Items

• 
  2022-04-25

  A Wild Ride

  In a world wide pandemic, it is important to get first hand accounts and feelings to be able to look into later.
• 2020-02-01

  Essential Business

  During my undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon, I lived in an apartment in Eugene, Oregon.  The apartment complex had a mixture of college students and non-college students, in other words, it was not specifically for college students as many in the area were.  Being that Eugene is a college town and the legalization of marijuana, the scent of marijuana was common. Walking my dog in the evenings without smelling or seeing people smoke would have been odd. The COVID-19 breakout and subsequent lockdown would alter my apartment complex's scent. As mentioned before, the smell of marijuana was extremely common. However, the intensity and frequency were increased. The scent of weed became almost as common as the smell of rain or grass in the morning. People began to smoke much earlier in the mornings, whereas before it was usually reserved for the afternoon or evening times. COVID-19 forced people to stay home, which altered their work and college schedules which resulted in more leisure time. Interestingly, or perhaps rather expected, the State of Oregon deemed marijuana dispensaries an "Essential Business".  The State would curtail one's ability to go to campus and the library, places of study, and personal development were shut down for health and safety purposes. But people were still allowed to go to a dispensary spend their money on a recreational drug. So I decided to go one, for investigational purposes of course, and after having a conversation with the local budtender, she informed me that people were being much higher qualities than before. She speculated it was either out of fear of the pandemic or the fear of the dispensaries being shut down in the near future. Thus it brought me to wonder, was marijuana deemed "Essential" for economic or psychological purposes?
• 2021-10-06

  The Desperate Cling

  When the pandemic hit the small town I resided in March of 2019, the aftershock evoked a hopelessness that was unexpected. Growing up learning “stop, drop, and roll,” I presumed catching on fire was going to be much more problematic than pathetic trauma that has consumed my generation. In seventh grade, my school spent the day watching planes hit the towers on 9/11. Then that night watching the strength of my single mother dwindle while recording the news on VHS tapes. I believed my resilience created from the past had prepared me to get through this pandemic. I was much less resilient than I had anticipated. I worked as a barista in a grocery store and had seen the hatefulness and treatment this once friendly town provided. Before moving to this small town I would visit in the summer and found it difficult to understand how perfect strangers could treat each other like lifelong neighbors. The cloud that had fallen upon this town was shocking. 6am when the grocery doors opened I would watch what seemed to be half the town race with carts, baskets and bags to the designated “hot spots.” (Toilet paper, rice, beans, and bread) I watched as my co-workers were interrogated by their neighbors over product. My coffee kiosk was quiet compared to what it had been and that gave me time to observe the change in demeanor from my co-workers as well. The emotional exhaustion of their own fears along with half of the town coming in to dump their fears and baggage onto them as well; The physical exhaustion of working 60-70 days, pushing product and covering shifts. It was a mad house. It was hard to see the toll on such a warm and friendly town. Customers, co-workers, strangers would indulge dark, inappropriate and ugly opinions I had never expected, especially not in this sleepy town. I could feel the darkness and fear of other steeping into myself. It became difficult to be patient and interact with others. By the end of the day I would be so emotionally spent from pushing myself to be a courteous light for a beacon of all that sadness. I was bitter for this, finding it difficult to cling to my hope in humanity. I wasn’t anticipating this type of reaction from society when faced with such a colossal disaster like the world had reacted after 9/11. So in a way, I think I was resilient to the events but I was unprepared for the worlds reaction.
• 
  2021-10-05

  Life During a Pandemic

  This is a brief look into life during the pandemic and how society has changed as well as what I have learned about the world and myself throughout the last two years. This is important to me because history is a great way to learn more about where we are today, if I am able to contribute to giving an insight to future generations about how our lives were affected by the global pandemic, I would be happy to do so.
• 2020-09-18

