It happened again, and now it's getting to the point where it's getting eerie. In the travels all over northwest Oregon, over nine years of being a candle representative, I have found myself a little too close to news that has made national headlines. Now, am I in the background of any paparazzi picture? No, but had the moments been a little different I could have been part of the action before the cameras showed up. I have been giggling about it over the years, but it happened again yesterday and now it's just eerie.
Here is the history:
1) Summer of 2002. If you don't remember, that was the summer that Ward Weaver was captured here in Oregon. What was his thing? Well, he killed two young girls here in the burbs of Portland, and did it right under the nose of authorities, including the FBI. Click here for a simple timeline of events.
Now click to August 13, 2002. He is charged for rape. Us locals remember the full details to that. The sick man tried to rape his grown son's girlfriend and she fled the house naked, flagged down a motorist and escaped....probably with her life.
The intersection of Ward Weaver's home where this attempted rape happened, and where the young gal ran for a motorist......I had driven through that intersection only an hour before. I had driven to Oregon City that afternoon, with my baby in the backseat to collect some delinquent funds from a customer. I could have been the motorist if the timing had been different.
2) January 2003. I am leaving a home in Milwaukie from a candle party. It is late and Milwaukie is extremely quiet and dark at night. If you didn't know it, at night it almost feels like you're in the country, although you are in the city. I sit at a stop sign on Roots Rd, and suddenly out of the dark comes two Clackamas County sheriff's cars screaming by me at 80+ miles an hour with lights and sirens full bore. Okay, that never happens. Turns out, only a few blocks away, Damon Coates, Clackamas County sheriff's deputy had been horribly shot. Click here to remember that story and also see his amazing recovery from what all thought that night was a mortal shot. I was a little too close to that action that night.
3) December 2008. I was heading down I-5 south to go to south Salem at rush hour. If you have ever traveled that. I actually should have been in the thick traffic by going south. Most of the time, it is inching along traffic, but I was clipping along rather nicely and thought it quite strange. The northbound traffic was completely stopped, completely strange. It was also starting to snow ever so slightly, which just makes Oregonians freak out. I just wrote it off as weather and a traffic anomaly, but definitely thought it odd.
Suddenly, on the other side of the freeway, I believe four state patrol cars go screaming up the emergency lane full bore. I had seen no accident at all on the other side. How could there be an accident? No one was moving. Why four patrol cars? I don't know, but I remember thinking it reminded me of the Damon Coates emergency with the officer's cars going full blast.
Turns out a father/son team had just detonated a bomb at a bank I had just passed. Click here for that miserable night. So sad. Officers died in that bombing, and I am happy to say the state of Oregon just announced they are pursuing the death penalty in their trial.
4) Yesterday! This is crazy only because of how remote of a place I was. Remember those pictures I showed a few weeks ago of the wind turbines going on my rant about how Oregon is exporting such important jobs out of state by taxing businesses to death? Well, I took those in Goldendale, WA.
I was in Goldendale, WA yesterday at a local pizza joint for a candle party. No one showed. However, the hostess and I got to chatting over chicken salad. Turns out she is a project manager for one of the turbine companies. Oh my word! I got excited and just started asking her questions like crazy. She was so nice and offered, "Since the candle party is a bust, I don't want to waste your time, want to go see the turbines up close?" Seriously, I almost passed out, I was so excited.
So we go to her house off of Hoctor Rd and Bickleton Hwy to drop my car off. At her house, she talks to her husband about a few things and I find out what happened that I hadn't been aware of. The criminally insane guy who escaped custody while at a field trip to the Washington State Fair near Seattle had been spotted just down the road the day before? What?! This was news to me. His escape had been making national headlines and I hadn't heard this is where he was spotted. So we stop and think this through, is this smart to go out into the fields with this guy running around? We decide that we are fine if only because we outnumber him and have a vehicle.
You need to understand Goldendale. It is a blip on a map. It has a main street and a small conglomeration of homes. Goldendale?? Really? Here? We are out on the ridge of a mountain and don't see buildings in any direction. We can see up and down the Columbia Gorge and it is breathtaking while watching these majestic turbines all around us. Nobody but us and the cows.
So a blog post is coming soon telling you about my field trip to the wind turbines, really up close. What a treat! It was so cool. I have so much to share with you. I just need to get the pictures from my friend since I borrowed her camera.
Turns out while I was climbing inside the paddles of wind turbines, they caught the guy right down the road on Bickleton Highway, a field or so from where we were. Click here. The only difference this time, didn't see anything. No screaming patrol cars. Nothing.
Weird huh?
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