Essentially Ashland...The Missing Years
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Tico Rips the Carpet
It happened many years ago.
During my childhood our family went to church every Sunday, this being where I first began hating ties, cufflinks and tie clasps. Sitting on a hard bench for an Eternity was one matter, spending an hour getting dressed for the occasion was quite another.
After an especially long Sunday sermon, several times during which I affected all the known signs of narcolepsy, my parents, for reasons unknown to me, invited the Minister to our house for a cup of tea.
To the surprise of us all he accepted, stating that he would be over within the hour.
Well, my mother, father, sister and both grandmothers took off at a dead run to the car. I barely got inside as the then brand new 1957
We were all handed aprons and flew to our tasks, as we had less than 45 minutes to convert a comfortable home into a Shrine of Tireless Toil.
As time drew down my Nana was assigned to keep watch for the Minister’s car, which I was beginning to think was a horse-drawn hearse, for the mood of the house was a blending of panic and fear.
My Job was to vacuum the living room a half-dozen times. The room had vaulted ceilings with an ocean view and a carpet that seemed more like acreage than pile. I was sweating when the word came down: “He’s here,” squeaked my Nana, with a voice full of half-sung hymns and a brow full of concern.
If I could only use one word to describe the Minister, it would have been STERN. He entered the house with a gaze that would have melted a spider, seeming to sense the nature of our activities since leaving church.
He was escorted into the living room while tea and cookies were served. I was as good as incarcerated, as I was to sit still with my hands folded and basically, pretend to be dead, though with my eyes open.
We all sat with strict posture while listening to the Minister’s opinions on all and every thing. I looked around and smiles were evenly applied to the visages formerly reserved for focused fear. Only I heard a sound that I knew would soon instigate a tremendous change in the local universe.
Tico, our itchy-butt
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About the Book
I hope you’ll join me on this nostalgic, sometimes whimsical excursion into
This book covers a period of time -- 1971 to the present -- that most accounts either ignore, or gloss over. It was during the early 70’s that a tidal wave of creativity and offbeat entrepreneurial spirit arrived with the counterculture, helping to breathe fresh hope and prosperity into a failing economy based on timber products.
If you’re a resident of our town, you’ll probably encounter some old friends while reading this book. If you’re just visiting here, perhaps you’ll find people you’d like to meet in these pages. Either way, I promise that you’ll deepen your understanding of a place that’s like no other.
Many of these stories were originally written for the venerable Ashland Daily Tidings. (I made my debut at the Tidings in 1977 with a piece on the death of Elvis, filing my copy from
About the Author
LANCE PUGH AND HIS WIFE, ANNETTE, graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles and went to work as buyers (men’s sportswear for him, lingerie for her) for a large department store chain, The May Company. Their lives were changed forever when they quit their jobs in 1972 to start Lithia Grocery, a health food restaurant in a historic building on Ashland’s then-decaying Plaza.
Lance went on to become a historic building renovator, planning commissioner, network consultant, computer repairman, television documentary producer, travel writer, humor columnist, private investigator, boulevardier and raconteur. He was also the proprietor of the world’s smallest hot dog restaurant and Oregon’s first mobile hot tub.
Annette became a real estate broker and kept Lance off the rocks as he sailed his many- masted ship of ideas through time and opportunities, some grasped and some missed.