A Blog of Personal Thoughts

Bridge over Jackson Creek

November 2026

The first time I came here, the gravel road was horrid. The bridge over Jackson Creek headed my car and its headlights skyward. I hoped the rest of the bridge was there. It was. I reached its summit and lopped down the other side. Meanwhile, off to the left was a tree with an owl hooting off a top limb.

The tree where the owl stood and hooted. The clear night held a full moon. The road and bridge are now flat.

All I was doing was going to a party that marked the end of the University of Oregon class I took called Precision Teaching. Not only did that class change my life, but the land at the end of this rough lane changed my life also. I don’t remember the party, but the bridge, owl, and rough road still remain fresh.

Four years later I learned that the end of this muddy Oregon lane with its 30-foot easement and lack of gravel was a collapsed bridge, and 20 acres owned by Bob Mattson. Bob was the head of the university Department of Education in the 1960s and 70s. Fast forward 4 years to the still muddy lane and my partner’s and my interest in buying those inaccessible 20 acres. Bob had sold the land to a friend’s father who sold it to us. Our neighbor on the far side was International Paper Company. We married on “our” land, but that was before we had it surveyed. It turns out we got married on International Paper land. The spot of our country wedding eventually grew into a thick bramble of blackberry bushes. Now the land is impenetrable to all but bears, coyotes, deer, packrats, and my husband and his loppers.

The impenetrable land.

Robert and I had plans to build our home there. We picked the spot in the woods. He cut tipi poles from eastern Oregon jack pine and trucked them over the mountains. First up was our tipi, which Robert had sewn from scratch. Tipi poles up, 20-ounce marine treated duck canvas on it, we moved in with our year and a half old son. I now had a master’s degree from the U of O and a full-time job there. The house would come later. But wait.

That’s not the local story that grew to a legend. This week we learned our son was born in the tipi and we lived there for 10 years with no running water and no electricity. No mention of my job at the U of O, Robert going to Lane Community College, or that we moved to town after a few months. In fact, I taught special education and behavior science at Oregon College of Education (now Western Oregon University) or that in the middle of those 10 (?!) years we moved to Kansas so I could get a PhD and Robert a nursing degree. See what happens when you move and leave no trace?

Seth was born at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene before we bought the land. When he was two and no longer living in the tipi, we returned to rent a cabin from Gert, the owner of the ranch. She looked like a rancher complete with the hat and a corncob pipe, jeans, and a blue work shirt. For extra income beyond World War II veteran benefits and ranch income, she drove the school bus. I remember Gert as about 5’ 10” and broad of build. She was not overweight but strong. She was a no nonsense, practical person. If you asked a question, you got an answer, the shorter the better on both.

The cabin was not insulated, had cold running water, an outhouse and a resident packrat. We brought out own wood cookstove, which heated the 16- by 19-foot cabin except when the temperature fell below freezing, an unusual event in the area. I’ve never cooked on anything better and have missed my wood cookstove these part 50 years. Wish I had it again. No turning the burner up or down, just shove the pot to a hotter or cooler part. It also cooked the most moist turkey I’ve ever had. We still have the stove, but it’s in a shed in our Alaska home. Alaska is where we met our goal of living off the grid, but it started with our place in the country outside of Lorane, those 20 acres we still have.

One day when we lived in Gert’s cabin, two-year-old Seth was outside watching Gert on her tractor. She stopped, nodded at me, I nodded back. She bent down and picked up Seth. A delighted little boy rode in her lap across the bridge and into the fields above.

Gert sold the ranch to Connie. She tried to make a go of it also. In name and spirit Gert remains at the ranch. Her ashes and veteran’s tombstone were by the barn on the hill by a pond. The barn has collapsed. The present owner cannot find any of its remnants and the military tombstone is lost beneath the soil somewhere on a southern hill in this valley.

Sunset on the hill across the valley.

One of the ponds at sunset.

The creek is named Jackson Creek because a man named Jackson owned it and he and his six sons each had a cabin on the dirt lane several of which still exist and are lived in.

Why do I write this story for my Personal Thoughts blog at this time in US history? Because I need peace in my thoughts and being in nature offers such peace. May this blog offer some peace for your soul and thoughts.