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looking good,
nobody ever says I'm good looking." He settled into his seat, pulled his seat belt snug.
    My jeans and thin rust-colored sweater and new tennies looked dowdy beside his glamour.
I'd pulled my hair back into a short braid at my neck.
    My reluctance to leave my wooded home was strong as usual, I like to nest once I'm there,
but Sam's nagging got us on our way. By eleven-thirty, temps in the Willamette Valley were
climbing. I had the air-conditioner on until we were past the humps of the Coast Range,
approaching the Willamina turnoff.
    "Do ya mind if I turn this off?" Sam's fingers were hovering over the AC switch.
    "Heck, no. Open your window."
    He did. "Oh, gosh. This feels better. Okay, slow down, you're gonna make a left right up
here."
    I'd seen the sign. I'd forgot how irritating a back seat driver can be, no less so just because
he's sitting right beside you.
    As I drove into Willamina I felt like I had dropped back in time. Just beyond the turn were
several huge piles of logs, bark still attached, and beyond that about twenty empty log trucks side
by side, their log beds doubled back in park position, like grasshopper legs.
    Sam had been quiet since he'd seen the frown on my face when he'd directed me where to
turn. "That's where Dave bought their first truck, got a good deal on it, too." Seeing the trucks
reminded me of my ride on a log truck with my Uncle Ray. "We were coming down from the far hills
below Mt. Hood where the snows drain into the Clackamas, to a mill in Estacada.
    "Whew-ee! That was quite the ride. I was nine or ten. I'd been out in the woods with my
best friend, Dorothy, where her dad and his crew were building roads in the backcountry. He was a
Cat driver.
    "But that ramming ride down the mountain, twisting around the trees alongside that gravel
road, with Uncle Ray blowing his horn before corners, but not slowing down any--I was holding
onto my teeth the whole way, let me tell you!"
    As I was speaking, we passed a lumber mill, surrounded by stacks of logs, with red
numbers painted on their ends. Beyond them were tall, neat piles of cut lumber, ready for shipping.
And hovering over it all was an orange mountain of sawdust.
    "Now that's some sawdust!" said Sam. "Did I ever tell you how Sue grew up with a sawdust
furnace in her basement. She'd fill the hopper before going to school in the morning and all day feel
the sawdust itching down her neck."
    Willamina's a true lumber town. The restaurants all have a lumberjack theme to them. No
tree-hugging signs here to suggest a green park from which to take a life-restoring walk in the
forest. I laughed to myself.
    "Where do I turn, now?"
    "You're gonna like this. Take a left here, we're going into the country."
    "We're already in the country."
    "Straight ahead. At this next fork, now, turn right. Uphill here. Past these black and white
cows, just like she said. Keep going. Then these horses. Whoa! Slow down here."
    I wasn't going fast.
    "Yup, here's Quilter's Lane. 'Spect she named it herself, you think?"
    Speaking of gravel roads, some crazy man on a Cat had carved this one out of the forest.
Sliding off the road and getting stuck out here with an old man was not in my plan. Who would
push? I was getting heartburn. "Sam, in the glove box. Get me a Tums."
    He found them, fished out a couple. "This do ya?" I ignored him beyond a 'thanks', chomped
it down. A little ways on I was reassured to feel the gravel become solid macadam. We came around
a little bend in the road and there it was, a Hansel and Gretel house. Or the Witch's--but made of
wood. Gingerbread would be goo in Oregon rain. Cute as could be. Flowerboxes below the two front
windows, overflowing with nasturtiums. Yellow mums filled the flowerbeds at the skirt of the
house, with blue and yellow violas at their base.
    I parked in front of the garage. Out the front door came Magda, smiling broadly, barefooted
and glorious in a yellow blouse that reached to her hips. Under that she wore