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Performance
Moseying Mare:
Sweetest girl you've ever seen moves on.
Special Features
Books: Eugene
City Club's history book. Plus: Booknotes.
Outdoors:
Cone Peak Trail.
Moseying Mare
Sweetest girl you've
ever seen moves on.
By Aria
Seligmann
What I hate the most about Eugene, what really gets me, is that you
so often have to say goodbye to your friends. You know it's in their best interest
to leave, you want to see them succeed and move on, but man, when it's a friend like
Mare Wakefield, it's pretty damned hard to reconcile it.
Mare is leaving this summer for Boston to attend the Berklee School
of Music to study voice and music composition. The singer/songwriter who's released
Girlfriend (1997) and Factory (1999) and has performed weekly at Café
Paradiso and often at Sam Bond's and other venues throught Oregon, landed a partial
vocal scholarship after only a two-song audition in a storefront in Seattle.
Mare's looking forward to the opportunity to further hone her craft.
"I felt I'd reached a certain level here where I was enjoying moderate regional
success but I was unable to break beyond that," she says.
She credits her Saturn return for the desire for change. She weighed
several options, considering journalism school at Boston University. Boston seemed
stuck in her mind. Then one day a friend mentioned he, too, wanted to head for that
city to attend Berklee.
"My heart leapt out of my chest when I heard that," says
Mare. "I thought, yes! That's what I want to do."
Mare will, of course, miss Eugene. Her missing list, in this order,
goes: "the weather; being able to ride my bike year round; having a house with
a garden and fruit trees; friends; the life I have; shows; not having to worry about
fashion."
Before she goes, she's doing all the Eugene things: acupuncture,
getting Rolfed, recorking her Birkenstocks.
We'll have two more opportunities to hear her in town. The first
is Thursday, July 19 at 6:30 pm at Westmoreland Park. The second is her last kick-it-all-out
show before she bails on us. This Saturday at 9:30 pm at Sam Bond's, Mare will give
her farewell-to-Eugene concert and offer her newest CD, the home-recorded, limited
edition One Day's Drive, for sale. It's not intended for stores, but for supporters
and friends who've been asking for a recording of her latest work. Many of these
songs will be featured on a full-length album in the future.
Listen for a change on this album. Mare's voice has matured eons
beyond Girlfriend and leaps ahead of Factory. She's taking chances
now, from the raspy "When I Grow Up" to "One Day's Drive," which
shows off her vocal range. Musically, Mare's improved as well, and the guitar takes
on more importance on this album. She takes a trip back to '70s rock with "Not
Your Maid" before settling into a countrified "Pack Up Your Stuff."
The songs have more social importance, as well. "Not Your
Maid" was inspired by a performance at the women's state penitentiary in Salem.
I'm not your maid not your whore don't you love me anymore. "I thought
the women would be scarier, but they looked so normal. Then I found out the vast
majority of them were convicted not for what they'd done, but because they didn't
rat out their boyfriends who had done the crime," says Mare.
"Pack Up Your Stuff" is a comment on domestic violence
-- I'm tired of telling you there's nothing you can do you've done enough
-- and "Hock" details Mare's feelings about the businesspeople she met
while attending the North by Northwest Music Conference. I don't like your condescending
I don't like your nicey nice/I don't like your never ending drinks of Grand Marnier
with ice.
The album is a glimpse into the darker side of the woman who's
lived in Eugene since 1991, who's entertained you, given you information at the Country
Fair, helped you at WIC, proofed your ads, listed your concerts and reviewed your
records.
So how do you say goodbye to the usually cheery girl who eats oatmeal
for lunch every single day, who favors green jasmine tea, whose houseplants mean
the world to her, who tells the corniest jokes you've ever heard?
And how do I say goodbye to a girl whom I first met when she interviewed
to be my intern five years ago, who scooped my baby up in her arms when he was fidgety
at deadline, who shared relationship obsessions and tears with me, who's a fellow
southern Scorpio, who offered to help me corral my roosters when they stormed the
coop, who talked me out of buying the wrong car, who's the only other girl I ever
met who admits to having had pre-adolescent John Denver fantasies?
