I would probably self-identify as a female rural West Coast (of USA) Caucasian, but that wouldn't include, as labels often don't, my journey from a small monocultural mill town to a solo sabbatical in six countries (in '91). Now I'm on to the exciting sojourn of retirement (from full-time worklife five years ago). I love travel and art and aesthetics, as well as almost all cats and dogs I've met. This blog is just for fun and experimenting with the tools. It should be amusing...

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Hometowns

This is a small picture of the home I grew up in from about age 6 to 12. The overgrown trees and bushes are new. It was painted white when we lived there & looked out to the Columbia River in a residential area. A cemetary was right next door. One of my 'sister' Heidi's best tricks was to galumph into the middle of funerals while we hid in the bushes and hissed for the escaped hound: "Ashes to Ashes, St Bernard dog...." Camas, WA had the largest specialized paper mill in the world then, under Crown Zellerbach. Every day smelly smoke would belch out from the mill and fathers said to families, "That's money in the bank!" It turned the silver black & who knows what it did to us, but it's still there, under another company name. Being there gave me a definite small town experience: as kids, we rode our bikes all over town, through the woods and down to the rivers, with our pals. Most everyone knew everyone else. Now there are more folks and a new bridge to Portland, but downtown Camas still looks much the same. When I go there and walk around, I feel like a ghost....what's your home town like now? And you when you're in it?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home