Harry Lane Peace Center
Happy Birthday Oregon!
Thomas Jefferson hoped Astoria could one day be the seed of a separate West Coast democracy. He and industrialist Jacob Astor set forth an ambitious plan to make it a global trading hub.
https://www.opb.org/news/article/happy-birthday-oregon-learn-18-facts-in-59-seconds/
I talked to my ex-fiancé two hours ago about my idea for the Harry Lane Peace Center in the Potato Chip Building. We have not conversed since I got my DNA results. I told her my Bohemian Royalty owned bigger castles than her family did.
“If we would have had a child, then that child would be the Star of Hope Child for the restoration of the monarchy of France and Czechoslovakia”
I told Vieginia about Harry Lane’s campaign to keep the United States out of Europe and World War One.
“That war was a Royal Family Feud between all our kinfolk! Harry got it right! Stay out of it – and mind your own business. He needs to be honored, his Peace Protest preserved – along with the Peace Sign of the Hippies! We need a Hippie Museum like the one they have in Vancouver Canada.
History is being made today, as it is, everyday. The Prime minister is stuck on how to exit the European Union that was formed to make sure there was not another World War. The Treaty of Versailles was signed to make sure there was not another World War One. Our President says it was a mistake to have launched the second Iraqi War, and is pulling our troops out = as a monument to his declaration. Is Trump moved by the Anti-War Movement that began in the sixties? Joe Romania had his futuristic building built in 1960. He wanted to create a monument, a better design going future.
Meanwhile, Ed Ray and his crack team of historians, are bent on De-naming historic figures, and, De-Histortorizing events that he and his A-Team deem un-worty. If Ed has his way, then, Columbus would have never discovered America. No black people would have been brought here. There would have been no Motown, or Black Gospel Music. No Chubby Checker, and The Twist, either. Black musicians had a huge influence on Rock and Roll. Native Americans took part in the Sixties Revolution. There would have been no Vietnam War – if we had our way! All there would be, is Tribal People living the lifestyle we hippies dreamed of living – in peace!
I see Old Hippies being lifted up in a cherry-picker so they can sign their names with a big brush, the brush of many colors. There will be giant heads of Joe and Harry on either side of the rainbow – giving the Peace Sign! Here are our modern business pioneers. End the De-naming Game – NOW! Stop wiping out the Hippies!
I see George Melvin Miller’s flying machine suspended from the ceiling. In this building, comes together the cities of Eugene, Fairmont, Springfield, and Glenwood. There will be peace in the valley! We can be united in a common cause!
Now, get up. Get up out of your easy chairs. Put down you smartphones – and do the twist, like we did last summer!
What I see is a permanent home for Ken’s bus ‘Further’. We have no guarantee Kesey’s offspring will – carry on! I would like to see the mural that graced the wall of the Springfield Creamery, replicated on that empty wall under the classic Coca-Cola sign that needs to be persevered – as is! There is an arch that awaits a rainbow, that will represent The Gateway to Peace.
Wait a minute! Wait a sec! I feel another vision coming on!
I see a Twist Dance Party held on the last Friday of every month. Super Twisters from colleges all over Laneland will come to show off their best moves! Who knows, The Twist might be an Olympic Sport. There will be guest bands – from Asia! Millions will come to the Peace Center to learn how to live, and dance……….in peace! I see the annual Riverside Twist-off, where citizens who live East of the River, meet those who live West of the river, and a Twist-off held in Knight Arena. I see happy smiling people sharing the universal language of Dance. Do you think my idea will fly?
I honor Chubby Checker for Black History Month. I grew up in Oakland California where the school dances had black students on one side of the gym, and white students on the other. This was not required. Many Oakland blacks came from the South where segregation was enforced. No one went to a dance looking for trouble.
I loved to dance. I would go over and watch the black dancers, and copy some of their movies. Dancing The Pony, I would leave my partner, and make wide arcs. My classmates began to surround me, and I got applause. This is 1962. Chubby brought folks of all color together. The rich class, imitated the poor people. It was a milestone in race relations. I got to add The Pony to these dances. Band will be allowed to play their own versions.
