Samantha Pierotti
Journalist
In May, the ground is thawed, and Casey Shoop plants a bag of sweet pea seeds in the front yard of the Portland home he shares with his partner, Gabrielle.
The seeds are his mother’s, who passed away in the spring of 2023, and Shoop – a Clark Honors College senior instructor of literature – hopes to continue the tradition of planting them every year. “My mother’s great abiding passion was gardening,” he says, reminiscing about his childhood memories growing up in Long Beach, Calif. “Every year in the front of the house, she would plant these beds of sweet peas, and they would just explode in these riots of color.”
The vines would spread down the block, he recalls, in the sandy soil. Shoop visited his childhood home last spring and gathered seeds right before his father had to sell the house.
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“Hey, do you want some hash for the road?” Normal Bean asks when he’s done with the interview. He grabs an empty, smell-proof canister and plops down on the floor, sorting through Mason jars filled with crushed bud. Since Bean got his cancer diagnosis, weed has taken on a new meaning in his life: marijuana is now medical as well as recreational. Scotch tape labels the jars, boasting names like “Purple Haze” and “Supersonic”: his own personal strains. He ends every interview this way. Bean’s just that kind of guy: he gives what he can, and takes what he must. Marijuana, something that he happens to always have excess of, is a common parting gift from his house in West Eugene.
Crazy Al’s in Veneta, Oregon, stands like a fortress against the dark, drizzly November night. Beer lights hang over pool tables advertising Bud Light and Pabst. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen blares over speakers hidden in the bar’s wooden paneling. Patrons mill around at 6 p.m. on a Friday, shooting pool or sipping beer. They’re waiting for something, or more concretely, someone.
Jim Breitz. He stands around five feet and eight inches, decked out in an American flag-inspired button-up, his gray hair and goatee in direct contrast with his youthful demeanor. At 67 years old, Breitz is still smoking Winstons, drinking Jack & Cokes, and most importantly, he’s still a karaoke jockey. Customers at Crazy Al’s give him nods of respect or greet him with a cheerful exclamation of “Jim Jim!” as he prepares for his show.