  MO and LC Oral History, 2021/09/18

  Basic interviews between two college students looking back on the start of the pandemic.
• 
  2021-09-04

  hermit HERALD, ISSUE 127

  Taliban need outside help
• 
  2021-06-23

  HERMIT HERALD, ISSUE 118

  Portland promotion
• 
  2021-04-05

  Online Article: ‘Burned out’: Portland cops leave scathing exit interviews

  This article from Oregon Live/The Oregonian was picked up by Police1, and it discusses a number of exit interviews that retiring and resigning Portland Police Bureau officers, detectives, and administrators left during the past year. Of particular interest is the section that discusses the story of Jaykary Jackson: "Young officers of color have left, including Jaykary Jackson, who went to Boise, and Elise Temple, who was one of the Police Bureau’s recruiters. Temple declined to comment on the record. Jackson didn’t respond to messages but he was one of the officers who spoke out last summer about being on the front line of racial justice protests as an officer with the Rapid Response Team. A graduate of Portland State University who joined the Police Bureau after working for Nike for 10 years, he said then that he became a cop because he “wanted to make the most out of my life by helping others.” He also was following in the footsteps of his father and aunt. But Jackson said he was disgusted by the hatred he and other officers faced while standing on the police lines. He got hit by an explosive one night, felt tingling in his fingertips and heat from the device, and got berated by young white protesters. Often when he tried to talk to someone of color at the protests, he said, “Someone white comes up and blocks them and tells them not to talk.” Or yells, “Eff the police ... don’t talk to him.” He left shortly after he was named to be a new community engagement officer." The article illustrates the additional concerns that officers in major cities and law enforcement agencies face, especially when their civilian oversight overwhelmingly seeks to placate protests with emotional vindication in lieu of reasoned, rational, and planned reforms.
• 
  2021-02-23

  Silver Linings Mini Oral History with Bonnie Brainard, 02/23/2021

  I recorded a mini oral history with my former professor Dr. Beverly Van Note.
• 
  2020-12-03

