The local Eugene CBS station reports that two statues of pioneers on the University of Oregon campus have been torn down. Of course they have, sod-busting pioneers are obvious evil cultural imperialists.
Eugene is sort of Berkeley with bad weather. I spent three years in that benighted city, on that campus many years ago, and nothing that happens there surprises me. Think of Eugene in those years as being the city where the bizarre denizens of Twin Peaks did their major shopping.
While I was there the freaks burned down the ROTC building, drove an acting university president to suicide, majored in “nonnegotiable demands,” and were far enough off the reservation that the Oregon National Guard marched through the campus with fixed bayonets.
Along the way, I managed to claw a decent Ph.D. experience out of the morass, but it was like trying to walk unscathed through a sh*tstorm, the distractions were intense. In the Business School, supposedly a notorious bastion of conservatism, a few grad students I knew were doing hard drugs - acid and ‘shrooms. One put out several issues of a freak newsletter called “Up Against the Wall Street Journal.” And two B-School faculty traded wives while another was drinking himself to death.
Eugene was (and apparently still is) too much crazy; these days Portland is too. I don’t miss it. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.
