HOMEWARD BOUND FOR NORTH BEND TOWN

Homeward bound will always be North Bend, Oregon.

For me, maybe not you.

What feels like a nice memory is more than that.

Let’s go with a living testament to the hardworking people who still call it home.

Hard working?

My Dad grew up in a company town, a logging company town, in rural Washington.

He knew hard work, saw hard working people, and was up to the task.

His dad reminded him that anyone who stayed in school past the eighth grade is just afraid of hard work.

Dads in other parts of the country saw it differently. They encouraged their kids to use their smarts, get educated, be somebody.

Does that sound familiar?

So the Old Man got educated. He was smart enough to get out of the Korean War alive.

When I asked him what he did there he gave a short answer.

“I did what young and stupid did.”

Believe me when I say he’d be the first one to call when you patrol enemy territory.

He was smart enough to get married after he made sergeant so he and Mom could live in a nicer Quonset Hut.

Also smart enough to listen to his wife and leave the Marine Corps, go to college, and get a white collar insurance job.

He did all of that before moving to another logging town, but not a company logging town like Ryderwood, Washington.

Ryderwood is a census-designated place (CDP) in Cowlitz County, Washington, west of the city of Vader. Known locally as the “Village in the Woods”, the town began in 1923 as a logging settlement and considered itself the “World’s Largest Logging Town”. 

North Bend, Oregon Bound

North Bend according to Wiki.

The 1852 stranding of the schooner Captain Lincoln on the North Spit and the survivors’ encampment and rescue brought attention to gold prospectors who came to mine placer from area beaches. 

In 1853, the Coos Bay Commercial Company arrived from the Rogue Valley and created routes for settlers.

Thomas Symons founded Yarrow in 1863. Louis Simpson bought it in 1902. Simpson brought Yarrow and his father’s sawmill site Old Town together in 1903 under the name North Bend.

North Bend according to Oregon Encyclopedia.

In 2020, North Bend’s population approached 10,300 people, and a new bayside boardwalk restored a connection to the ocean. Six times since 1943, most recently in 2004, North Bend rejected consolidation with the City of Coos Bay. 

My Kind Of Homeward Bound

I asked my Dad which town was tougher, Ryderwood or North Bend?

He said North Bend due to the fishermen and the mill workers mixing it up instead of just loggers fighting each other on Saturday nights.

I didn’t ask him why he chose to settle in North Bend instead of Coos Bay.

Was it the bulldog?

It had to be.

So he raised three Bulldogs instead of three Pirates.

What I Look For On The Roosevelt Highway

Roosevelt Highway?

My Homeward Bound Vision

The Graduating Class of 1973.

I’ll do the math:

1+9 = 10

7+3 = 10

Every decade has a standout class of 10 for 10.

1910, 1919, 1928, 1937, 1946, 1955, 1964, 1973, 1982, 1991.

We are the ten for ten class of the Seventies.

As if we need more to get pumped up about.

Too cheesy? Who doesn’t like good cheese?

I’ll see you around the bend, North Bend.

My Plan.

The soundtrack?

Homeward Bound. You don’t need to ask.