I really don't know Eugene at all.

It's amazing how you can have memory assumptions that are just wrong. Not just false memories, it's a whole set of assumptions built on them.

For instance, I thought I knew Eugene, but I really don't know Eugene at all.

I've gone for years thinking that I did, assuming that I did. But evidently, I was wrong.

Blissfully wrong for 30 years.

What brought about this realization was a trip to Florence.

I was driving through Eugene and I just kept following the signs to the coast, thinking I'd go straight on through on the highway. Instead, I ended up on 6th St. somehow. Kept following 6th until it turned in Hwy. 99 and was soon approaching Junction City.

I knew that wasn't right, so I pulled over and asked a pedestrian.

"Turn right on Roosevelt, left on Seneca, and right on 11th."

(Got me right where I wanted to go -- some people really do know how to give instructions...)

Anyway, got back on track and saw the sign to the Beltway and realized THAT was the route I should have taken, the route I always took when I lived in Eugene.

So here's the deal. I lived in Eugene for over 5 years, not only that but I made dozens and dozens of trips from Eugene to Bend.

But all that was in my 20's.

As I was driving through Eugene it suddenly occurred to me that I've only been through Eugene a handful of times since. I mean, 30 years is a long time. Only it doesn't seem like that long ago.

Most of the last 30 years are a blur of working and family. But my time in Eugene seems to be like yesterday.

Anyway, while I was sitting stuck in traffic, it struck me that I didn't even know Eugene when I lived there. Not really.

I've mentioned that I used to be pretty agoraphobic. Let's put it this way, I'd go to class, and then scurry back to my dorm room. Later, I'd go to work and then hurried back to my apartment.

When I did get out, I really got out -- like out of town. Up into the mountains, or over to the coast, or back to Bend. Thus my familiarity with the Beltway.

Oh, well. You know what? I didn't really enjoy Eugene when I was there.

To heck with it.

Stinkin' town.


***This is off the subject. But sometimes I write a post and it's all wrong, all jumbled.

When I try to fix it, it only makes it worse, because now half of it is jumbled and half of it is normal.

The above is one of those posts, but there it is -- I write every day, what'ya want?