Hello Eugene, I'm Home

Hello Eugene, I'm Home

Photo by Andy

It was the fall of 1974 and I was back in Eugene. I had been dreaming and plotting to get here for what seemed like years. One of the main reasons I chose to attend the University of Oregon was I wanted to live in Eugene. This was going to be my home and in fact Eugene did become the first place other than my parents house that I thought of as home. Dottie was out of my system. Lisa certainly helped with that, but Donna was still with me. I still was holding on to my feelings for her. I still held our relationship up as the ideal with the thought that I would never have another like it again. I believed I was lucky to have experienced that kind of love once and the chances of it happening a second time were remote.

I was now living in a house with four others on Hilyard street. (For those of you who are sensitive about these things – yes, I misspelled the street name it an earlier post,) . My roommates were Mary, the head of the house, Rick, Andy, and Connie, who rode with me across the country. Mary was the one whose name was on the lease (which happened to rhyme with her last name). Rick was an interesting guy who would take issue with things like who used the most toilet paper. Andy was an Oregon native and very laid back. He was into photography and had previously done work for the Oregonian, the main Portland newspaper. Andy read and followed people like Allen Watts, Terence McKenna, Neal Cassidy, Ken Kesey, and Native American Spiritual leaders. Connie was a friend of mine from back east who I have written about in previous posts. She had graduated from Oneonta State in New York and was entertaining doing some further studies at Oregon.

We were all vegetarians and we didn't allow meat to be cooked in the house. We split the cost of common household items such as soap and toilet paper, hence Rick's close observance of toilet paper use. We did not have a garbage service, by choice. We recycled everything we could, had a compost out back, and every 4 to 6 weeks we took whatever garbage we did have to the dump. We were not unusual in this.

In general it was a friendly household. Mary kind of ruled the roost. When I would bring up new suggestions she would give me a look like she was not too sure I should be trusted. While she had a good sense of humor she didn't laugh easily. Instead she would just look at you and smile. Rick was a bit of a thorn in her side but other than that everyone pretty much toed the line. We had frequent house meetings where we discussed house issues from someone not cleaning up their dishes to not helping out with the day to day chores to making a purchase of a community item. Mary would decide most issues where the house was not 100% in agreement. While Rick would complain a lot it turned out that I was the only one to question Mary's judgment. The rest would just accept and abide by her decisions. As a result, Mary nicknamed me “Bad Guy”. Mary was really a very kind soul but whenever I would challenge her she would flash me the finger. The rest of the house took notice but in the end they took Mary's side. I started calling Mary the fastest finger in the west and usually laughed when she flashed that finger of hers. She would stare at me and call me “Bad Guy”. The truth was Mary and I got along really well, we liked and respected each other and we would confided in each other. Mary injured her hand at one point and had to have a cast put on it. The cast cause her middle finger to stick out all the time. For the first week each time I saw her I would ask “Is that finger for me?” She replied by flashing me one of her smiles.

One corner of my room in Hilyard House

Rick ended up moving out and our new roommate was another Dave. Dave took and passed the juggling test - (See Post from 9/11/18 – “My Sister's Wedding, Connie's Vacation and The Return to Eugene”). Dave was an artist, in the art program at the University. He was from Chicago, Evanston. Evanston is where Northwestern University is located, it's an upscale area. Dave was in his own way as easy going as Andy but he was an artist and could be a bit flakey. This was the first time I lived with an artist. Dave had little concept of things like time or money. If he said he was going to meet you somewhere at a certain time you would have no idea what time he would actually show up. If he was asked to do something and it wasn't right away he would likely forget. For Dave, money was just something that got in the way, He would get money from home and would pay all his bills and spend the rest freely. Once he ran out he would borrow from everyone he knew until there was no one left to borrow from and his rent was overdue. Then after everybody was hounding him for their money he would call home get some additional funds and pay everyone off. That's the way he lived. He let everything go until he was pressured to act. The only thing he really focused on and kept up with was his art. He was really a great guy, a likable guy, but totally unreliable.

At one point Andy decided to enter a photo competition. He had an idea for the photo he wanted and he asked me to pose for it. He wanted a Christ like figure looking like he was on a cross but his plan was to super impose it onto a tree in the forest. Kind of a statement on how we are killing our planet. Oregon was a big logging state but Oregon was a very environmentally conscious state. Environment issues were big issues on the Eugene campus, lots of demonstrations and protests. As you can see, I still have a copy of that picture. When I had an apartment in the Bay Area I had that picture hanging on the wall across from the front door. I noticed that people who came to my apartment and did not know me very well would often make religious comments. It took me awhile to figure out that they would see that picture and take it as a picture of Jesus. Well I do have blue eyes...

Eugene had a huge health food community while I was living there. There were multiple food co-ops in town all competing with each other. Eugene was a town of about 70, maybe 80 thousand at the time. I belonged to one that did not have a store front, just a warehouse. I would place an order at the beginning of the week and pick it up at the warehouse on Thursday afternoon. Everyone in the house belonged to the same co-op. Members were required to work an hour or two a week. The organic vegetables at that co-op were cheaper than the the non-organic ones at the local Safeway. The vast majority of people I knew while in Eugene were some form of vegetarian and all shopped at co-ops.

For the most part, Connie, Andy, Dave, and I, ended up joining Mary's group of friends. This was my first exposure to something called a “potluck”. It seemed that most gatherings included a potluck. So at social gatherings I was now expected to bring some sort of food item to share. I had stopped eating meat for about a year. I fixed vegetables two ways, steamed and raw. I could also do eggs, pasta, rice, cheese, salads, sandwiches and granola, which I ate just about every day. I did find eating enjoyable but I was an eat to live rather than a live to eat kinda guy. I prepared food only because it was necessary to eat, not because I enjoyed cooking. Suddenly I had to come up with a decent vegetable dish that others might like and nothing I did seemed like a potluck type dish. I felt a lot of pressure. Now going to a social gathering also included a chore! I could no longer just show up at social gatherings whenever I felt like it coming from some other activity. It required planning and forethought, yuck!!! For my first potluck I made up a vegetable dish using zucchini, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese with olive oil and basil. It came out pretty good and it's something I still sometimes make today. For the next potluck I tried baking a cake since it was a birthday celebration. I used whole wheat flower and it was a total disaster. It completely cured me of ever wanting to bake again.

It was through Mary's group of friends that I met 3 women, Martha, Valerie, and Cindi, who were living in the quad apartment building on Patterson Street where I had lived the first time I came to Eugene. These three women would become my roommates and Cindi would become my girlfriend. Cindi would be someone I would open myself up to and care more for than anyone since Donna.