There is at least one saloon at the center of most stories about the American West, so when the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) was asked to dig into the history of one of our region’s—and state’s—oldest breweries, we jumped at the chance!

No one in the Rogue Valley will forget September 8, 2020, when the Almeda Fire roared north from the edge of Ashland through Talent and Phoenix to the edge of Medford. Thousands of homes were destroyed in a matter of hours, and only the courageous efforts of our firefighters stopped the march of the wind-driven flames and prevented catastrophic loss of life.

The weeds cry out for water. In other times, the diligent gardener would not have much sympathy for weeds but other times were very different, other times there were plenty more weeds where those came from.

When I write for the Jefferson Journal, I am always aware of the time lag between composition and publication.

As I write this column in Ashland in mid-August, I’m surrounded by fire. Just as the 413,000-acre Bootleg Fire is winding down in Klamath and Lake Counties, the even-more massive Dixie Fire in the northern Sierras has crossed half a million acres and is still going strong.

They left the groceries on the kitchen table on the afternoon of September 8, 2020. My parents and their dog then evacuated safely to my sister’s home in Klamath Falls. That night, my parents wanted answers about their home of more than thirty years. Three days later, my sister and I went home to find out what had transpired.

While archaeologists tend to be interested in most aspects of the past, it shouldn’t be surprising that a huge chunk of our time goes into thinking about food.

For some, it’s practically a legend. In 2004, a group of local officials, including Oregon State Senator Peter Courtney, were touring the Oregon State Hospital in Salem and came across a small, neglected structure. Inside it, they discovered over 3,600 copper cans containing unclaimed cremated human remains, or cremains. Courtney called it the “room of forgotten souls.”

The clear, cool days of Fall are such a welcome change. And, with the change in season comes the culmination of a very difficult and stressful fire season. We’ve all endured too many smokey days that have kept us indoors and on edge.

Several milestones have snuck by me this past year. Among them was the 25th anniversary of the first broadcast of This American Life. In the scheme of things, given all we’ve been through, it was a modest oversight. But I should have noticed, since the program and its creative genius, Ira Glass, have made such an indelible imprint on public radio.