My ancestors came to Oregon as pioneers on the Oregon Trail. That’s why I’m here and for that I say thank you to all those who risked their life to make that Journey.
My ancestors played the Oregon Trail computer game, which is not precisely the same, but I think still gives me some bond to the state.
I played Oregon Trail in middle school and made it all the way...my 10th time playing. Damned dysentery, typhoid, cholera, drowning, exhaustion, accidental gun shot wounds, snakebites, broken axles and wheels, and those damned Oxen.
I was actually born in Texas, but have lived the majority of my life here in Oregon between Jacksonville, Meford, Grants Pass, and Portland (lived in Portland 25 years now).
Don’t forget the perilous rivers. Every time you approach one you are thinking “please don’t sink, please don’t sink, please don’t...SHIT!”
I remember the 100th. My father, like a lot of other men in Oregon, grew a beard to commemorate the birthday year. Edit: Somewhere around 1960 I collected an 1859 silver dollar which I thought was cool because that was the year that Oregon joined the Union. One of my young friends stole it when he was over at my house. Decades later, I bought another 1859 silver dollar while in Reno and I've still got that one.
