Oregonians are weird. And the longer I live here (almost 25 years now) the weirder they seem.
Take the story on the front page of today’s Bulletin about “platypus couples” – married folks who find themselves on opposite sides of tonight’s epic “Civil War” clash between the U of O Ducks and the OSU Beavers.
The story tells the tale of Cheyenne Edgerly (a Beaver) and her husband Brett (a Duck), whose marriage apparently almost didn’t come off because Brett, in the eyes of Cheyenne’s family, was a member of an alien species.
“It was actually a huge family controversy,” Cheyenne said. “Our whole family is die-hard Beavers, and my parents, when I brought Brett home, he was a really good guy, he had a really good job, but they were just absolutely devastated because he was a Duck.”
Now, I’ve heard of a Harvard man being a little disappointed because his daughter married a Yale man, and vice-versa, but “absolutely devastated”? No way. “Devastation” I could understand if we were talking about an orthodox Jew marrying a Muslim fundamentalist, but being “devastated” over a Beaver marrying a Duck? Please.
Maybe the explanation for this bizarre behavior is that Oregon is so homogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity and religion that Oregonians don’t have anything more important than college affiliation to get all riled up over.
I’m neither a Duck nor a Beaver and the college I went to hasn’t been a football power since the era of the flying wedge, so to have a team to root for I’ve adopted one of the Oregon schools as my foster alma mater. I won’t say which one because I don’t want to encourage more hate posts on this blog. I’ll reveal it tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I’m glad an Oregon team will be in the Rose Bowl this year. Go Platypi!
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
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I’m sure she was exaggerating for effect.
Well, maybe. But I know these Ducks and Beavers take their team loyalty pretty damn seriously.
I have it on good authority that The Eye is a Duck fan and that his allegiance is based on his burning hatred of rural Oregon and traditional values in general.
As a midwest import, my conclusion is that this has little to do about college and a lot more to do about lifestyles of conservatives at OSU and liberals at OU…neither of which are true at the college level. Berkly vs Harvard, MAYbe, OU vs OSU, you are nuts.
Damn, didn’t my Ducks do great last night?
Ron Bergundy, your comment is too stupid to merit a serious reply.