Ashland is one of those things I thank the gods daily for. It's undeniably magical, transformative, a vortex for creative energies and dreams, the place where you "work thru stuff" that kept you from loving life before you got here, the place where you find the people you love -- and give birth to them.
Out of college (in Mich, where I grew up) in 1967, I know for a fact that divine forces sent me to Oregon. I was looking for work in journalism and was living in San Francisco in the Summer of Love (another godsend) and United Press Intl said can you go work in the Oregon legislature as a political reporter in two weeks? Quicker than I could say goodbye to my girlfriend and teaching job, I was on the road to Oregon and, in my first day here, driving north in Jackson County, was overwhelmed with profound visions of ecstasy, as if I had entered a fairyland and all the mountains were taking me in a big hug and saying, "this is where you will do your work, love all the people you will love, have kids, know the gods, write your books and above all, just be you and learn who that is and love who that is and be freeking happy.
And so it has come to pass. Did the political journalism thing in the dazzling Tom McCall years, dropped out, bummed around the US and Europe and was back living in SF, knowing one thing for sure - I wanted to get out of the City and "back to the land" and be part of nature and claim a wholly different kind of life, connected to Mother Earth and her cycles, seasons and delicious hills, rivers, clouds.
Again, the gods clearly intervened and handed me the huge present of returning me to...Oregon! But this time in its vortex of paradise. My hippie friends and I were kicking back and being mellow in Golden Gate Park one Sunday morning in March 1971 and this sweet hippie couple walked by, selling LPs for money to move to the Rogue Valley, which they said was the most beautiful place on Earth and they are looking for someone with a van to drive them there.
I just said, "I have a van. I'll do it." In less time than it took to say goodbye to my gf (same one), I was on the freeway north and with pal, Louie, bought a cabin on the Applegate for $800, which soon led to "goin to town" for fun -- and that town was (thank you gods!!) Ashland. We began to meet people here and work at Bagley's pear cannery in fall 71 and, heck, really came to like the place!
By Jan. 1972, I realized I needed a (gasp) job. I just drove by KOBI-TV in Medford on Crater Lake Hwy one day, glanced over at it, hooked a u-turn, walked in and found Tam Moore, the news director, who said he knew my work well from UPI and could I start tomorrow. I said, "sure, I'll do it." I rented my first home here on California St and started one of the happiest times (working), riding my bike around, going to amazing Lithia Park every day after work and sitting by the creek, playing on the playground equipment and, being 28, hot and single started meeting every babe in town. There weren't that many of them back then - maybe a dozen. Hippies were flooding in and buying up the Plaza (they still own it!) and living off the land.
By '73, I was living with a beautiful young lass and her daughter and we'd bought 11 acres w/ great view, inside the city for $37k, which I thought was one hell of a lot of money back then! Oh, if I'd only known the land rush that would happen in a dozen years. But riches in heart and life experience are vastly more important than drawing lines around dirt and wood boxes and saying this is mine!
We raised dear Heather there. A paradisical time in the 70s, when things were cheap and you could get by doing odd stuff, fixing bikes, waiting tables at Chateaulin, doing music gigs at the Pillars, working the orchards. You could invent and re-invent yourself at will. Your resume became spotty, that is, if looked at by some cold-hearted corporation that you would never want to work for anyway!
In the mid-80s, came second marriage and birthing of dear Hannah and Colin. Ashland, I know for true, focused my energies to parent, which I feared and had a bad example of from my parents. Ashland offered a cradle of therapies, even back in the 70s (Reichian being the big one) and you could work thru your stuff with lots of support. Sweet little Southern Oregon College taught me psychology and with that master's and a lot of other seminar work in Calif, I was able to make a very unlikely dream come true here, being a therapist and seminar leader (for five years, then back to the main love of writing).
Want to teach at the university? Go ahead! Ashland supported that - in psychology and journalism. And there's always been so much art, music, dance, theater, anything you can think of. I felt like building a raft and taking it out on Emigrant Lake for the night, sleeping under the stars with my sweetie. So I would just do it! It was like Huck Finn. Take off camping in the mountains? Just do it. And the valley is surrounded by so much - Crater Lake, the ocean, the desert, SF only hours away.
And you would meet (still do) the comrades of your visions and dreams and could stop anyone on the street or in a seminar or cafe and start talking about all the possibilities and be carrying them out right away.
I've been here 40 years now. Foolishly tried to move away -- Denver, Santa Fe, Portland -- but once this wild, sweet goddess, Ashland, has your heart, it can't be done. Moving home, coming over the pass or Greensprings, I would just be filled up with just joy, I thought I would burst. I walk my medicine wheel every day and one phase of it is saying thanks. Ashland and Oregon are always in that love letter of thanks. Oh, and if you read this and don't live here, don't come. It just drives the housing prices up! Ok, just kidding - if you're meant to be here, you will come and you will find a way to make a living and find the people you love and create what dreams are waiting for the right place to happen.
