The Magazine of the University of Oregon Summer 2010 Mapping in the Bright Lights Tinker Hatfield • Robin Cody • Essay Contest Winner • Lauren Kessler The Magazine of the University of Oregon Summer 2010 • Volume 89 Number 4 24 Tinker, Architect and Designer OregonQuarterly.com Features Departments 24 2 editor’s note tinker 4 Letters by Todd Schwartz Excerpts, Exhibits, A former Duck pole vault record holder, 8 upfront | Tinker Hatfield still enjoys reaching for Explorations, Ephemera Familiar Stranger the sky in his ubiquitous designs for Nike. h uck finn on the colu mbi a 29 by Robin Cody 29 t he terrible teens by Lauren Kessler disappearing act a champion’s take on by Jennifer Meyer athletics and academics In the winning essay of the 2010 Oregon by Andy Drukarev Quarterly Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest, a daughter tries to cope with 14 upfront | News, Notables, the way Alzheimer’s disease changes her Innovations mother. t he great debate: pacifica forum Reason to Believe 32 32 Many cooks, delicious soup vEr HA d ear diary . S day in court N to by Ellen Waterston profile: kathleen karlyn AL W LIE Contesting a speeding ticket gives the a round the Block ; Ju writer a glimpse into the changing culture of Central Oregon. 42 oLd oregon Made for standup Madras Pioneer Madras , 36 t rack-and-field Master HENY t f inding eve, Virgin flies, mA Maps for the times and the origin of clothes SAN by Kimber Williams ; Su Mapping Ideas r t rials of the Links and EYE 36 Erin Aigner mixes data and maps to illus- diamonds r m trate the news in ingenious ways for one of COVer | New York Times cartographer Erin uo alumni calendar the icons of the information industry. Aigner in Times Square, New York City. Photo c lass notes by Julie Walton Shaver. d ecades CDErmott; JENNIFE CDErmott; m 56 duck taiLs ICHAEL ICHAEL m s urviving oregon by Kate Degenhardt From top: top: From THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON 1 Editor’sNote | Guy Maynard, Editor THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON SUMMER 2010 • VOLUME 89 NUMbER 4 Mistakes EDITOR Guy Maynard I had a sign on the wall in the cluttered office I worked from in my first job out of jour- MANAGING EDITOR nalism school—editor of the Tri-County News in Junction City—that I had ripped out Ross West of Mad Magazine (one of the most influential publications of my upbringing): ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Susan Thelen Alfred E. Neuman staring at a poster that said ART DIRECTOR Tim Jordan everybody Makes PORTLAND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Makes Mistakes Mindy Moreland CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS For some reason, I could look at that 100 times, and 50 times my brain wouldn’t Jack Liu, John bauguess register the double verb. OFFICE MANAGER Shelly Cooper But I needed that assurance that I wasn’t alone in my failings. I made a lot of mis- PROOFREADERS takes at Tri-County News. I was a one-person editorial team. Once I massacred the word John Crosiar, Scott Skelton sergeant in a three-column headline. I can’t even recreate how badly I misspelled that INTERN Melissa Hoffman word, but my publisher—who shoved the tainted pages in my face—probably could. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD I wrote headlines as the paper was being laid out around 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday Mark blaine. betsy boyd, Kathi O’Neil Dordevic, Kim Evans, David Funk, Kathleen Holt, Mark Johnson, mornings, usually after a sleepless night of covering some local government meeting, Ann Mack, Alexandra Mock, barbara West writing a story about it, and then somehow writing something in the neighborhood of wEBSITE OregonQuarterly.com being coherent for my weekly column—all before heading to the newspaper office in OFFICE ADDRESS Veneta to lay out the paper. After that, I delivered the camera-ready pages to Springfield, 204 Alder building waited for them to be printed, drove back to Veneta to stuff inserts into the paper, then 818 East 15th Avenue Eugene OR 97403-5228 delivered the finished product to news boxes around Lane, Linn, and Benton counties. Phone 541-346-5045 Fax 541-346-5571 But, dammit, I was still supposed to spell sergeant right. EDITORIAL And I’ve made lots of mistakes since. Fortunately, as my publishing career pro- 541-346-5047 gressed in the trade magazine world and here at Oregon Quarterly, I’ve been blessed ADVERTISING 541-346-5046 by the sharp eyes and keen attention of some great editors and proofreaders. But in all SUBSCRIPTIONS the pieces and decisions and facts and words that go into a complex publication like $30 per year domestic $40 per year international Oregon Quarterly, it’s just not possible to be perfect all the time—I can say that now E-MAIL with some perspective and status as an elder having hit my twenty-fifth year in this [email protected] oregon quarterly is published by the UO in profession and my sixtieth birthday earlier this year. We try (unlike the publisher who March, June, August, and November and distributed once told me that if there were no mistakes in his magazine, he was paying too much free to alumni. Printed in the USA on recycled paper. Copyright 2010 University of Oregon. All rights for proofreading), and we do pretty well, I think, but we still have enough misses to tie reserved. