Dr. Mary Cullinan

On Saturday and Sunday (April 21-22), sunshine warmed the Rogue Valley. It was a great weekend for biking, gardening, running, golfing—or just walking around smiling and enjoying the outdoors.

The SOU softball team (in action above) was in LaGrande, sweeping the EOU Mountaineers. Back in Ashland, the SOU campus was alive. The Music Recital Hall was booked with events, and the Oregon Student Association met on campus.

On Saturday, we hosted the second annual Latino Family Day. I was delighted to welcome a large group of families who were here to become acquainted with our campus. Our faculty, staff, and students answered questions, gave tours, and offered sessions in Spanish to help ensure that families were engaged and that students would be ready to come to SOU when they leave high school.

I was particularly happy to see that many of the participating families were from the Phoenix-Talent school district, where we have developed our Pirates-to-Raiders partnership.

Kudos, as always, to Jon Chavez Baez, Alma Rosa Alvarez, and others who spent that gorgeous Saturday helping kids and families learn about the road that leads to a university education.

Plunkett Center in the snow

It’s the thirteenth of March after a warm winter—and suddenly we have snow. The campus and hills are white. Snow flakes are coming down gently and beautifully.

A few schools are closed. SOU postponed opening until 9:30 AM.

Of course, in many parts of the country, this amount of snow wouldn’t even be noteworthy. I spent five years in Madison, Wisconsin, thinking that maybe, some day, we might actually have a snow day. But no, not even when the drifts rose higher than the cars and the temperatures hit 30 below: nothing ever closed.

Where I grew up, in Washington, D.C., a few snowflakes caused panic. Every year we’d have a few inches of snow, and everyone would be glued to the radio, waiting to hear which schools had closed. To be in second grade and have a snow day—there’s no greater joy.

So today in Ashland the trees are crusted with white and the hills are breathtaking. It will melt away quickly, so we should enjoy the brief hours of winter beauty. Next week the daffodils and tulips will be blooming!

Thomas Eakins: Max Schmitt in a Single Scull 1871

One thing I love about a holiday break is having some time just to sit and read. My bedside table is piled with magazines, newspapers, and books. In December I made headway on the pile.

I finished two books by Bill Bryson: At Home: A Short History of Private Life and The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way. At Home is a delight. Using his old English rectory home as a base, Bryson takes us through each room and then proceeds to wander off into hundreds of house-related topics, from the history of gardens to the earliest plumbing to the nineteenth-century kitchen and the history of meals we now take for granted. The Mother Tongue is highly readable but covers more well-worn ground, from the earliest spoken languages to the myriad influences that make English so enduring but also so frustrating in pronunciation, spelling, and usage.

At Home briefly recounts the horrific journeys of European adventurers in search of spices in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Over the holiday break, I also finished Nathaniel’s Nutmeg by Giles Milton, a history of those spice traders, particularly the English explorers who battled the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch and violently conquered unprotected islands in search of a fortune in nutmeg. It’s a riveting but bloody and cruel history that makes you think twice when you’re casually buying spices at the grocery store.

Another compelling read over the holidays was Sidney Kirkpatrick’s biography The Revenge of Thomas Eakins. Eakins is one of the most revered of American painters (1844-1916), particularly in Philadelphia where he lived and worked, but he never achieved the success during his lifetime that he deserved. His story is compelling and a bit sad. Having seen many of his works when I was in college, I look forward to meeting them again now that I know the stories behind them.

Winter Term is underway, and the calendar is packed. It’s taking me a week just to scan the headlines in the Sunday Times. But, for a few days in December, I made a real dent in my bedside reading!

The Fourth of July is Ashland’s biggest day. Thousands of locals join thousands of visitors to watch the parade, tour booths in the park, and enjoy the downtown.

The parade is an amazing celebration: from local officials to local businesses and service agencies to musicians and dance troupes of all ages, from ponies and mules to fire engines and antique cars. Everyone is out—babies and toddlers, teens, adults of all ages. And everyone is smiling.

The parade has an extemporaneous feel to it—as though participants just happened to show up early that morning with their costumes and music. The haphazard quality is part of the fun. Actually the planning goes on all year, and many folks work hard to ensure that the whole day goes as planned.

It’s a treat to ride toward the front of the parade—and then jump out of the car to watch the rest of the parade—and the crowd—from the sidelines.

Slideshow photos by RWBalzer. Above photo by JSpeer.

“So, are you working this summer?” It’s amazing how many people think the university closes down between June and September. “Come to campus and see how busy we are,” I tell them.

In fact, it’s been amazingly busy, so I was thrilled to have a lovely three-day weekend. The break arrived just as the rain stopped and the temperatures rose out of the 60’s. I had parade duty on Monday, but on Sunday I could take some hours and visit Grizzly Peak.

In the early morning it was still a bit overcast. Ours was the only vehicle in the parking lot at the trailhead. The walk through the trees was quiet except for birds and skittering animals in the underbrush. Due to the wet spring, wild flowers were still adding lush color to the meadows. When the sun came out, the snowy peaks came into view, forming the dramatic background to Ashland.

By the time we headed out, people were arriving to enjoy the sun and the beautiful views. Grizzly Peak was welcoming crowds of happy guests. The parking lot was packed.

Word is out in the deer community that our backyard is a safe and pleasant location for giving birth. Last year we had triplets—this year it’s twins.

On Sunday (June 26) the mother pictured here delivered two lovely fawns. I tiptoed out on the deck about 30 minutes later to take photos. The babies were already tottering about, inspecting their new world. I know the gardeners reading this will sigh with exasperation—but baby deer definitely rank high on the Cuteness Meter.

When I went out for a jog this morning, I saw them on the edge of campus. Four days old—and they’re already venturing out of the nursery.