  Interview with COVID-19 Respite Shelter EMT

  Interviewee: Aidan McNaughton Interviewer: Kelly Lindemann Date of Interview: 12/03/2020 List of acronyms: AM = Aidan McNaughton, IN = interviewer Background: Washington county in Oregon has established several COVID-19 quarantine centers in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus among the community. A number of local motels have been converted to such facilities. Aidan is an EMT at one such motel, and agreed to be interviewed about his experience. IN: For how long have you worked at the shelter? AM: I have worked at the shelter since about July, so for about 6 months. IN: What is your position there? AM: I am an EMT that is here on staff. There are two of us at all times, and I am medical personnel on site for supervision, intervention, and monitoring. We’re here to do medical intervention if necessary, and also to keep tabs on vitals and making sure that everyone is doing okay, as well as deciding when we need to call medical transport to a hospital or not. IN: That makes sense. So as far as your actual job, what does a normal day at the quarantine shelter look like? Does it vary, or is it fairly constant? AM: It varies, and there’s busier days and quieter days. My shift starts at 5 AM, and I relieve the prior EMT when my partner and I get there. There’s about an hour of overlap between our shifts to make sure that, in case someone is late, we don’t have to adjust the scheduling. We have to make sure that there are always two EMTs here. An then we don up in PPE. We have a very well-stocked PPE room with lots of gowns and gloves, masks, glasses and face shields, also boot and hair covers. Then, we’ll get caught up with the other EMTs on whether or not there’s anyone [patients] new, what medical problems anyone who’s here is having, what social problems they’re having, etc. The non-medical shelter staff who actually run the shelter bring breakfast [to patients] at around 7 AM, and around that time we go to do our first morning checks. We knock on the doors, in full PPE, of all the patients, ask them a few basic questions, you know, take their temperatures, ask if they have any symptoms, pain, trouble sleeping or things like that, and if we have suspicion that there’s something serious going on we can take a more complete vital set and work from there. IN: As far as your patients go, does their condition usually vary? Have you seen a spectrum of people’s symptoms? AM: There’s a huge spectrum. We have people anywhere form completely healthy with no symptoms, pain or anything and feel completely normal, and we have people who are [O2] satting in the high 80’s, high fevers, too weak to get out of bed, and we will often end up sending those people to the hospital depending… and there’s everything in between as well, people with coughs, sore throats,loss of taste and smell of course, difficulty breathing etc., but there’s a vary steep gradient. IN: And I imagine that your patient’s conditions change, so it’s important to be continually monitoring. AM: Yes, so if we see someone who’s more sick then we’ll probably increase monitoring. So rather than just checking twice a day, which is what’s normally done with breakfast and dinner, if someone actually seems quite sick then we check on them as often as we feel is needed. IN: So overall it seems like a pretty effective system for providing care to people who don’t necessarily need to be in the hospital, but wouldn’t be safe at home with the potential for transmission or their need for medical care. Do you think that as a facility, you are effective at helping to stop the spread of the virus? What things work well, and what could be improved? AM: As a concept, and even the way our facility runs, it is quite helpful. It seems like a very reasonable way to do it. You have a designated quarantine site for people - not even all of them are homeless- even, like, roommates or people who don’t have somewhere else to quarantine without infecting people, they can come here. A lot of them are homeless, but not all of them. It seems obvious - you need somewhere for people who have a contagious disease to go that isn’t public. They get hot meals and medical supervision, but rather than, say, a hospital bed and all the costs that are associated with that, here it just costs a few EMTs and shelter staff. IN: And as far as the cost to patients, I know you mentioned that you have houseless people staying in the facility, is it free to them or is there a cost involved? AM: I am almost certain that there is no cost for anyone here, I’m not actually positive on that -I could ask- but I’m pretty sure that we don’t charge anything. I think- I know we’re funded by the county. IN: That makes sense, its sort of a self-serving altruism that the county can provide this service to prevent the spread of COVID to the community. AM: We’re designated as a public respite shelter, we essentially keep people with COVID off the streets. IN: I’d like to go back to the topic of housing insecurity and your experience with houseless people during the pandemic. I don’t know how much direct contact you have with your patients as far as getting to know them on a personal level, but in what ways have you noticed the houseless community coping with the pandemic? Where do they go once they’re discharged? AM: Yeah, we are encouraged to limit contact, so I don’t have that much contact with them, but I do chat with them when we’re taking them out on breaks for fresh air, or if I’ll chat with them in the morning or evening or when I’m discharging them. I don’t know, it’s extremely rough to be homeless, and sometimes because we are a COVID respite shelter, we’ve had patients that we’ve had to kick out, basically, because turns out they only have pneumonia, not COVID. I’ve been yelled at by a homeless person -justifiably so, I feel - for kicking him out because he has pneumonia- is that not good enough? I think that should probably be good enough, we should probably be able to take care of everybody who is ill, but the state has certain priorities. I think it should take a much broader view of people’s medical needs. We have a whole wing [of the facility] that opened up during the fires when other shelters had to be evacuated. I know that as of COVID in general there’s been both more homeless people and reduced shelter capacity due to social distancing requirements, so there’s been a need for more shelter space. We devoted half of our shelter building, which is separated off, but there’s no transmission, it even has separate staff and we don’t go over there, and it’s now a non-COVID homeless shelter -I think specifically for women and children and families- and I think that’s great because for a long time we had this hundred room motel and we were only filling about 25%, but now we can fill half of it with houseless people. Some of the shelter staff here did a good job of noticing that, and we talked for awhile about what we should do with all the empty rooms, and they coordinated with a different shelter in the area that didn’t have enough space and accepted a bunch of people. We also even now have some RVs that we allow in the parking lot - not with me, but with the other shelter building, I’m not entirely sure how it works- but people can live in the parking lot under supervision. IN: So the shelter is providing a safe space for people to either isolate or just live without the potential to be harassed by law enforcement or forced to constantly relocate. Overall it sounds like the county is doing a decent job responding to COVID, but as is true across most of the country there’s a huge shortcoming in providing medical care to houseless people, but that’s a whole other issue entirely. As far as your personal experience working so closely with a virus that’s caused so much turmoil in the world, is the risk of transmission something that causes you stress on the job, or is it something that you’ve become used to? AM: I’m definitely become more used to it than I was when I started, but still, like, if I’m trying to take a blood pressure reading - we use manual blood pressure cuffs- of someone who is confirmed positive with COVID, and is coughing and coughing, I get a little nervous. Actually, some of the shelter staff did get COVID and we had a bit of a problem where the shelter staff were severely understaffed for awhile. They handled it and made sure they had enough staff, but one of the people I work with ended up working two 80 hour weeks in a row because everyone else was quarantining. It is serious, and it definitely does happen here, but I feel like we’re probably all gonna get it eventually anyway and I have all this PPE on - I’m feel like I’m as safe as I’ll ever be, so … c’est la vie. I would rather not get it, but all I can do is take precautions against it. IN: I also hope you don’t get it! Thank you so much for your time and willingness to share your experience and contribute to this ongoing archival process. Stay safe out there!
• 
  2020-11-27

