I was almost eleven in the summer of 1960. Brother Art was 13. We rode the Domeliner east from Portland to The Dalles. The tracks ran beside the newly completed Interstate I-80. From the dome on top of the train car, we saw the Columbia rolling toward the sea. The new freeway’s river of cars was a modern torrent at 70 mph. But the natural beauty stood still. Lava plugs held onto our eyes like sentinels along the coursing river—Rooster Rock on Oregon’s side—Beacon Rock, a fortress on Washington’s far bank. Deep granite canyons undulate down both shores.
Blue-red stone sinews mark the ancient routes from Missoula—where once upon an eon, this canyon fought to hold the oceanic floods. The planet shrugged. Pointing to the sun, it bathed ice fields in the glow—a climate that warms us to this day. In the dome, a trickle of sweat tested my temple for a path south. A fat old-man smoked a cigar.
Slow dancing spray and foam pirouette from on high—Bridal Veil, Horsetail, Oneonta and the mammoth of the Gorge—Multnomah Falls—that plummets hypnotically from beyond 600-feet. Mist and shade conspire across the seasons, spreading moss layers over muscled walls. Bracken ferns, salal and salmon berries proliferate along the trails. A canopy of big-leaf maple, alder, and western hemlock trees provide cool shade. Creeks and rills wend their ways down from the Cascades where giant Douglas Firs colonize the high country—down to the Gorge, to the clifftops, to the parapets that open and release the remnants of the ancient floods—blossoming, flowing tributaries to the Mighty Columbia!
We ride through the rugged tunnel, the rough-cut gorge where the river pushes west beneath the cerulean infinity above. The endless sky is promising. In 1851 our ancestors inhaled these spirits while rafting from The Dalles to Portland on their final leg of the wagon train toward us.
Uncle Wayne and Aunt Jean met us at the station. We spent a week with them. We feasted on Wayne’s popcorn while watching pro wrestling on TV. Without butter and salt, I still don’t know how it tasted so delicious, but it did. I loved listening to Aunt Jean’s favorite records, but I told her I liked The Kingston Trio better. Art preferred The Limelighters and “Doc” Lou Gottlieb’s acerbic wit. Still, Jimmie Rodgers singing “Kisses Sweeter than Wine” miraculously hit perfect chords for a boy under the spell of his first girlfriend’s magnetic attraction. While Uncle Wayne went to work, we got to swim at a neighbor’s backyard pool. Aunt Jean sang my praises whenever I named the insects and birds around us. “Mom buys us all those animal books,” I explained. And while climbing hills, Art and I sort of wanted to catch sight of a rattle snake, but we never did.
Jean and Wayne took us to see The Dalles Dam, then only 3-years old. The dam’s concrete fish ladder inundated Celilo Falls where the Wy-am Indians had fished for 10,000-years. A friend of Mom’s, Martha Ferguson McKeown, spoke up for her friends, the Wy-am people, and government responded by paying the tribe for flooding away their livelihood.
Being with my Dad’s sister and Uncle Wayne was special. Those were the years before cousins Louise and Sam arrived, so we had the full benefit of Uncle Wayne’s humor and Aunt Jean’s attention. What with stories about hydro-electric dams, Indian history and how Mom’s friend Martha played a role, and with popcorn and wrestling on TV, and with swimming and songs about kissing—it was quite a week. But it wasn’t over!
(See below, “We’re the push-buttons.”)
Images: Vista House[1] by Kelvin Kay (talk – contribs) released into the public domain (by the author); Oneonta Falls by Rebecca
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Vistahouse.jpg -