Klamath Falls, Oregon

Moment of Fame in A Kerouac Article

Klamath Falls, Oregon's "City of Sunshine", is the hometown of my husband and his family. We spent our first three married years in and around Klamath Falls, and it is the town where one of our sons was born and another was concieved. Imagine my surprise when I was doing some research on Kerouac for my upcoming journeys this year to visit historical Beat Generation locations and exhibits and I found this little describing a journey up through Klamath! Amazing thing is, it is exactly the Klamath I remember, even though this was written fifty years ago. I know exactly where he is describing. It is hard to read, so I am going to type that part here:

Everything more joyous til at Klamath Falls in the flats of the Klamath River I realized I was in an old-fashioned snowy, joyous American town and took a walk in the winy air. Little kids leaned on the bridge rail. Mills, red-brick alleys, businessmen on affairs in the sunny morning, bell ringing, crisp homelike town that made me homesick for my New York State. Up by great Klamath Lake rolling on the bridge of timber hills leading to east Oregon craters, wastes, rangelands, and that mysteriously unkown junction of Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada.

The part preceding this describes the familiar territory of Northern California towns like Weed and Dorris (the neighboring town to the one my husband went to high school in), and the following passages describe the pass up to the Ashland area and up through the Willamette Valley, some of the most beautiful areas in all of Oregon.
There will be more beat history in this blog, be prepared. I am rereading the "Dulouz Legend" in its entirety to submerge myself in the history before heading to Austin to see, among other things, the original scroll of On the Road and then to San Francisco to visit places integral to the Beat Generation, haunts of Kerouac, including the newly named Kerouac Alley between City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvius Cafe. There will be lots of pictures posted along the way.
Currently I am re-reading On the Road for the third time, getting a third perspective on it, which I will post when I am done.
And the Beat goes on.....in infamy, that is.......