Mare says she'll come back to tour. Just to make sure, I'm keeping
some of her stuff in my garage. And I ain't never gonna ship it to her, ever.
Back to Top
Time & the
City
Native Eugenean reviews
City Club's history book.
by David
Johnson
Eugene 1945-2000: Decisions That Made a Community. The City Club of Eugene, 2000. Hardcover, $25. Paperback,$16. Local bookstore
or through www.cityclubofeugene.org, history project.
 As
a native son of Skinner's Mudhole, I was eager to take a look at a
recently published profile of my hometown: Eugene 1945-2000: Decisions
That Made a Community. Comprised of 22 essays by 24 local authors,
the collection was commissioned by The City Club of Eugene.
It runs a topical gamut from the cash register ring of UO sports
to a history of political activism right here in "Springjeans," to a hassle
over a religious icon planted on the northern bookend butte of our fair city. There
are well-researched histories of city government, School District 4J, social services,
innovative health care, performing arts and worship. Also, an editorial board that
picked the subject matter didn't shy away from looking back at Eugene's record on
race relations, gay advocacy, and disabled rights.
It's an excellent guidebook for newcomers who want to know more
about their city of choice; it's a nostalgic bounty for long-time residents; and
for this war baby born in 1945 on the cusp of boomerhood, it's an album of verbal
snapshots.
In "Dealing with Race," Peggy Nagae writes about the
late 1940s displacement of African American families from a tent city near the Ferry
Street Bridge to West 11th Avenue. That grim chronicle brings back a picture from
my early childhood. Heading out along that rural drive to visit relatives in Veneta,
we saw families clustered on the roofs of their small houses as the muddy water kept
rising.
Alan Siporin tackles a popular local pastime in "A Half-Century
of Eugene Activism." Reading his report about the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations
on the UO campus, I smell again the tear gas drifting over Eugene's eastside. I see
phalanxes of police and National Guard standing by in strategic alleyways, and I
hear again the brave, if at times strident, rhetoric of the angry students who occupied
Johnson Hall.
In their collaborative essay on city government, Rosemary Howe
Camozzi and David Thompson make reference to the "mess urban renewal made of
downtown." I remember Eugene before the onslaught of wrecking balls during the
trendy calamity of the early '70s. We had our small-town's share of old but salvageable
buildings -- a donut shop with a window to watch the crullers cruise on their assembly
line, Archie's neon 666 (the address of his surplus store and perhaps, a sly prank
on the Eschatologists), and "The Big Cowboy" sign on the wall of the Outdoor
Store.
There were dozens of lofts, studios, and alternative mercantile
ventures taking advantage of cheap rent. The Odyssey Coffeehouse at Seventh and Willamette
was ground zero for Eugene visionaries; The Augur was a radical rag published
monthly in the Ransom Building on 11th and Oak; and across the street, Scarborough
Faire was a garage turned laid-back mini-mall with a shop called The Kiva.
In a delightfully quirky essay, "Odd Ducks," Steve McQuiddy
recounts Eugene's tradition of harboring eccentrics. After making a good case that
it might be something in the waters of the Emerald Empire, McQuiddy mentions Stupid.
I knew that old Wobbly from the Iron Range of Michigan. This rebel with bushy eyebrows
never bothered to mourn but rather got a kick out of organizing. I remember his warning
to the Hoedads, a new outfit that had fresh ideas for working in the woods. He said
keep your eyes peeled for "scissorbills." He meant those sneaky moles who
work for "The Man."
In "Making the Arts Matter," an essay on public art,
Lois Wadsworth talks about the Saturday Market and the Oregon Country Faire. I recall
that first Saturday Market held in an alley near the city park. It was a brick-and-board
event frowned upon by city merchants who eventually saw the benefit of throngs of
cheerful spirits shopping downtown.
As for my blurred photos of early Oregon Country Faires, I am bemused
at how much fun we had while inventing our version of Communally Hip Reality. Just
the other day, I finally got rid of those leather bellbottoms at a garage sale. What
was I thinking?
