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You're listening to StoryHelix: Intertwining
stories past, present, and not yet
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imagined, in Lane County, Oregon.
What's up, earthlings? I'm Leah Velez,
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and I'll be your host. The
story we're about to hear was recorded at
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Oakshire Brewing Company in the Whiteaker neighborhood
of Eugene, Oregon, in early 2022.
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Let's open
up our ear nuggets and give it a listen.
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My name is Doriandra Smith
and I am outside of Oakshire. My
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grandmother was a loner and very unique. She spent a lot of her time out on Warm
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Springs Reservation. So she was a
hunter and a scavenger, and I learned how
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to pick things and find things and
it didn't quite match up with my grandmother,
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because this was my great-grandmother... and
that she... Betty Haggardy was her name. She became
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a realtor here in Eugene, and
she drove a white Cadillac, and had
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a beehive and blood-red nails and
was epic in what she did.
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And she was really pivotal because she
dated an African American man from
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the Ink Spots, this band from Texas, and so she would drive in her
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Cadillac to Texas. And the reason
we actually are here, though, is
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because she encountered a plague of locusts
along their way on this one trip to
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Texas and it scared the living
bejeezus out of her because the insects were
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just all over the Cadillac. So
that's how we ended up here in
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Eugene. And then, lived other places, and eventually made my
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way back here. So I came
back about five years ago and got a
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house with my then partner, who
we'd been together like nine years, and
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then he began to suffer from a
pretty severe mental illness that he would not
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treat, and so it became worse
and worse.
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I never really knew what I'd come
home to find in the house. So
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finally, right before the pandemic,
I asked him to move and so he
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did, and then I had to
really fight to stay in my
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house, but I did, and it's
been two and a half years and I
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think I'm okay. But I really
learned a sense of community here again because
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even through like some of that dark
time, I could literally just walk across
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the street and give my neighbor a hug or
cry on their shoulder. You know,
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people would bring me pies and I
just feel so good about being in
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Eugene. I feel like, you
know, I'm I'm fifty two and I
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had never felt community like I do
here. I feel like if the end
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of the world happens, it's good. The reason I came back to Eugene
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specifically was I was living down in
California under the High Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains.
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It was weird. It was like they
had a kind of fear of drought
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and people, and like all the things going
on. I felt so good about saying,
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you know what, I'm going home
to Eugene. I can grow food.
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I grow asparagus, I have pears growing
in the tree. I have everything I
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need and I'm just, I'm so glad. I'm just so glad to be here.
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I feel like if it all goes
to hell, like, we have each
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other, we have community with so
much goodness here. I'm third generation Oregonian
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and I lived in the Whiteaker when
I was in my 20s. I was
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pregnant with my son here. I
lived in a in an attic rental over
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there on fourth and Jackson. I
think and yeah, I had a weird
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and transential time thing where I was
sitting in the attic we were renting,
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looking at the father of my child
and it was broad daylight and then all
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of a sudden it was night and
we were very confused. But I digress.
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But what I learned from then
moving to Los Angeles and living in
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Amsterdam, and all these different places,
when I came home here, I finally
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felt the sense of community that I
never had living all over and in different
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places. And I think the biggest
part it gave me is, work that matters.
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That really really matters. Taking the
collective goal that's moving towards social
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justice, towards health equity, and
like being able to enact it. Where
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my work prior, which was wonderful with
producing operas and music festivals and whatnot,
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this is work that matters. It
matters on a fundamental community base level,
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which I think is really like some
of the most exciting work I've ever done.
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A sense of equanimity, the ability
to perceive with a calm grace, and
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just be okay with things and carry
yourself with dignity through them. In terms
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of looking at all the things that
are wrong in the world because there's also
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so much good. But I think
especially with thinking about our unhoused folks and
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folks suffering from mental illness and difficulties that
we see in Eugene. Working and being
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in the Whiteaker has taught me a
certain humility and understanding that we're so not
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removed from what we may feel uncomfortable
by. So it's like kind of a
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stepping into it and accepting and just
like a greater sense of empathy and love
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for everybody. Whether we're in a
good place or a struggling place.
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Thanks for listening. You can find us
wherever you listen to your podcasts. If
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you've got your own Lane County story
to tell, we'd love to hear it
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at StoryHelix.Wordcrafters.org.