Joe Romania was just not selling cars. He was selling radios. And from these radios, came music, and, music sold cars. Joe donated land to build Lane Community College. There’s that name again! Lane has a new meaning, today. Who has not found freedom driving down a highway, or, along a levy, in your brand new Chevrolet? Music, has sold more products, than all the salesman – combined! Car radios, made America – great – and kept it that…………..way for a long time! We – can fly away! In our Chevrolet!
I lived in Boston in 1971 and got to see and talked to Jonathan Richman after he made his debut in a bar in Beverley. I got to ass his ‘Roadrunner’ to the jukebox. I submitted a plan to honor George Melvin Miller whose dream was a road from Winnemucca to the Sea. I believe Franklin Street should be changed to Harry Lane Way. This is not de-naming because no one has it out for Benjamin Franklin – yet!
Wait! One more thing. I see a Jukebox. You point your phone at it, and buy a tune. On the ceiling is a dazzling light show, with spot, ready to beam down on you. Here is your fifteen minutes of fame. Everyone gets to be a Star! The lights. dim.
Here’s to you, Joe! Here’s looking at you, Harry!
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
P.S. I just heard on the news, tomorrow is the day Oregon was admitted into the Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_the_USA_in_Your_Chevrolet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubby_Checker
TURN DOWN THE SOUND ON THE MODERN VIDEO AND PLAY TWISTING TIME VIDEO ON FULL SOUND. YOU CAN DO ALMOST ANYTHING AS LONG AS YOU COME BACK TO, START WITH, AND FINISH WITH THE BASIC TWIST.
Here is The Pony.
https://oregondigital.org/catalog/oregondigital:df67jk162
Chubby Checker (birth name Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American rock ‘n roll singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularising many dance styles including the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters‘ R&B hit “The Twist” and the Pony with hit “Pony Time“. In September 2008, “The Twist” topped Billboard‘s list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1958, an honor it maintained for an August 2013 update of the list.[1] He also popularized the “Limbo Rock” and its trademark limbo dance, as well as various dance styles such as The Fly.
EUGENE, Ore. — You might know this Eugene building as one that looks like a “potato chip,” but it’s called the Joe Romania building.
Now the University of Oregon is considering opening the historic site to provide more parking spaces.
The Romania building carries a lot of sentimental meaning in town, so naturally, there are questions about any potential changes, especially for one University of Oregon professor who says he knew the original architect well.
Architect and UO professor Otton Poticha said: “Innovation, experimentation, and invention is exactly what this building is.”
Harry Lane (August 28, 1855 – May 23, 1917) was an American politician in the state of Oregon. A physician by training, Lane served as the head of the Oregon State Insane Asylum before being forced out by political enemies. After a decade practicing medicine the progressive Democrat Lane won election as the mayor of Portland in 1905, gaining re-election in 1907. Lane’s tenure in office was largely ineffective, although he did gain lasting recognition for having appointed the first female police officer in America in 1908 as well as for his vision that the city should host an annual Rose Festival.
In November 1912, Lane was elected to the United States Senate where he was a leading advocate for woman suffrage and a more benevolent relationship between the American government and the nation’s Native American population. He was one of a small handful of federal legislators to vote against American participation in the war in April 1917, an action which made him the prospective subject of a recall effort. This campaign was rendered moot when Lane died in office on May 23, 1917.
