Tooling Around in CivilizationOn Wednesday we visited civilization of various sorts and Thursday was more back-roads, rocks and flora on the way home. Thursday will be short, but combining them will make things way over my self-imposed limit. So Wednesday.After breakfast, involving the last of our purloined vegetables, we made a quick pass by the box office at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. We had tickets for the evening and were hoping to pick up a matinee. "but when we got there...the cupboard was bare". The box office attendant told us that it was very unlikely we could find any tickets for that week. The reason? It was the last week for the outdoor theater, the Elizabethan Stage, which would close on Saturday with a candlelight parade after the last showing of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Many enthusiasts, she said, made an entire week of the experience, finishing with that grand ceremony. Fred and I had already decided that we were not interested in watching a play wrapped in coats, gloves, hats and blankets at a temperature that is often very close to freezing. So we don't really count as enthusiasts, even though we are both members of the Festival; and were on our own for the rest of the day. If you go to Ashland, there are often tickets to be had (and not even scalped), but NOT this week. Take note. We did a little shopping, well actually just looking, in Ashland; it's always been one of my favorite shopping destinations and I try to get there a bit before Christmas when I can. They have often featured unique items from local artists at very reasonable prices. Well, I fear those days are gone. The shopping was not particularly interesting and there were NO bargains. For example, the downtown shops were selling $250 scarves and $350 blouses. Even at half price that's just silly. Fred says the clothing stores are just keeping pace with the price of real estate. Ashland has become a trendy place for those dreaded Californians to buy vacation places. It's really cold in the winter and really hot in the summer, so they must be spring or fall vacationers. Well, my favorite store, Paddington Station, was still fun. But even their extensive collection of inexpensive kitchen gadgets couldn't tempt me this time. So we drove down I-5 to Medford to visit Harry and David. On the way, we saw what I think might be a uniquely Oregon phenomenon. At least I can't imagine it in California or New Jersey or Florida. It was lunch time for the freeway repair crew and they were taking advantage of the terrain. The northbound lanes are a good twenty feet above the southbound lanes. And those orange-vested, burly, mustachioed workers were sliding down that incline on flattened cardboard boxes. It looked like great fun and did a lot to reinforce my faith in the commitment and humanity of public workers. If it doesn't do it for you, we just have a different way of viewing the world. Harry and David, is Oregon's (and maybe the country's) premier fruit-of-the-month club organization. There actually were a Harry and a David and here's the proof. I don't know if either is still alive, probably not. The brothers, Harry and David, were the ones who came up with the mail-order idea and marketed it to businesses as the ideal business gift when the luxury market for their fabulous pears disappeared after the U.S. stock market crash in 1929. Today there are stores everywhere and they sell many, many things besides fruit. But to me, Comice pears are still what they do best; their variety is called the Royal Riviera and they grow extremely well in the Rogue River Valley where it all started. We spent a fair amount of time in their flagship store, admiring everything, but not buying much. However, Harry and David has one great gift basket with the good pears and Rogue Creamery blue for $50, so if you want to try some of the best that Oregon offers, this is it. Go to the page and put pears blue cheese in the search box in the upper right. It's a little late in this narrative for a place-name discussion about Rogue River, but I forgot until now. There are lots of elk along the Rogue River and, in the spring, bull elk go off on their own, abandoning the cows and calves until early Fall. So I speculated that the river is named for the solitary bull elk, perhaps called "rogue," because they're alone (but not usually destructive, like a rogue elephant). There are lots of motels and stores and so on called Rogue Elk and Rogue River Elk, etc. So it seemed sensible. However, after I got home I checked "Oregon Geographic Names" (MacArthur, Lewis A., 6th edition, Oregon Historical Society Press, 1992, ISBN o-87595-236-4) and found out we were on the wrong track. First, Mr. MacArthur debunked the apparently common theory that the French explorers and fur-traders named it Rouge River because red silt turned the river 'rouge' during flood season and the French couldn't spell very well. It doesn't turn red, he says, but runs clear or a little muddy and the French themselves called it Rogue or Coquin (French for rogue) because the Indians here were "...a particularly troublesome lot." So there you have it, rogue Native Americans, not elk. It doesn't really matter, neither managed to hang on to their territory very well. After Harry and David, we drove north through Ashland and into Talent to the Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery, another primarily mail-order business. How Fred knows about all these cool places, I will never know. This certainly was not here when he lived in the area, but it is a wonderful nursery, specializing in alpine and rock garden plants. I sat on a bench and regarded the array with pleasure, while Fred communed with the plants and the owners and bought a few fabulous things. I think you have to know a bit about plants to buy from these folks. Do you know what you'll get if you order LIMONIUM bellidifolium ? Fred does. If you do, I think you'll be very pleased with their selection. Next we went back to Ashland for a short nap at the home of a sister of Fred's (see how handy his family is?). And then got dressed for dinner and the play. Dinner was at Omar's. I just can't say enough about this steak and seafood house. I have been eating here whenever I'm in Ashland since the late-60s and I've *never* had a bad meal. This night I had what was essentially a bouillabaisse--wonderful broth made with tomatoes and chipotles, red potatoes, corn, a couple each of clams, shrimp, mussels, and a lovely grilled halibut fillet over the top. I tried for the recipe, but the waitress said that the cook said, "Sorry, you'll just have to come back." I think we could do it, though, with a little experimentation and the smoked paprika from the Butte Creek Mill. The play was called "Intimate Apparel," by Lynn Nottage, a young black playwright from Brooklyn . The playbill says about "Intimate Apparel, ...stories of the heart are stitched together by a thousand tiny stitches." It's a story of a mid-30s black lingerie seamstress in the early 20th century, who develops intimate relationships with a rich white woman, a black prostitute, and a Jewish fabric merchant because of her profession and an intimate penpal and beyond relationship with a Caribbean worker on the Panama Canal because of her yearnings. It was very well done (any play in Ashland always is), poignant, solid. Esther, the central character is sassy, self-effacing and entirely sympathetic. Fred loved it, I wasn't so sure. It seemed a little 'emotion-milking' to me. But of course, I know very little about the circumstances of Black Americans in the 30s and 40s, trying to become middle class, or at least, more than invisible. And this play was trying to teach me. An objective I respect. So, clearly not a trivial evening. Back to Fred's brother's 'cabin' for a good night's rest; get up fairly early, one last admiration of the wild turkeys, and then wash and change the sheets, tidy up and scrub, etc. before hitting the road. A small price to pay for a wonderful location. Thanks Larry and Peg! |
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