[pct-l] JMT Query from AT Forum

[Eric Lee]

Diane wrote:
>
Can you shed any light on this whole California treatment I sensed I  
was getting from people in Oregon? Why don't they like Californians?
>

I guess it's been answered adequately already, but this attitude goes back
to at least the early 1970's and probably a lot earlier.  Oregon is probably
the only state ever to have run an _anti-tourism_ campaign.  Seriously.
They had ads and everything.  Our governor Tom McCall said in a 1971
interview, "Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement.
But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live."  There were bumper stickers
that read, "Don't Californicate Oregon".  

The basic issue was that Californians were fleeing what they perceived to be
a poor quality of live in southern California but when they moved north to
Oregon to "get away from it all", they immediately tried to transform the
Oregon communities to look exactly like the ones they just left.  And they
typically had a lot more money than the natives which meant they were
usually successful.  Needless to say that made the natives extremely grumpy
and the anti-Californian attitude persists to this day, though probably not
as strongly as it once was.

Eric (who grew up in the Willamette Valley)