One friend of mine, when hearing that I was going to move to Chicago summed it up perfectly when he said in shocked amazement, "You're moving to CHICAGO!!? Really? On PURPOSE!!???" I chuckled at that.

But yes, it was a real deal, and so I had to follow through with it. It was indeed "on purpose", in that I chose my work, which required I be in Chicago for at least a year. So off I went. (I stayed 16 months before giving up and returning to Twinkle Van Winkle mode myself, and like a good true Eugenean, quit my job on "principle" and came back to Eugene with no particular replacement job in mind, and no worries. :-)

While I was first in Chicago, the people over there didn't at all understand why I wouldn't just jump at the chance to be in The City and couldn't figure out what on earth my attachment would be to a "tiny city where it rained all the time" over on the West Coast. Well, so I decided that before I left Eugene, back in that Fall of 1999, I would take a couple hours (actually took three hours to write the words and music for the song here...) and then write down my appreciation for Eugene in song and verse, and then sing it out, to see see if my friends & cohorts & even strangers on the street would agree with me that my representation was accurate. So, that's where this song came from.

One of the people who heard it back then and loved it was Cindy Zarcycki, who came in a couple days later to sit down with me, sing it out, too, and get the chordings & song phrasings down more manageably. She and I then went on the streets to get a feeling for how it would play. Just happened that all this took place at a very fortuitous time... during the beautiful Fall in Eugene, the week before our annual City-Wide street party where we poke fun at ourselves as a City, and commune & play for one last hurrah as we prepare to go Van Winkling for the next few months' rainy season... that street party called the (Centennial Bank) Eugene Celebration.

Since Cindy & I then recorded the song, and I happened the next day to have a tape with me in my pack when I walked by the Chamber of Commerce & Eugene Weekly to find out if anyone else had yet written an official Eugene Anthem, I played it for them, and they all got a kick out of it. Ted Taylor, Editor of the Weekly, asked if they could reprint the lyrics in the Eugene Weekly Celebration Edition which they were working on right there and then. So that's how it happened into the paper so immediately.

So that's the basic story...

for specific notes & links & details... The official site for Eugene Celebration pages os at http://WWW.EugeneCelebration.COM for more info on the Celebration. And, regarding where the song was initially published, that was in the Thu September 16th, 1999 issue of Eugene Weekly, current issue of which can be found at http://WWW.EugeneWeekly.COM

Our improptu performances during the Celebration took place Friday & Saturday evenings downtown Eugene, September 17th and 18th, 1999.

	Friday:   	Fool's Paradise Coffee House
	Saturday #1: 	Yama's Cafe
	Saturday #2:	Rosewater's Deli

And there you have the story of how this came to be. Feel free to be in touch if you have other questions about the song or perhaps you would like to perform it sometime in your own venue! :-)