Scio, Oregon Remembered
By Katherine D. Mook
Dappled sunlight splashes across the peeling sign ahead, as Dave's '63 Ford emerges from the canopy of trees encircling the road like a green slinky. The sign reads:
Welcome to Scio!
Home of the Lamb Wool Fair
Pop. 610.
He glances at the sign and laughs. It has a picture of a lamb bucking, its hind feet in the air, but the lamb looks more like a white judge's wig than any lamb. He passes the sign, and drives into the one block Main Street that makes up the town of Scio, Oregon.
Dave's first stop is Chapin's Feed store, one of the sixteen businesses in Scio. He pulls into the graveled lot in front and turns off the ignition with a thankful cry from the engine. Dave has given up on trying to make this engine purr; these days it sounds more like a death cry. He walks up the steps that lead him into the old store. Even in the doorway, he can smell the air only a feed store can call its own - heavy with the sweet mixture of molasses, grass hay, alfalfa hay and the ever-present dust.
Scio Feed and Country Store
He enters the store and looks around. Like towers of white pillows, sacks of chicken scratch, alfalfa pellets, and hay line two walls. In the middle of the store is a pen of baby chicks keeping warm under a heat lamp. When Dave strides across the wooden planks of the floor to the register, the sound of his boots cause a flurry of movement among the chicks and they bounce around like yellow tennis balls. A note on the register reads:
"Be back in 20. I'm at Rocky's. Just leave money on counter - Mel"
Dave smiles, picks up an issue of "The Cascade Horseman" a local equine magazine, places the dollar-fifty on the counter and leaves. His next destination is the Exxon gas station. He pulls in next to the island of gas pumps. He opens the truck door with a loud creak and turns off the motor being careful not to cut the radio, which was turned to KFAT, his favorite country station. Gary, the attendant, comes out from the garage and greets Dave with a smile:
"Hey there Dave, What can I do ya for?" he asks.
"Oh, Just fill 'er up," Dave replies.
"You know, this truck whines like my old lady." Gary says while looking over the truck. "You sure you don't want me to look at 'er?" asks Gary who is also the mechanic and owner of the gas station.
"Nah", Dave replies, walking to the back of the truck to scrape the mud from his boots on the bumper. "She's on her last legs anyway." Dave squats down and dusts off the bumper sticker that reads: "America, Love It or Leave It."
"Okay, all full. Put it on the tab?"
"Yeah. Thanks again Gary, I'll see ya later."
Dave gets in the truck, waves goodbye to Gary, and drives off, past the grocery store and Chapin's Feed and when he arrives at Rocky's Bar and Grill he merges into the after-work crowd. Soon the neon lights of Rocky's will be the last sign of life as darkness comes to one of Oregon's small towns.
Footnote: Rocky's Bar And Grill burned to the ground one night in the fall of 2000 and an era in Scio, Oregon came to an end.