The Unfortunate Incident

by Susie Applegate There is a disconnect in this town. On the one hand everyone acts like I should already know everything that took place in Germaine during all those years that I was not here and on the other hand, they seem to think I know nothing about Germaine at all. Even my own mother looks at me with absolute consternation when I ask her what happened to Susannah and Albert Arlington. As if I should know, by some special Germaine osmosis, all the details about the incident that everyone seems to know but no one will tell. And my father is no better with his oblique references to the “unfortunate incident” at the Restin’ Easy, in that article about the Patels renovating and reopening the motel.  The Restin’ Easy had been closed and boarded up for several months when I came back to Germaine. Mom and Dad said that…

My Small Obsession

by Susie Applegate Soon after I had returned to Germaine a few months ago, I began to delve into the local history as I had never desired to in my school days. Suddenly, these people, and this history had become a feverish fascination that led me to spend hours in the archives of city hall, and in the small Wilbur County Library next door.  It took me a while to realize that a hundred and fifty years of The Truth lay yellowing in Daddy’s basement, where I could access it 24/7. There was no need to disturb Mom and Dad, since the basement has an outside door, and Daddy was more than happy to give his only child a spare key. Still, after my first all nighter, Mama discovered me in the morning, fast asleep on a stack of newspaper.  “Susie,” she admonished, “your father, your grandfather, and your great…

Dark Cloud Over the Ochocos

by Susie Applegate A few years back, a dark cloud settled over Wilbur County, and it just hung there as though it were permanently anchored to the Ochocos. The storm had been gathering for years, and some said it originated on the trail out west from Missouri and was well established even before little Germaine Van Bibber was buried a century and a half ago on the bank of Tamarack Creek. Why did this particular group of families decide to stay on here, rather than follow Mr. Meek over the Cascades to the Willamette Valley? No one can say, except that lives get entangled. Sometimes they get entangled through love and desire, sometimes through jealousy or hatred or common interest. Sometimes the vines go so deep in the thicket that no one remembers the ground from which they spring. And then there are those who become so tired of the journey,…

Welcome to My Blog

Here on the borderland between the forest and the desert we have, perhaps, a unique perspective on the world around us. To the north lies the primeval home of the imagination, and to the south, the desolation of our hearts. Susie Applegate’s diary……