With the total eclipse passing through Oregon this summer, there was constant fodder for new stories. My first began with a 10 day tour of Oregon which concluded in the town of Bend to observe the eclipse in totality. I got off on the wrong foot right away by offending one of the women on my tour. I hadn’t realized that the British were even more politically correct than Americans, so when I mentioned that no woman in her right mind would participate in an event I had just described, I heard her whisper to her husband, “well, that was sexist”. I spent the rest of the trip guarded against offending this socially conservative group so what transpired later came as a complete surprise.

One of the guests on the motorcoach motioned for me to come to her. She asked, “Tom, what’s a growler?”. I replied, “It’s a container or jug that can be filled with beer.” “Oh oh oh” she uttered looking rather flushed and then continued, “well where I’m from, a growler is a woman’s bush, and I just saw a sign back there that said, ‘Get your growler filled here’”. She continued, “I understand now, though I’m a bit disappointed as I haven’t had my growler filled in years.”

The whole bus erupted into laughter. It had taken 10 days, but by the time we got to Bend, we were all sharing “not so appropriate” stories. I had a friend once tell me that tour guides are basically storytellers, and I’ve found that’s the part I enjoy most about my job.

When I first arrived in Oregon, I began to ask everyone what they knew about its history. To my dismay, people routinely responded with the same fact: that Lewis and Clark spent the winter here. While it marked a significant part of that expedition, it was disappointing that this was the only thing people could tell me of Oregon history, especially given that Lewis and Clark were here for fewer than 6 months. Compounding that disappointment was the fact that I had just moved to Oregon from California, a place rich in history.

I committed myself to learning what else may have happened in Oregon since 1806. While I can now rattle off Oregon factoids like Oregon became a state in 1859 and that the state bird is the western meadowlark, I find people enjoy more the anecdotes of Oregon. Things like Oregon has the only state flag in the United States that has a different design on the front than the back or that Oregon managed to avoid the free state versus slave state issue by simplifying banning blacks altogether until 1929.

One of the favorite new stories I complied this year is about a convent in the town of Bridal Veil, OR. I drive past it with my tourists on every waterfall tour of the Columbia river gorge, declaring that they have their own private waterfall on the property. This spring, I mentioned the house to a manager at the Multnomah Falls Lodge, and she replied, “you know they used to film porn there?” I brushed it off originally as rumor, but when I told another friend of mine about the house, she informed me that her mom had told her the same thing.

I invited my friend’s mom out to dinner to pursue this rumor further. She told me that when the nuns bought it, there was a lot of work to be done. She, along with other members of local Catholic churches, volunteered to help clean it up. She said that upon initially entering the house, she was shocked by some of the walls which were painted bright pink. She also mentioned that they couldn’t figure out why there were electrical wires all about the floor, though some told her that it had been used for filming porn during the years before the nuns bought the home.

I had two independent sources, but it was still only word of mouth, and I was determined to find a more credible source, preferably in the form of a newspaper article or a film that had been shot there. While doing my research, I was able to find a book about the history of the house called, “The House at Bridal Veil”. It detailed the hiring of an east coast architect to build an Italian style villa overlooking the river. It talked of the various owners over the years, including an order of Catholic priests, who ran it as a seminary for only a couple of years before determining that the Gorge weather was just too dreary a setting for their already mundane seminary studies.

The home stood abandoned for years before being purchased by an order of Franciscan nuns who wanted to turn it into a school. The book also mentioned the eccentric colored walls and wiring but went into further detail to mention that when the nuns made their way into the basement, they found reels of film hanging from the rafters. The book doesn’t mention porn, but it does say the nuns burned the film leading me to conclude that the rumors I had heard were correct.

So now, every time I pass by the house, I share with my tourists the irony that a former porn studio is now used as a convent. The Marquis du Sade would laugh as his controversial fictional work, Juliette, was brought to life in 1970s America.

The last of my new stories from this summer is called The Exploding Whale. This was the first summer I’d been with my tourists as far south as Florence, Oregon, and while doing research, I came across a comical news broadcast from 1970. It seems that in November of that year a sperm whale washed ashore attracting sightseers for a couple weeks until it began to rot. The neighbors complained, and it was determined that the Oregon Department of Transportation had the responsibility to deal with it.

You see, before the coastal highway was built, people used the beach to drive up and down the coast as the sand was hard enough to accommodate vehicles. Just before the completion of the highway, governor Oswald West declared the beach a public right of way in an effort to prevent a land grab by developers.

As a result, it was tasked to the Oregon Department of Transportation to deal with the whale. After considering several options, they concluded the best approach was to blow it up with dynamite and let scavengers do the rest. Naturally, when you talk about blowing things up, people flock to watch the spectacle.

A safety perimeter was established, and they began to pack the whale with dynamite. A retired army demolitions expert, who was watching the process decided to duck under the line and speak with the highway employees. He informed them that they were using way too much dynamite. They responded with, “we know what we’re doing. Get back behind the line old man”, which he did.

The excitement had been building throughout the morning, and when the whale was detonated, the crowd erupted in excitement. The revelry didn’t last long. Pieces of whale began falling on the crowd, and their cheers turned to screams. A large portion of whale remained but shrapnel of whale carcass began landing throughout the vicinity.

Once everything settled, it was determined that no one was seriously injured. There was one fatality however. A piece of whale the size of a refrigerator had landed on a car, completely caving in the roof, and you’ll never believe who that car belonged to: the retired demolitions expert! To add to the ironic conclusion of this story, he had just purchased the car a week before from a dealership advertising its “get a whale of a deal” promotion.

While I’m happy to quote Oregon’s statistics, I find that it’s the anecdotes that people enjoy most, so I will continue with my research in an attempt to entertain you with more with stories than facts as I head south again this winter. Next stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia