The illusion of permanence

We think what we build today will still be here tomorrow, but we are wrong. That’s hardly a great profundity – even a dolt can look back at the last ten years (0r less) and point to floods, wildfires, hurricanes and earthquakes and proclaim with near certainty that almost nothing built by Man will stand that long. Even so, I don’t think we stop to consider that when we first find a patch of ground, clear out the undergrowth, and set that first corner marker in the ground. It may be a weakness — we humans tend to believe that this time, with this effort, under this sky, the future will be different. I know I’m rambling here, but I was out walking the Coast Range last week, visiting some areas that were logged over back in the late 1920s but which since then have been pretty much untouched. Certainly there are no records of any towns or villages where I was hiking. And yet, I came upon a huge – and by huge I mean to say massive – block of concrete and mortared stone. In the middle of nothing. Next to nothing. With no evidence of ever having been a part of something. But there it was. Probably eight feet wide by sixteen feet long and easily five feet thick. A foundation? Doubtful. The footing of a long-gone bridge? It looked like it, but there was no canyon to cross, no evidence of a matching footing anywhere nearby. So how did it get there? I will add it to my list of things to investigate, but my feeling is that I will probably never know. Somebody somehow worked their way to that remote part of the forest, built this incredible monument (I can only imagine the difficulties that must have been involved), and then faded away. No trace. No record. No discernable reason to exist. We are strange and silly creatures – but we never stop dreaming.

The question is why.

Really, I think that is the question behind everything. Why did these explorers-settlers-visionaries come to the wild and untamed Pacific Northwest in the first place? Most of these people – actually I would say all of them – had no real idea at all what awaited them except what they read in clearly over-puffed sales brochures of the time. Land speculators wanted warm bodies, and city folk from places like Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City wanted to get away to a place where they could be free. But wanting and doing are two different things. That’s what amazes me, that so many people not only made the journey, but then actually stayed and attempted to build new communities of their own. I have never done anything so brave in all my life. Who were these people? What drove them?

My first blog post

My granddaughter, Emily, tells me I need to fully embrace the 21st Century by working on a blog. At first I thought maybe she was referring to some sort of New Age health and fitness routine, which at my advanced years I really don’t care about. But then as she explained it to me more fully, I understood.  Where does that child learn about these things? At any rate, I followed her advice and thus here you see my first Blog Entry. I am told that these things work as sort of a wide-broadcast newsletter. Thus, I am a 21st century Town Crier of sorts. Hello therefore, to any who might be listening. I will do my best to make good use of this new technology to keep my small network of Vanished Oregon fellows updated. Perhaps even that network will grow…if so then I will indeed be a happy blogger.