Blogging On The Fly: The History of Oregon

I have written and deleted two separate blog posts this morning. Entire, proofread, edited blogs. I just didn't feel like wasting peoples time with talking about me. The posts were about how I like music and sports and how I don't want to annoy my twitter followers. I deleted them. I can't do those posts today.

I can't talk about me today. I need something else.

I got an idea. How about I talk about a state. Give you all the history and back story, all the facts you didn't know! It's a Saturday morning history lesson!

Now, to pick a state. The first state that popped in to the ol' noggin was Oregon. I know very little about this Pacific Coast juggernaut, except there is a lot of pine trees, maybe. I think I know enough about the state for you to all learn something today. Let's do this.

Oregon (pronounced Ore-e-gen, not Ore-a-gone) is a state in the pacific northwest area of the United States of America. Established in 1873, the territory was originally part of California, but split away after the Great Disagreement of 1872, when the land owners along what is now the Oregon/California border couldn't agree on who's beach was who's, so they drew a line in the sand, and a boarder was created, which was then extended to neighboring Idaho. The territory was granted statehood in 1876, by President Ulysses S. Grant. Most of the people who initially arrived in Oregon had gotten there via the Oregon Trail, which was rife with Dysentery and Typhoid Fever and snake bites, which would more than likely slowly kill you're entire family, while you're off trying to carry back 418 pounds of bear meat. Anyway, the settlers of Oregon would all congregate in one of two cities, Portland or Eugene. No one lived anywhere else in the state, because there were too many trees to cut down, and these two cities were the only places in the state that had any open space. There has never, ever been a shortage of lumber in Oregon. Ever.

Soon after settling in the two cities, the people of Portland established the Portland Trailblazers, in 1874, which eventually gained national recognition in 1984 for drafting Clyde "The Glide" Drexler. Between the years 1874 and 1984, no one had ever heard about the Trailblazers, and they finished last or near last in their division almost every year until reaching the finals in 1992, only to be crushed by Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Additionally, no one had ever heard of Eugene, Oregon until 1997, with the release of Sublime's self-titled album, in which near the end of the song "April 26, 1992", singer Bradley Nowell mentions the city by name, as having "riots on the streets." Since there is no news agencies based in Eugine, there is no way to confirm the riots, but it has been said that if there were riots on the streets of Eugine, Oregon, they wouldn't accomplish much more than setting fire to a few covered wagons and upsetting the horses and oxen.

The state would gain a small amount of recognition in the 1960's when a moccasin company called "Nike" (I believe it's pronounced "Knee-Kay") was established to put children to work in factories in poor Asian Pacific nations assembling the moccasins. The concept of a cheaply built shoe made overseas, being sold in the U.S. for a significantly inflated price, unfortunately, never caught on, otherwise this "Nike" company could have really done some good things for under-privileged youth around the world, all while providing comfortable footwear for over-payed athletes. What a shame.

So that's it. The history of Oregon, right there. I hope you enjoyed our time together today. If you can refudiate any of these claims, please contact me via email...bperala at yahoo dot com, or you can leave a comment below.

(if any of these facts are accurate, it's by pure luck, to be honest. I can confirm that I correctly guessed who the president of the USA was in 1876, which I'm pretty impressed with myself about)