History can prove us right, or wrong

0 Comments | Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), August, 2004

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

Hard economic times. News of bombs and war. A heated presidential campaign, propagated by "the most absurd kind of lies." And, of course, the University of Oregon and Oregon State at each other's throats.

Just when you think history changes, you stumble across evidence to the contrary. In this case, the Depression-era journal of a UO speech professor, John Casteel. I found his reflections recently in the fall 1988 edition of Oregon Historical Quarterly, which I bought for $1 in a Portland antique store.

History too often is dates and events seen from afar. But Casteel's journal quickly pulled me back to the '30s and a prof's-eye view of Eugene, the man having just arrived from Nebraska with his wife, Audeline....