LSRHS Grads!

Cheryl & Larry's Pad. The Dead Iraquis. The Dead Americans. Cheryl. Larry. Church outside. Church inside. Sabri. C&K at home. Larry's shop. Shawn at his house. Cool teakettle--the little jiggis on the spout turns around from the steam when it whistles and boils. How cool is that?

Saturday morning I headed up to coast to Reedsport, waving a fond farewell to Bob-o and Cuzco, who were taking their morning constitutional. It was a little rough with some asthma; I had been having some on and off for some reason.

At route 38 I turned east and with delight realized I'd be following the Umpqua River, which I canoed with the kids years ago. (See cool picture above that Philip digitized.) It was really wonderful, and I've loved the way the old roads follow rivers, which is probably duh to most of you but has been a revelation to me on this trip.

Before I knew it, I was coming into Cottage Grove and Eugene, which is a somewhat haunted place to me since just south of there was the site of the Christian commune I was in from 1972 until our abrupt departure (as in being kicked out and shunned) in 1976. (For my brief article on this that was published years ago in Communities, see http://communities.ic.org/92/2992.php)
Following my excellent directions from my friend Cheryl, I soon found her and her husband, Larry's treehouse abode.

Cheryl is an old friend from my high school, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS), and, amazingly, we have kept in touch in vague ways over the past 30 years or so ever since she came out to Eugene. She and Larry have also visited us, along with their daughter Sarah, up in Port Townsend. They were hiking then and sleeping in weird hammocks that close you in all around like pod people.

Larry is amazingly handy at all the cool household things, which meant I arrived at the perfect time to help them haul a ridiculously heavy oven up an even more ridiculously steep set of stairs. But we did it! Inside, their house is tiny and crammed with cool stuff EVERYWHERE. I wanted to take a zillion pictures, but tried to restrain myself and not be totally rude.

Cheryl and I probably talked about a zillion miles a minute. Once I was settled, we took their old Volvo to see a moving and horrific exhibit at the U of O, a series of little plastic flags representing those killed in the current war. The red ones each stood for one American, the white for 6 Iraquis. The white ones stretched forever. It was overwhelming.

I wanted to take them out for dinner, so we stopped and had beers while waiting for the Thai place to open. While it was a good dinner, I still think I like Khu Larb in Port Townsend better! We came home to something I never do--games! Darned if I can remember the name of it, but we played a really fun word game, especially fun since I won the second time. We got to look things up in dictionaries and argue and pooh-pooh each others' attempted creations. I also got a little time for work, having jacked into the neighbor's wifi in my usual nefarious way.

Re-visiting St. Nicholas' Orthodox Church

The next morning was Sunday, so I headed out for St. Nicholas' where we had gone some years back after a Shiloh (my old commune) reunion and found it quite wonderful. I had to call Cheryl a few times after getting lost, and a whole line of cars heading to an immense megachurch across the way wouldn't let me make a turn for a while, but finally, I got over there and into an exquisite service in the Greek tradition, but in English. I really like this combination--the Byzantine tones are gorgeous, but it's all comprehensible, with chanters leading and the whole congregation singing along. The priest there has a beautiful soft nasal voice that intones the liturgy in a really meditative way.

His sermon on the prodigal son was utterly convicting. Here comes Lent! And I sing a Doc Boggs song about this parable, so I found it doubly moving.

They just shot through the service, with it lasting about an hour and fifteen minutes. Unheard of with the Russians or the OCA! We're at least 2 hours, usually. I checked out the bookstore for stuff, had a little nosh, and left. People were friendly if I asked questions, but it was lonely being a stranger there. It made me realize how important it is to greet strangers when they come to our own church.

More LSRHS

The afternoon was dedicated to playing tunes with yet ANOTHER LSRHS graduate! Shawn Lockery is a friend from Fiddle Tunes who plays a mean fiddle! His wife Kathy plays guitar, and I was delighted to meet her. Shawn and Kathy live in a beautiful old house with a lot of land. Teenagers were all over the place since someone was having a birthday party, so we went in the bedroom, drank beers, and talked and played.

Kathy teaches Waldorf kindegarden. Shawn is a rather amazing and brilliant scientist. http://chinook.uoregon.edu/index.html His brother Ted is also a wonderful banjo player and human being, who I met first before Shawn at the same festival.

All too soon, I had to leave and get back for a wonderful dinner at Cheryl and Larry's. Then Cheryl and I said we would work, but first we had a long talk and about two hours later got down to work! Finally, we gave it up and turned in.