  she doesn't believe in the pandemic

  The nurse Ashley Grames was put on administrative leave because she did not follow any guidelines from her work and even said she let her children go places like to others houses with no precaution.
• 
  2020-11-24

  Empty Oaks Amusement Park

  Oaks Amusement Park in Portland, Oregon has been closed for the 2020 season, and looks eerie and empty. It looks abandoned and gives off mega haunted Scooby Doo type vibes. The park petitioned Governor Kate Brown for permission to reopen, but have not received permission as of November 2020.
• 
  2020-10-23

  Voluntary Isolation Motel EMT

  Several counties across Oregon have coordinated with local motels to establish voluntary isolation shelters in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19. Each location is staffed with city personnel to manage admittance and discharge, while EMTs on staff conduct routine medical monitoring to patients. My boyfriend works in one of these shelters, and sent me this picture of him in his full PPE getup before making morning rounds. The shelter's capacity varies a lot week by week, and anywhere from 1-20 COVID positive patients may be staying there at any given point. This particular motel intakes prisoners who need to do a 2 week quarantine before being released, but also serves non-incarcerated people who have tested positive.
• 
  2020-11-06

  Adopt a Senior 2020

  In my hometown of Corvallis Oregon, after March 13th the class of 2020 never entered the doors of our high schools again. Anything we left in our lockers and classrooms was put in garbage bags and handed to us from 6 feet away. Our graduation ceremony was a parade of cars through the backroads of my hometown. A mother at my high school decided this wasn’t fair, we needed to have another type of celebration. Mealoha McFadden created a facebook group to “adopt” 2020 seniors in our county and shower them with gifts and praise. Many people got their favorite candies, snacks and others got starter kits for college. In my adoption care package, I got a tool set for my dorm, lots of candy, my favorite soda and a note praising my accomplishment. Although times were especially hard in my hometown, there was a glimmer of happiness when a senior got their gifts.
• 
  2020-05-29

  Rioting in the streets of Eugene, Oregon

  On May 29th, 2020, a strip mall in Eugene, OR was vandalized by protestors of George Floyd’s death.
• 
  2020-07-29

  Elk Horn Vows Not To 'Let Up' After Weekend Riot

  A restaurant in Eugene, Oregon, was vandalized during the initial protests over the death of George Floyd. The damage was in excess of $500,000. The restaurant owner claims that the Black Lives Matter movement is being undermined by violent agitators. The owner has been criticized in the past for anti-homeless views.
• 
  2020-09-09

  Smoke over the Pacific Northwest

  Flying from Portland to San Francisco on September 9th, the skies below were visibly smoky. It was hard to distinguish normal fog from smoke from the fires, but two huge plumes of smoke can be seen in the time-lapse. The air smelled like smoke when I took off from Portland, but was much worse in San Francisco- the sky was orange and visibility was greatly reduced.
• 
  2020-08-11

  Holy Saturday

  This is a story about the quarantine separating me, and most importantly others in my community, from participating not only in the sacrifice of the mass but also catechumens from receiving the sacraments of initiation during Holy Week. It's the most sacred time of the year for Catholics. It marks not only the anniversary of a deeply changing experience for me, but it's the time when I can see candidates enter the body of the church fully, and for that body to either be baptized or renew their baptismal vows.
• 
  2020-08-10

