Rehab for the Bucoholic

@ my current gallery

“Bucoholic” is a portmanteau coinage, derived from “alcoholic” and “bucolic.” The latter, by the by, means :

bu-col-ic

adj.
1. Of or characteristic of the countryside or its people; rustic. See Synonyms at rural.
2. Of or characteristic of shepherds or flocks; pastoral.
n.
1. A pastoral poem.
2. A farmer or shepherd; a rustic.
[Latin bcolicus, pastoral, from Greek boukolikos, from boukolos, cowherd : bous, cow; see gwou- in Indo-European roots + -kolos, herdsman...]
bu·coli·cal·ly adv.

~ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000

If you don’t know what “alcoholic” means,  just hang around with humans. You’ll know pretty soon.

Yesterday, we went down to the One Hundred Fiftieth Lane County Fair, to pick up six pieces of art I had entered.

 Bucolia – The lost city of Moo.

Lane County itself is only slightly older.  Originally, it comprised all of Oregon south of Lane county, as well, all the way down to Oregon’s California border, and included most of Eastern Oregon, in the dry lands of the rain shadow.

They used to call that, all the way to the “Big Muddy” (The Missouri River) “The Great American Desert.” My late father-in-law, Frank Tannehill, who passed away in 2008 at the ripe old age of One Hundred, remembered it marked that way on the maps in his schoolbooks. But great if you like sagebrush and the occasional barbed wire fence.

Senator Joseph Lane

Lane County is named for Joseph Lane, who was, among other things (“while in Indiana, he served in the State House of Representatives and the Indiana Senate from 1822 to 1846“) , including  Territorial Governor, and as a ( no, not “the”) first Senator from Oregon. In 1860, Senator Lane, a Democrat, was persuaded to run as the Vice Presidential candidate (with Senator John C. Breckinridge, later a Confederate General) on the Southern Democratic ticket (the Northern Democrats nominated Senator Steven Douglas, the new Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, and there was a quite formidable “Unity” ticket), and, following the election, he returned to Oregon and lived in seclusion on his ranch near Roseburg until his death in 1881.

Roseburg, which, ironically, is no longer contained in Lane Country, as the state was divided up over time, until Lane County is a little* anvil-shaped plug of land in the central coast region, going from the Pacific shoreline up to the peaks of the Cascade Range, or, more or less, to where the rain ends.

[* By "little," of course, I mean the size of the US state of Connecticut. I am from the West, where we have nothing, but it is nothing in abundance.]

Roseburg is now the county seat and in the center of Douglas County, Oregon, and holds the Joseph Lane museum or historical something or other.

Most of the Western states were territories when the Lane County Fair started, but Eugene, ever contemptuous of its past (which is why there are no “old” buildings in Eugene) seemed to pay no heed.

This year, we had a free concert stage (you could buy reserved “good” seats, however) and the night that the fair opened, appropriately, the band was the Seattle sisters’ band, Heart. For their encore, they played “Misty Mountain Hop,” which I reflexively noted to my wife makes perfect sense, since the Wilson sisters were big Led Zeppelin fans before they made it themselves as musicians in their own right. The influences are clear.*

[* I know way too much rock and roll trivia for my own good, but my kind Guardian Angel kept me from ever writing for or about the rock music industry, and I ended up, instead, in pornography, which turned out, by dispassionate observation, to be a lot cleaner place to be.]

Harlequin

As I was saying, before the digression,  yesterday we were there to pick up the six “professional pencil” category drawings I’d entered.

Judging had been on the last Thursday of the Olympics, but I didn’t know how I’d done until the fair opened on that “Heart” night.

It was hot as hell — we’ve been having hundred degree days here — and the exhibit hall, where I usually go for elections, because that’s where the TV and radio people gather along with the political masses to watch the big screen TVs, schmooze and get the election results at the top of the hour (not quite as much fun as it was before vote by mail; usually the first hour’s results pretty much tell the final result and the parties break up early) — in that exhibit hall, on zig-zag black panels with good old fashioned punchboard, the art exhibits were hung … in AIR CONDITIONING.

I had found my drawings, and I’d scored during the Olympics: Two blue ribbons, One red ribbon and One Miss Congeniality (“Honorable Mention.”)

Portrait of the art but not the artist
due to inclement weather conditions

I had spent a couple of weeks NOT thinking about it; not allowing the emotions to creep in with “What if I win?” and “What if I lose?” and all of the projections of future fantasies about outcomes. I was more or less successful, and the prizes were sweet without the taint of “Beating” somebody, or all that “We’re Number One!” dominance and pecking order stuff that humanity loves so well.

I do not believe in arts competitions, but I had genuinely been interested to see how I’d stack up in a mildly arty town, and the “reward” of a Blue Ribbon at the County Fair was just too damn tempting to pass up.

And now, for all of Eternity, I can claim that most important of Bucolic Brays: I WON ME A BLUE RIBBON AT THE COUNTY FAIR!

Now, to join 4-H!

Cue Pat Boone and Ann Margaret.

Succor for the bucoholic.

But there is another story here.

[To be continued ... ]

Courage.

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