19/5 - Hippy Markets and Assault BB Guns

Saturday we were able to sample two sides of Eugene life -in the morning we visited the downtown markets, and in the afternoon Phil, Mitch and I visited a just-opened major sports-goods chain.

Eugene is known as a University town - it is the home of the University of Oregon - and for this and other reasons there is a strong "alternate" current running through the city's culture. The Saturday markets are one place where that can be seen quite clearly. Straddling 4-blocks in the downtown area, the market consists of many, many small stalls in which hand-made goods are displayed. From printed t-shirts, through glassware, drums, and chain (as in chainmail) jewelry, there's a lot to be seen. In particular there's an aweful lot of tie dyed items. Several purchases were made at the markets.

One interested incident occured as we were walking beside the road. A large (US large) white Chevvy ute pulled into the available carspace besides us. The remarkable aspect was that the hood and roof the the utility were covered in plastic figurines (cartoon characters etc.) of about 2" to 6" in height that were apparently stuck there. Zoe and Shannon then spent 5-minutes in animated conversation with the driver (I recall him being large, 50 plus, with long hair, a soft voice, sandals and tie-dyed socks).

In the afternoon Phil, Mitch and I took in a large sporting-goods stall that had just opened at the local mall. In many aspects I found it not too disimilar to Rebel Sports or other such businesses in oz. The one thing that struck me though was that there was a Paintball and BB gun section. BB guns are a bit like slug-guns (air propelled and capable of killing birds and other small animals). Anyway, there was a range of BB guns for sale (see the 26th entry about Walmart and rifles), including a number that were replicas of assault rifles such as the Kalashnikov or M11. To me the "message" of having such items for sale in a sports store is both disturbing and less than subtle.