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the UO administration. a knot in my stomach each time we send a magazine out into the world. CHANGE OF ADDRESS And there are mistakes that can’t be easily fixed with a “Corrections” box on our Alumni Records, 1204 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1204 letters page. I made one of those recently: misread something, told somebody something 541-302-0336, [email protected] that turned out not to be right, made somebody happy only to have to pull that away. ADMINISTRATION President: Richard W. Lariviere A simple mistake really—a brain blip like that triggered by the Mad poster—but fixing Senior Vice President and Provost: James C. bean; it left somebody feeling bad who shouldn’t have. I apologized. Apology was accepted. Vice President for University Relations: Michael Redding; Vice President for Finance and Administration: Frances But I couldn’t quite make it right for me or the other person. Dyke; Vice President for Student Affairs: Robin Holmes; Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies: Everybody makes mistakes. I don’t know if I make more mistakes or fewer mistakes Richard Linton; Vice President for Institutional Equity and than the average person. It doesn’t matter. It’s easy to find someone who’s made worse Diversity: Charles Martinez; Associate Vice President for Public and Government Affairs: betsy boyd; Executive mistakes than us to somehow make ours seem not so bad. But our mistakes shape us Director of the UO Alumni Association: Daniel Rodriguez in ways our successes never can: they eat us up, make us run and hide and go through UO INFORMATION 541-346-1000 all sorts of distortions to explain or excuse—or they render us humble enough to learn and grow, to rethink the way we do things, to try to make things better, if not wholly right. They’re tough teachers but the lessons usually stick. The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publication will be made available [email protected] in accessible formats upon request: 541-346-5048. 2 OREGON QUARTERLY | SUMMER 2010 SEEKING FUTURE DUCKS The Office of Admissions invites you to tell us about your children, grandchildren, friends, and others who are searching for the right college. Recommend future Ducks at admissions.uoregon.edu/alumni Office of Admissions 1217 University of Oregon Eugene OR 97403-1217 800-BE-A-DUCK 541-346-3201 THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON 3 Letters to the Editor year. Thanks for providing this high-quality, “ Perhaps the recent thoughtful, and creative publication. Jim Stark ’77, MS ’95 public outcry is just Springfield good old American Anger and Politics protest from people Robert Leo Heilman’s advice: “let bygones be bygones”—ancient and sagely as he sug- who are well aware gests—is, if I might be blunt, simple-minded. of the problems Does he believe most Americans are so “civi- lized” as to be expected to forever “turn the they face.” other c h e e k ,” while rampaging global finance oligarchs ransack their nation into poverty, hijack their every institution for so-called fearful people throwing excrement like apes. “national defense,” and impress them into They are the dupes of a capitalistic industry service, all to advance an agenda of global of deceit. He takes the animal metaphor and hegemony that serves only elite financiers, moves on to a sweet story of how his child- and does so while making everyone opposed hood zoo has been improvede and th animals Yay, Spring! to this wholesale mental rape, financial pil- are much happier. I guess the connection is lage, and filial enslavement appear guilty of that the apes should be content in their cages I love OQ. It keeps me totally in touch with treason? Or, is this now the most philistine and with their planned nutritional meals. what's happening at the UO. I read it cover to nation of all time, drugged and seduced by Heilman would rather we “spend our cover. Especially liked the story on Saul Zaik, overwhelmingly mindless pop culture, run- time and money to reduce human worries.” “The Arc of the Architect.” ning in tandem with a wholly owned corpo- Finally, he touched upon his real agenda: Scott Egan ’81 rate media that incites self-defeating hatred taking money from other citizens to further Kuwait City, Kuwait in the form of faux Left-vs-Right politics, his utopian ideals.