Ashland, Oregon

I made it! I made it to Ashland, Oregon on 1/3/05. I am now settled in and attending rehearsals for The Philanderer. (I had planned to get here last year ... 12/31/04. That's another story.)

So, Ashland, Oregon turns out to be this great little town. It sits right in this range of mountains that are on the Oregon/California border, a little ways up from the valley. Seriously, the whole town is on a slant. This, though, picturesque, provides a problem for me.


Everyone walks everywhere in this town. God, you'd think they had no fat people. They do. I've seen them. But I've also seen people from their teens to their 70s strolling around the town easy as pie. They even have benches all over the place, presumably for these walkers. Lucky for me they do, because my walking days are way behind me. I'm doing it now as the theater is just up from my apartment ("up" being the operative word there). It's four blocks over and two blocks up and there is nothing but 2hr and 15min parking around it. So, I walk ... slowly ... with much huffing and puffing ... in pain in my back and knees.

The theater has had such an effect on the town (pop. 20,000). There's a restaurant called "Amuse". There's a bookstore called "Bard's Books" or something like that. There's a CD store called "CD or not CD". It's kind of cute.


The town is quaint with a newly rennovated public library, the nicest Safeway I've ever seen, and a college campus. That's right. The University of Southern Oregon is in town, too. I haven't tried any restaurants yet. (Can you believe that?) But I've seen pizza joints, Mexican joints, Italian, and Pan Aisian American. There's a homemade ice cream store that makes a very good vanilla. Main street has all of these jewelry shops and art galleries, and there's even a comic book shop that advertises itself as "comics for grownups". (No, I have not gone in yet. I fear I shall never come out.) There are movie theaters (saw _Finding Neverland_), a high school ... all this stuff.

And the people are so polite. No ... not polite. They're nice. So many just seem genuinly friendly and laid back. I don't know if it's just that I keep running into people from the Festival (which could be the case. There are sooo many!), but there they are.



It feels like Charlottesville in many ways. I'm told that there's not much of an industrial base in the area, so it's getting harder and harder to live in the town, which is getting more and more expensive. Some magazine just lauded them as the best place to live in the country, or something. The town is more liberal than the surrounding area. It relies on tourism. It's known for one institution that draws people into it. The tallest building is the local historic hotel. It's got that small town feel.

I'm even told that they have a problem with the police racially profiling. I've already been warned by a couple of people that the cops here like to enforce the Driving While Non-White laws and sometimes even the Walking While Non_White laws, the Out Late While Non-White laws, and occasionally even the Just Looked Funny While Non-White laws. One of the Black members of the company has been pulled over multiple times. Apparently, the last time the cops were actually waiting at his doorstep when he came home. After they pinched him, they asked him if he wanted to be let out on work release. Now, apparently this guy is in his 60s by now, and he says, "You know, I'm getting to old to do the work you want us to do, and the shoes you give us never fit well, so I'll just stay here." They let him out the next day because the jail was overcrowded.


Now, to me, this is a plus! An ideal little town where I even get to have my paranoia about the police justified? Sign me up! Of course, the cops may be signing me up, because I don't see many other options. Pretty much the only non-white people I've run into have been at the Festival (where there are so many). In the Safeway, there's a flyer for an upcoming Blues Festival. They've got pictures of all these Black musicians on it, and I'm like, "What do they do, bus them in?!?"

The weather is quite pleasant. It's funny. All the people here keep talking about how cold it is, how cold it is. I keep wondering what the Hell they're talking about. It's hovering around freezing with low humidity and no wind. Last night, when talking to one of the administrative assistants, I realized that their basis for comparison is California. Ah.

So, I think it's set. I think I'm a small, too cosmopolitan for its size, town kind of guy. I still like Charlottesville, but it's nice to know that there's somewhere else that feels cozy.