As a journalist, I’m kind of old-school. I hate the telephone and I sometimes insist on meeting people in person. I’m a mess on the phone — all my charm disappears.
Meeting people in person is not always possible, but in a town/city/environ as big/small/accommodating as Salem, I apparently have a city councilor who is willing to have coffee with me for two hours on a Friday afternoon and talk with me about how Salem has changed in the past 40 years.
That man is Bob Cannon.
(By the way, only two councilors responded to my inquiry about the other story I’m working on, Salem’s urban chicken movement. Bob invited me to coffee).
More to come on that, but in the meantime, I give you Bob Cannon’s illustration of Oregon. Among little sketches of Oregon — and I’ve received many since moving here in December, I think Bob’s has a particular charm. For one, he did it on the corner of a Salem Monthly. But also, it has a big dot for Bend, where he is from, and has clearly outlined the region of Oregon that pretty much runs the state, with Salem in the middle.
Maps are great filters of the world.
