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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 Whittaker neighborhood
of Eugene, Oregon in early 2022. Let's open
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up our ear nuggets and give it
a listen. I'm Misa. I am
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thirty, Latino, Hispanic, White,
a little bit of everything. Come from
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LA, Los Angeles area,
Pasadena, I believe. I was adopted by
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my grandparents because my mom-- mother, is involved in some bad stuff.
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Um, she went to prison eventually, but I was snatched up off the
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ground and I kind of have like
a faint memory of it. I feel
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like I don't know if it's just
like something my brains made up, but
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like I feel like I remember I
must have been like three, four ish,
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being snatched up by my grandparents and
I was like sleeping on the floor
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of like a hotel room. Um. So I lived with them for a
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really long time, but we came
to live here because my great-grandma,
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my grandpa's mother, lived up here
with her like eighteenth husband or something, lived
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in North North-- North Coos Coos Bay,
Oregon, and her husband just died and
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she was, you know, getting
old and we had to move up here
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to help take care of her.
So we packed up our things and moved
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to Coos Bay. And my grandparents wanted
me to grow up, move out of
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California to get away from the Los
Angeles, I don't know, life and
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moved to like a tiny little town
Um. But yeah, moved there when
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I was like it was '98. So actually I
was seven. Grew up here in Oregon
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most of my life. I was
it was a great place to grow up
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back then. I mean all I
did was like moved in the house,
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like the third, third house from
the main the main street over there near
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Walmart, and both houses to my right
had kids and so it was actually really
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great. Like I just Um,
most of my childhood playing with, you
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know, my friends that I live
right next to me, and you know,
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my living with my grandparents and they
were old and you know, they
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weren't necessarily like we wanting a child, but they, you know, they
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took me on and so I did
a lot of like the younger parents took
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me a lot of camping trips.
And you know to Scottsburgh. I
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remember going to the Scottsburgh a lot
and going camping over there and they had
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a cabin over there. They would
ride our boats right riding his about the
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my friends Dad's, and he would
take us like inner tubing and knee boarding,
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and I have my friend had a
big, a big backyard. So
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we' just like would just always be
in the backyard, like playing, doing
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something. Being in a small town, you definitely get like a small world
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mentality. And so, you know, I mean, you know, we've
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been here plenty of times because this
is like we'll always go shopping every before
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school started. So, like I
was familiar with egene bowling, a lot
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of bowling tournaments up here. So
I've been up here a lot. And
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me and I guess I would really
like explore much of the town or the
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people. You know, we just
came here to do a thing, bowling
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or go shopping and then go home. I was just ready to get out
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of Coos Bay, North Bend at that point
and after graduating high school, I just
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I just wanted out because there's not
much to do down there unless you own,
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you know, four wheeler, motorcycle
be like shooting guns and, I
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don't know, just being a Redneck, I guess, but I mean it's
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don't get me right. I like
doing a lot of stuff too, but
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other than that there's nothing to do. I just feel like home. First
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I felt huge. So they felt
like a huge town, coming from,
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you know, a little coastal town. I just honestly Texas and just like
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flying over to Texas and I hate
to land. It's just like so flat
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and brown and just being they're just
like I guess it really like, yeah,
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I brought it home to me,
like Oh yeah, this, this
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is home over here in the Pacific
northwest. I mean, yeah, Eugene
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area, but more specifically the Pacific
northwest. It doesn't have to be Eugene,
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but it does feel like home here
this you know, despite being a
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minority here, it does. I
mean I am a minority, but also
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I grew up here in Oregon my
whole life and I don't know, it's
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kind of like in this in between
place where you don't really fit in with
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either side. You know, I'm
like, I'm too white for you know,
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my my family members. It might
see me as white and white people
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usually see me as Hispanic. Latino. I don't speak Spanish, so that's
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definitely another barrier there. So I
don't know. Fitting in is weird for
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me. Thanks for listening. You
can find us wherever you listen to your
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podcasts. If you've got your own
Lane County story to tell, we'd love
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to hear it at StoryHelix Dot
Wordcrafters Dot Org.