BOOK NOTES: Dr.
Usha Honeyman, (Free To Be Well), speaks on menopause at
7 pm, July 21, at Barnes and Noble. ...UO Professor Lauren Kessler
reads from The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of
Pancho Barnes, at 7 pm, July 23, Barnes and Noble. ...Sena
Naslund (Ahab's Wife) reads at 7pm, July 23, at Mother
Kalis.
Back to Top
Cone Peak Trail
Visit a spectacular
display of wildflowers on the slopes of ancient volcanoes.
by James
Johnston
If you only do one hike this summer, make it to the wildflower
display near Cone Peak and Iron Mountain. These extinct volcanoes are located east
of Sweet Home, and are a little bit longer of a drive for Eugene/Springfield residents,
but the trip is worth it.
The trails here are a geologic and botanical wonderland featuring
17 different tree species and more than 60 rare plant species. The craggy rock outcroppings
of this area are the weathered remains of lava upheavals 30 million years ago.
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Flowers on
Cone Peak Trail.
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Directions: Drive I-5 north from Eugene for approximately 20
miles to Exit 216. Take a right onto Hwy 228. Take 228 east for 19 miles to the junction
of 228 and Hwy 20 at the western end of Sweet Home. Take Hwy 20 east through Sweet
Home (it's worth stopping to enjoy the numerous murals along the way depicting the
colorful history of this old logging town). Continue east on Hwy 20 through Sweet
Home for exactly 36.5 miles from the junction with 228. Ignore the signs for the
Iron Mountain trail at Deer Creek Road, and park at one of several small pull-offs
on the highway near a sign for Tombstone Prairie. The Cone Peak trailhead is on the
north side of the highway.
The trail climbs steadily through a pleasant Douglas fir forest
and several small meadows crammed with wildflowers. Resist the urge to stop for long
-- the real treat is still to come. Almost two miles from the highway the trail traverses
a giant meadow awash in color. Cone Peak looms dead ahead; South Peak and Echo Mountain
are to the east. The flanks of these mountains are strewn with cinder rock. These
volcanic deposits create "xeric" or dry meadows of shallow, nutrient poor
soil in which wildflowers thrive. Almost all of the 300 different wildflower species
native to the Cascades can be found here. Among others, you'll notice penstemon,
owl-clover, cat's ears, monkeyflower, and paintbrush.
Look closely at the paintbrush and you'll see that it's a flower
with everything backwards. The hot red color is not the flower, they are the leaves
of the plant. The flower itself remains a pedestrian green.
This large meadow at the base of Cone Peak also affords excellent
views of Iron Mountain, a mile to the west. The two heads of Iron Mountain are hardened
molten lava cores, left exposed when the softer outer rock of the volcano eroded
away.
The Cone Peak trail dips slightly and then climbs around Iron Mountain
to an intersection with the Iron Mountain trail a mile and a half from the main meadow.
From here, turn left and climb another three quarters of a mile to the top of Iron
Mountain.
From here you can return to your car from the direction you came
and see the wildflowers again, or turn your hike into a loop by taking the Iron Mountain
trail back to Hwy 20. For the loop, make your way back down Iron Mountain and turn
left at the intersection. Stay to the left at another junction in just a couple hundred
feet. On the Iron Mountain trail it's a mile downhill through an impressive forest
to Hwy 20. Cross the highway and take a left on the old Santiam Wagon Road -- one
of the first pioneer routes over the Cascades -- after a couple hundred feet. In
a third of a mile, cross to the far side of a parking lot and take a left by the
gate on the Tombstone Nature trail. In a half-mile take the first left over a small
wooden footbridge to your car (while doing the loop, stay to the left at every junction
from Iron Mountain).
NOTE: The Cone Peak and Iron Mountain trails are badly overused.
If at all possible, plan your trip on a weekday. Do not pick flowers and stay on
the trail at all times. If you're interested in joining volunteer efforts to restore
these excellent trails and remove non-native vegetation, please contact Forest Service
botanist Alice Smith at 367-9125 or acsmith@fs.fed.us
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