A sense of Bend.

There's a column in the Bulletin today that talks about the weakness of the Bend bus system, but avoids, I think, calling it what it seems to be: a failure. (At least, less than a success.)

I'm not judging the merits of mass transit, only whether it was ever going to be workable in Bend.

O.K. Those who want proof, can stop reading now.

This is more a sense of Bend that I have, a sense that we really are different.

When I visited all these other towns on our trip, I started to get a little uneasy. There were more comic shops, more card shops, more game stores, per capita, than in Bend. Bookstores were less predictable, with towns bigger than Bend having none, and towns smaller having more. But really, when you look at Bend from an objective standpoint, there should be more independent hobby shops than there are.

But Bend really only has one independent bookstore, one game store, one comic store. None of them have had it easy.

It's something ab0ut the demographics, is my sense, but I don't know.

My sense was that the bus system in Bend simply wouldn't be used enough. That the layout of Bend, or the attitude toward driving, or -- well, I couldn't prove it. But I was pretty sure this is one of those things that Bend -- because of it's size and relative importance to the region -- should have, because everyone else has them, but which would prove to be elusive.

We've had this idea in Bend for awhile now, that we should have everything a "city" should have. But some of these things -- that our size should allow -- simply don't work.

We are a tourist town, isolated for much of the year, rolling in visitors other times of year. That seems to be different model of economy that most towns our size.

At least that's my sense of it.