The 1912 Oregon ballot for United State Senate was cluttered. In addition to the Democrat Harry Lane and Bob Selling, candidate of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, progressive Republicans had other electoral alternatives, including candidates of the Progressive Party and the Popular Government Party. Meanwhile, Floyd Ramp stood for the Socialists and yet another candidate was nominee of the Prohibition Party.[14] Astoundingly, each of these six candidates took more than 5% of the vote — a fact which enabled the Democrat Lane to win election with a plurality of the vote in solidly Republican Oregon.[14] Intent on proving himself a man of the people, Harry Lane set what might be a record for campaign frugality in his victorious effort, with his entire race run for the princely sum of $75 plus travel expenses.[12]
He was also known for frugality as a congressman, and did not conform to the modern stereotype of the free-spending liberal. He was reported as being “the most inquisitive man in Congress” when it came to federal appropriations, and was known as “the human question mark” by his colleagues in the Senate. He was opposed to deficits and the “pure waste of public funds.”[7]
Lane’s daughter was herself a member of the Socialist Party of America, as was her husband, the journalist Isaac McBride.[12] Upon his election the increasingly radical Harry Lane wasted no time in hiring his son-in-law as his personal secretary and administrative assistant.[12] McBride remained active in the anti-militarism activities of the Socialist Party even while working for Lane and was the intermediary between “Big Bill” Haywood of the Industrial Workers of the World and Lane, gaining the Senator’s help in an unsuccessful effort to spare the life of IWW cause célèbre Joe Hill.[12]
While in Congress he served on the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection, the Committee on Fisheries,[1] and the Committee on Indian Affairs.[15] Lane regarded the last of these as his most important work, criticizing longstanding government policy aimed at “civilizing” the Native American population.[15]
Lane pulled no punches:
I think the whole scheme of our management of the affairs of the Indian is a mistake. It is wrong; it is expensive to the Government; it is fatal to the Indians.[16]
The poverty of the Indian population was through no fault of their own, Lane declared, with the Native American people prostrate while “the white man is astride them and is at work taking everything they have.”[16]
In addition to his distinctly radical views on Indian Affairs, Lane championed a number of other controversial views as a member of the Senate. He was a leading advocate for the woman suffrage movement, introducing resolutions in its behalf.[9] Lane also supported government ownership of the national telephone and telegraph networks, the merchant marine, and certain mining corporations.[9] He was critical of the Clayton Antitrust Act for its toothless inability to restrain the avarice of “big business and crooks.”[17]
Lane challenged white supremacist Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia on the floor of the Senate to acknowledge the successes of black farmers in the American South and protested instances of racial discrimination inserted into appropriations legislation.[9] He was skeptical about American claims of violation of property rights by the government and insurgent movements in Mexico and was an outspoken opponent of imperialism and for the national independence of the Philippines.[18]
In was with respect to American involvement in World War I that Lane was his most outspoken. Late in 1915 Lane joined Socialist Meyer London in co-sponsoring a resolution criticizing the deepening sense of war-related fear and calling upon Woodrow Wilson to convene a conference of neutral nations with a view to ending the European conflict.[17] Even after the resumption of unlimited German submarine warfare in their effort to blockade their enemies, Lane refused to support an end to diplomatic relations with the German empire.[17] Lane was an outspoken opponent of Wilson’s plan to arm merchant ships, arguing that the conservative Democratic President was thereby attempting to usurp the Congressional prerogative to declare war and to replace it with Executive authority.[19]
This filibuster to block Wilson’s effort to expand war powers through his Armed Neutrality Bill proved successful. Lane and his co-thinkers, including Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr., became the targets of intense political hostility in the aftermath, however, with President Wilson demeaning them as “a little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own” who nevertheless “rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”[20] Many Oregonians were similarly incensed, and an outcry erupted for Lane’s recall from office.[21] An editorial in The Oregonian newspaper stated “Next to being ashamed of Harry Lane for what he has done … the people of Oregon are ashamed of themselves for having sent Harry Lane to the United States Senate.” Although the press lambasted him, a friend wrote in a letter that the majority of people “insist that you did exactly right … It is the newspapers that are doing most of the kicking.”[22]
Rosamond Press 
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
Welcome to Cement City Center For Clean Ideas! The Feds are giving nineteen million to our Loco Gov. to scrape away the Bohemian Shit.
https://www.registerguard.com/story/news/2021/11/18/franklin-boulevard-eugene-springfield-construction-transformation-glenwood-federal-grant/8651842002/