready.

But my goodness, I should have taken three. Those fish were sublime. Perfectly filleted so not a single, tiny bone was encountered, and just that fresh, clean, lightly salted and lemon-peppered feast you can only have next to the water. I was wrong, Odell Lake is not always useless.

I saw Pam this morning on my way to the toilets, and she said sorry about the misunderstanding, and I assured her it was really fine. I told her to complement Joe on the wonderful fish, and said I’d expected them to taste muddy, due to the algae. She said sometimes they do, and once a whole batch of canned kokanee turned out to be no good, because of that “grassy” flavor, as she called it. Pam said his filleting was expert because turns out he was a retired meat-cutter. We chatted briefly and then she took off to meet Joe’s boat, which she pointed to, coming into the marina. She is silly enough to want to be a globalist, but she married herself a nice, solid working man.