[BDS]

I sit on the bench myself fairly often, and see others sitting there. Kesey was a local celebrity in Eugene. He actually lived in Pleasant Hill, about 10 miles out of town. He died 4 years ago.

Kesey was the great poet of Oregon. Nobody ever described the natural beauty of the place better, as the plaque in the picture demonstrates. If “Huckleberry Finn” is the Great American Novel, “Sometimes a Great Notion” is the Great Oregon Novel.

Every Easter, Kesey and a group of friends would hike up Mount Pisgah, just outside of Eugene, to celebrate. I went with them one year (I knew some of the Kesey hanger-ons, although I never knew Kesey very well). When Kesey died, I went to the funeral, and then, on my own, hiked up Mt. Piscah in honor of Kesey. After all, the original Mt. Pisgah was the Mountain from which Moses saw the Promised Land. Nobody wrote more lovingly about Oregon than Kesey, and one can see his farm from the top of Pisgah. I’ll bet when he looked down from Pisgah each Easter, he felt like Moses, looking at Canaan.