♦ them and you are left with a sprawl of roads and buildings, denatured and without history. Some of Bob's projects can seem rather eccentric, what you might expect from a hermit-intellectual-mapmaker- dreamer-farmer-ecologist. Head-in-the- clouds stuff. Once he got curious about whether or not a replica of Stonehenge (built by the son-in-law of a railroad magnate, it sits on a bluff high above the Columbia River) possesses the mathematical qualities of the original. His 50 or so pages of calculations indicate that it is a few degrees off. Another project was a chart illustrating the location of star constellations for the next five hundred years. But when he learns that one of his beloved places is threatened he can move into the valley with practical authority. A1971 letter to Riviera Motors, a large Portland Volkswagon dealer, begins: Gentlemen: One of your officers was quoted in the press as seeing "no problem" in the fact that the Five Oaks tract along the Sunset Highway in West Union is prime agricultural land. Your Volkswagon installation on this acreage, while welcome from many points of view, forms an entering wedge for the destruction of one of Oregon's very few areas of highly productive soil. There are people who do not look on this as "no problem.” Bob goes on to point out that "nobody in your organization seems to have made any public comment" on the presence of the Five Oaks—"the gathering place of the earliest independent farming community of Americans in the West"—on this tract of land. He suggests that the trees, "if left standing as a center of attraction, will pay developers many times over [in favorable publicity] for the small space that they occupy." Riviera Motors responded by naming their development "Five Oaks Industrial Park" and agreeing to preserve the trees. "This is about the best you can expert," says Bob, who feels that a sensible society would have turned the area into a state park. An inventory that Bob made up in 1968, "Notes On Natural Areas, Trails and Landmarks in the Portland Area," has this entry: BIG CANYON is mostly Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land; the tract was logged in the thirties, but the bottom of the canyon was only lightly damaged and many big firs were spared. A group of botanical enthusiasts, reinforced by some local botanists of standing, are pestering BLM for a ten- acre natural reservation to preserve the canyon-floor flora, once so common, now so rare. Access only by special permission through private property. Five minutes to three, a misty afternoon in 1978: Bob Benson removed a shapeless brown hat from his very round head as he shuffled into a gray barracks-like building in Tillamook, headed for a BLM hearing on the fate of Big Canyon. He was feeling "nettled" that he had been notified too late to attend a previous meeting which, he has heard, was attended by many loggers and no botanists. Wedging his roly-poly body uncomfortably into a retired school desk at the very back of the meeting room, still holding onto his hat. Bob took a look about the room. Three or four BLM guys, sharply dressed in cream-colored shirts and wide neckties, bustled self- importantly about, carrying cups of coffee. The other desks were empty. Standing next to a map of Big Canyon, which was ensconced on an expensive- looking easel, one of the young men began the presentation, talking more to the other BLM people than to the plump man in the back row, whose socks seemed to be slipping toward his battered old shoes. When Bob raised his hand he looked like a large round fifth grader. "Yes?" said the lecturer, a tinge of impatience in his tone. Looking not at the young man, but off to the side. Bob, in his soft, clear voice, began to explain that there were a few problems with the map. The road at E-6 wasn't, he didn't think, there anymore, though there was a road near there until a mudslide washed it out around 1928. And were they aware that there was a nice little waterfall on that creek at about F-9? He went on in this vein until, in a couple of minutes, he was talking to an absolutely quiet room. A couple of people padded over to join the lecturer at the map. They stared at it curiously, as if they hadn't seen it before. A man hovered next to Bob, waiting to ask if he wanted his coffee dark or light. Bob was asked a lot of questions. He explained that his organization, The Tualatin Valley Heritage, felt that it was important to protect certain rare wild flowers which grew along the streambed in Big Canyon from the logging companies. The young men assured him that they shared his feelings, that the BLM would make every effort, etc, etc. Later, on the drive back to Portland, Bob was asked if he thought the BLM people were sincerely concerned about the flowers in Big Canyon. "I believe that there's enough of a leavening of really dedicated people that quite a bit might be done," he answered. "But you never know because there's always the other moiety that has its eye only on the main chance, which in this case means pleasing the big shots, the big timber producers." When it was suggested that his manner at the meeting had really wowed them. Bob said, "Oh sure, they have a certain respect for me in a small way, but it can't be a very big respect because I'm sure it didn't escape their notice that my group is rather small and weak. In the report they turn in on this meeting about Big Canyon a notation hidden in the fine print will make it clear that disapproval from the Tualatin Valley Heritage is not something to lose much sleep over." 19
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