My first memory of the Willamette River is a midsummer day in 1957. My parents were hunting for a house in Salem. My grandmother took my brothers and me to Wallace Park. The water was red. When I asked why, my grandmother pointed to an outfall pipe from a cannery and explained that it was processing beets. I grew up in Salem forbidden to swim in the river.
We swam in the Little North Fork of the Santiam, diving into deep holes and running rapids in cutoff jeans. I explored the old rock walls at Niagara, the failed early attempt at a dam and waterskied all summer at Detroit Reservoir, never thinking about its impact on the river. Flood control was a good thing, as I saw first hand in 1964 when Mill Creek overflowed its banks in Salem and flooded my father’s office.
That summer day in 1957, my grandmother also took us to Bush’s Pasture Park. She remembered when Miss Sally Bush still lived in the old house. I remember walking through the huge old oak trees watching squirrels gather acorns. The house my parents bought was two blocks from Bush’s Pasture and surrounded by oak trees. I grew up climbing the oaks and mourning those blown over by the Columbus Day storm in 1963.
When I went to Stanford in 1967, I saw what can happen when communities grow rapidly and sprawl across fields and fill rich marshes to build airports and warehouses. I wanted to learn how to make sure that my home never suffered the same fate.
Now 40 years after graduating from college and 33 years after moving home, I hope I can use all I’ve learned about natural resources, infrastructure and people to help others do what needs to be done to live in harmony with each other and with nature here.
