Vernonia Part II

When I pronounce the name of this town I say "Ver-NO-nee-ah" but my husband has recently lapsed into pronouncing it
"Ver-NO-nyah". I have kept my ear bent for the local parlance, and I hear both on a pretty regular basis. At this time, the second pronunciation does not roll off my tongue.

I am going to attempt to wrap up my Brief History of Vernonia--and if anyone sees some glaring errors, please let me know! My talents do not lie in telling the truth. But, I suppose, it would be ignorant to consider history truth.

So, the Oregon-American Lumber Mill is closed (it will have one last hurrah when it is partially burned to the ground to support the plot of the 1961 Hollywood movie "Ring of Fire")  and unemployment soars and the town slowly becomes more agriculturally based--what with all the cleared land and all. Geographically, Vernonia is a mere 47 miles from Portland--but it remains isolated. As you can see on my super-cool Adobe Photoshop produced map below, one cannot get to Vernonia as the flying crow. One must go around the range of mountainy-hills between the two. Believe it or not, there is only a couple miles difference between the southwest and northwest routes. Traffic however, is another topic altogether. The point is, there is no main thoroughfare directly to Vernonia from Portland and because of that it is still relatively isolated. 

There is another reason Vernonia remains the same small hamlet it has been for a good long time: the flooding.

Vernonia has the beautiful Nahalem River and Rock Creek weaving in and out of it like a child's first sewing project. When one drives to Vernonia, from either direction, one crosses the Nahalem river--and then one crosses the river again. And again. And again and again and again. It snakes through the entire area along with Rock Creek which, if you drive down Keasy Road,  threatens you with its churning water lapping at the shoulder of the road. So, all things considered, the fact that Vernonia floods is not surprising and it has happened a number of times--epically and tragically. 1996 and 2007 are the most memorable and damaging floods in recent history. It seems unlikely that the flooding began this late is Vernonia's history, however, I was unable to unearth any documentation of earlier floods. I believe meteorologists are beginning to uncover the fact that the 20th century was one of the most temperate periods of time weather-wise that's ever been recorded. The sameness of the weather, the sheer predictability, was something we got got used to in the information/industrial age--but it turns out that may have been unusual when compared to century-long patterns. The fluctuations we see now are actually more in line with typical weather patterns. I am not talking about global warming here--which is real and tragic. I am talking about another system in place underneath the unethical abuse of the planet. 

So, Vernonia has a FEMA approved flood zone:
​

It is a most excellent reason to NOT MOVE TO VERNONIA--but to come visit, enjoy yourself and leave. The houses currently in the flood zone seem to belong in one of two categories:  "reconstructed and raised 6-8 feet above street level", or "ruined". (It has a surreal charm actually and reminds me a bit of the South--states like Louisiana, Georgia and Florida have been dealing with swampland/sea-level housing for a long time now.) Because of the money FEMA was able to give to Vernonia post -1996 and -2007, the town is a miss-mash of old and new. I like a population of people who have to live and interact so closely with their environment.

Before Rich and I committed to Vernonia, so many Portlanders claimed: WHY?! Why would you move somewhere that can flood? What if you get stuck in your house for  days? The roads get cut off--everything gets cut off. How could you choose to inconvenience yourself like that? 

This is funny to me. Funny for an urban population of people who have NORMALIZED a certain kind of INSANITY it takes to live in any city. Portland has changed A LOT in the last 5 years. They say 35,000 people are moving here A YEAR. The popularity of the show Portlandia has had an influence on this, as well as global-warming based climate changes that have made the Willamette Valley and surrounding country perfect for producing wine-grapes. But Portland was not built to handle this influx of people. Nothing is set up for it!! There is rush-hour-type traffic ALL THE TIME--there is no truck by-pass to go around Portland, and even though we have the appearance of a highly effective and accessible public transportation system, and an almost ridiculous exaltation of bike-riding, these things only work when all the systems of the city are set up to support it. They are just not there yet because things are changing too fast. This is one of my husband's "favorite" topics--meaning he gets super worked up over it--and I am not going to get into the details of residential parking and apartment buildings and bike lanes and potholes and such. Let's just say it takes me a half an hour sometimes to drive 2 miles to the market--and I'd rather be inconvenienced by a natural phenomenon, i.e. the flood, that a bunch of entitled drivers all trying to get where they're going as quickly as possible. The road rage is unfathomable and ongoing.

I've veered off a bit from my History of Vernonia to ever-growing hated topic of the Traffic in Portland. I guess I'm going to have to have Vernonia Part III because I'm making African peanut stew and it's almost ready. I don't feel I very well articulated my thoughts about the inconveniences one encounters in this modern world, the choices we make around them, and that using the concept of "convenience" to navigate one's life is an over-blown American idea used to sell us stuff. There is no such thing as saving time.

I reiterate: There is no such thing as SAVING TIME.

​I'll tell you the vacuum cleaner allegory later.