The magazine True West has named the Rainbow, in Pendleton, as Oregon’s best saloon. Now, as with most people not familiar with the ways of the wild west, I am not exactly sure what a saloon is. I know it’s a kind of bar. I assume it might be hard to hear over the din of squeaky swinging doors and the jangle of spurs as cowboy clientele pack the bar, swiggin’ whiskey and beer.

Regardless of what a saloon might be, this unusual anachronistic accolade is a great example of the greater cultural divide that exists between the halves of Oregon.

Would a saloon, as the editors of True West would define one, even exist in, say, Portland or Eugene? The likelihood is low. I can see it now; thirsty cowboys wearily wandering between hip bars and clubs in search of a place with a player piano and poker tables. It just wouldn’t happen.

The mere presence of something that could be defined as a ’saloon’ is a good notch on the cultural yardstick of our state.

When I tell someone from the east coast that I am from Oregon it isn’t uncommon for them to automatically and half-jokingly assume that I am a ‘tree-hugger’ and that I have smoked marijuana since birth. It often takes me a few minutes to explain to these people the differences between eastern Oregon and the ‘blue state’ by which they stereotypically judge me.

The truth is that the culture of eastern Oregon is closer to that of Idaho and Montana, and that if states were to be divided solely by their cultural profile, a longitudinal state boundary running down the Cascade Mountains would make more sense than the boundary of the Columbia River. There are no hip sections of my hometown. My old high school has a rodeo team. Wal-Mart is where shopping is done. We have one movie theater that gets only the biggest, blockbuster movies, ensuring that any independent film fans stay reliant on Netflix. All of my friends from high school were big hunters, and I sometimes felt like an outcast having only hunted twice in my life. We don’t have bars, we have saloons.

The history of the region is varied and astonishingly colorful, so to explain its culture only in terms relative to the Willamette Valley would be unfair. So before anyone claims to really know the state of Oregon they should make a trip east of the Cascades. The further east the better. You may find fewer trees and rivers, admittedly, but you will also find fewer skyscrapers, cars, and people. You will find a whole different state of mind.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 2:13 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.