  Corona and Coffee

  I'm a barista at Starbucks coffee company. It's been a disturbing and fascinating few months, to say the least, and like most, I've experienced some significant changes to my work and personal life. Most notably, my job is now my bubble. When the quarantine orders went out in Oregon, Starbucks kept going. I had two weeks of mandatory self-isolation after one of my work crew came into possible contact with COVID early in the pandemic. Otherwise, I've been working more than ever before. Interacting with the public makes me constantly on edge. But the coffee industry seems to have been deemed "essential," and my team and I are kept busy supporting the public's caffeine addiction through the global madness that has been 2020. Because of my hundreds of interactions with strangers daily, I've cut off almost all contact with my friends and family outside of work. The risks of my coming into contact with the virus are high, especially when not all of our customers feel inclined to comply with COVID-19 regulations. I'm happy to have my job and not have experienced the economic uncertainty that so many have dealt with in recent months. Despite the loneliness of feeling removed from my family and friends, this pandemic has brought my work team closer together. We have all experienced the pandemic the same way and become a support system for each other for which I feel lucky.
• 
  2020-07-04

  COVID-19 Family Quarantine

  It shows the impact of this virus on my family's lives as well as my own. I feel my experience is one story to the many that can provide context on the interesting times we live in.
• 
  2020-07-29

  HERMIT HERALD VOL 1 ISSUE 52

  Portland, Oregon riots
• 
  2020-04-27

  I'm in Porn to Make Ends Meet During COVID

  This is an article about a mother who was a stripper before the clubs had to close due to COVID laws. Now she is using porn to pay her bills while in quarantine. She does webcam work along with sexting and other things. She has an 8 year old daughter and discusses how she explains her work to her. She is conflicted about what other people think of her activities, her difficulty taking money becuase the usual venues don't accept sext trade payments, how to get social media followers, how privacy acts are affecting her, and the benefit of porn to people who partake in it. She ends with "Porn is literally saving many people's lives during quarantine."
• 
  05/07/2020

  Frank Smoot Oral History, 2020/05/07

• 
  2020-06-15

  Gov. Brown asks for release of some prison inmates to slow virus spread

  One of the hardest hit populations with regards to covid-19 are corrections facilities. In an effort to slow the spread in the nations overcrowded facilities government officials have released some inmates early. The public has had mixed reactions to this policy. While the government officials are not releasing inmates that pose a danger to the public people are still worried. This article covers the story in Oregon and the comments add to the conversation.
• 
  2020-05-27

  Push Back in Rural America

  Podcast about the push-back by rural Americans against restrictions.
• 
  2020-05-26

  Social Distancing Half Marathon

  I was supposed to attend the Bend Half Marathon last April in Oregon, until the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the event. The Bend Half Marathon decided to host a virtual half marathon. It sent me a Social Distance Edition Half Marathon run bib. After I submitted my run results, the marathon mailed me a wooden medal.
• 
  2020-03-27

  Signs From Around: #9, Portland, OR

  "Signs From Around: #9, Portland, OR" is part of a series exploring the signage surrounding COVID-19 from different parts of the world. Business owners give looters a heads up. #FordhamUniversity #VART3030 #SignsFromAroundSeries
• 
  2020-04-12

  How things have changed so far

  This is just a summary of how me and my family have adjusted to the new conditions created around Covid-19.
• 
  2020-04-04

  Oregon Trail Toilet Paper Meme

  This image tells the story of how a lot of people ran to the supermarket and started buying all the toilet paper as soon as the covid-19 epidemic hit.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Kind Leaf PENDLETON, first dispensary in Oregon to take steps to mitigate community spread.

  This business sees 300-500 people a day, so the owner, Brandon Krenzler wanted to ensure that his staff and community would not be exposed unnecessarily. This customer notice was issued shortly after the mandatory shuttering of dining establishments and bars in Oregon by Governor Kate Brown.