Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
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“Volume 47” appears on the top of the front page of this edition. Right beside it is “Issue 1.” Those numbers mark the start of the forty-seventh year that River Reflections will be reporting on life along the McKenzie River. In the weeks and months to come, some of the stories are likely to continue to inform on things people may not have thought about, others could be sad, and some at times silly. That last item got me thinking about what might have been lightening the mood of other publications. Here are a few samples. In the early days of...
I didn’t recognize the name or return address on an envelope before opening it recently. The note I read was a total surprise. “About forty years ago I pulled my uninsured vehicle out onto Hilyard St. in Eugne right in front of your oncoming small Honda. Your car had been ready to sell but was significantly damaged. My recollection is that you mentioned a big deductible on your insurance coverage and requested I send money if my fortunes ever improved. I felt bad about the situation. I have been steadily employed at a good job for over a doz...
Does your newspaper talk to you? McKenzie River Reflections does now, thanks to a project I’ve been working on for the past month. I’m not talking about a text replacement. Instead, the plan was about complementing written words and giving readers something I’ve been hearing they wanted: content on the go, when looking at a screen is not an option. Some said they’d like the convenience of being informed when “too busy to read but want to know what’s going on.” Other people have been accessing mckenzie river reflections newspaper.com on cell pho...
Yikes, more bad news from the news business. There have been added concerns about the viability of Oregon’s weekly newspapers recently, with the worst being the announcement by the Eugene Weekly that it had laid off its staff and couldn’t afford to print another edition. The problems came about, they explained, after an employee had not only failed to make payments to the staff’s retirement accounts but had run up $70,00 in billings to the webpress owner that printed them. Even worse news - according to the Associated Press - the total hit m...
Growing up it was a festive month with plenty of cake to go around because we celebrated my Mom’s birthday, and five days later, mine. That was many years ago and now far away as I moved around the country before settling in Oregon. Three years ago COVID and the Holiday Farm Fire impacted all of us. It was devastating to Louise, my wife, who was already being battered by the negative impacts of Alzheimer’s. Her passing made me less likely to look forward to future arrivals of the ninth month of the year. That foreboding proved to be acc...
“The longest-running newspaper in southern California has ceased publication after filing for bankruptcy.” That email is part of a depressing trend as the United States continues to see newspapers die at the rate of two per week, according to another report on the state of local news. News “deserts” are growing. It’s estimated that some 70 million Americans live in a county with either no local news organization or only one. Locally, though, I hope you’ve been enjoying the work of Mc-Kenzie R...
When then meets now. The morning of May 21, 1998, seemed like most others. Inside the Whitewater Cafe in Blue River, the regulars had ordered their regulars, and the small talk was flowing. Until someone said, “Turn that up.” Those words came from someone pointing to the black and white TV screen in the cafe. On it was an image with the words, “Thurston, Oregon.” At first, all of us were bemused to see a local place appearing on a national TV network. But our bemusement was quickly dashed - turning to horror and disbelief. What we were watchin...
A Letter to the Editor was going to be printed in this space. In it the writer had included these words: “On my routine drive over the Santiam Pass this weekend I was horrified at the political signage insulting my eyes and our beautiful roadway. Overdone to say the least, and totally inappropriate on our beloved scenic highway.” During the Wooden Boat Show on Saturday, a couple of other people came up to me to express similar opinions, like “Don’t they know it’s Earth Day.” Those reactions caused me to check in with ODOT to see what sort of re...
As another year winds down it’s always a good time to count our blessings, reflect on the year, and thank in particular the great people and businesses whose partnerships have shored up and sustained McKenzie River Reflections. In recent years newspaper publishers have faced hard choices when confronted with rapidly rising production and delivery costs. Luckily, I saw changes were inevitable and started to prepare for major adjustments over three years ago by offering existing and new subscribers a digital version of this weekly newspaper. 2...
There was a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new Welcome sign in Walterville last week. While I was walking back to my car I happened to look across the highway at the intersection of Hwy. 126 and Millican Road. The view started another train of thought as I drove back east to my office. That downriver intersection and several others I drove by were upgraded as a result of the efforts of Jack Crawford and several other people who were part of the McKenzie Highway Association in the mid 80’s. People who’ve been around a while can recall when tho...
“So, how’s it going?” is a question that’s been put to me a few times lately. Luckily I’ve been able to answer “Surprisingly well.” The Q & A’s, of course, had to deal with the decision to switch from primarily a hard copy printed newspaper to one that subscribers receive over the internet. The conversion rate is now just above 90%. A few years ago that result would probably not have been possible, judging by the rough times some of the big daily newspapers endured. Two factors seemed to have come into play for River Reflections. On...
For some people, repetition works best - so here it is again: McKenzie River Reflections won't be mailed to subscribers beyond the August 18th edition. After 44 years, the costs of printing and mailing have increased too much to be sustainable - amounting to $700 per week. That's the bad news. The good news is that this newspaper will continue to be published. You can still read it if you send your email address to [email protected]. If you don't, you're risking missing out on a lot. It's...
From 2004 until the start of the pandemic in 2020, the United States lost a quarter (around 2,100) of its newspapers, according to a report from the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. By the end of last year, another hundred were gone, the Poynter Institute reported. The result was the creation of “news deserts” -mostly located in financially-impacted rural areas of the country. Over on the Oregon coast, the News Media Corporation and Central Coast Publi...
Which clinic? Many people still say they go to the "McKenzie River Clinic" even though the name was retired when the nonprofit, formed in 1974, changed its title to McKenzie Valley Wellness. The MRC hasn't seen patients in about five years after actual medical services were taken over by Orchid Health. The recent news that the Oregon Dept. of Justice is investigating MVW, "has created confusion within our community and many have interpreted it to mean that Orchid is also under an ODOJ...
You’ve probably seen some pretty far-fetched online deals. Some say, “New Honda generators for $99,” or mobile phones, video game consoles, laptops, and jewelry “that was over-ordered and has to be sold because of a lack of storage space.” Those ads have always intrigued me so I thought I’d give this one a try and see what happened - a Canon XA50 video recorder for $49. When it didn’t arrive I contacted the seller who claimed it had been delivered. They even gave me a U.S. Postal Service tracking number to prove their claim. That stumped me wh...
Growing up, my older brother, Frank, reminded me of Dick Tracy. No, he didn’t have a wristwatch phone but he was the only teenager I knew of in the Sixties who could play records in his ‘57 Chevy as he drove down the road. There were other indicators that previewed he’d go on to pursue a career in electronics. Sneaking into his basement workshop allowed me to twist knobs on his oscilloscope without knowing anything about what the squiggles on the screen meant. I also found the “secret” telephone he’d wired inside his bedroom closet so he could...
“Looking good!” People have been telling me while delivering Reflections to stores and restaurants for the last two weeks. That’s because they liked seeing color photos rather than the print edition’s normal black & white front-page images. This week I’m expecting to hear comments along the lines of: “Must be a lot of news!” when they find the July 1st issue weighs twice as much. Printing in color and adding more pages are the result of one input - advertising. In both cases, it’s pretty expensive. The second though, has some interesting wri...
