Newberg

If you believe the stories--and I do--then my Mother was born in a shopping cart in a supermarket in Newberg at what is now a Wilco farm store next to the Walgreens. The reason I believe that story is because I can totally see my frugal farm-smart grandparents saving the money that would normally go to a doctor for some cattle feed or perhaps a new grain elevator. In my head, my grandmother goes into labor while shopping for groceries, she makes herself comfortable in the nearest shopping cart, and my grandfather delivers the baby just two shop rags, a bucket of water, and a pocketknife. Later that evening, my grandmother would perhaps cook a pork roast or a goose.
Growing up in Woodburn I always had the idea that we were somehow in competition with Newberg, and I would pay close attention to east city's population signs to figure out who was winning. I think that nowadays the title goes to Newberg due to its proximity to the edge of Portland's urban growth boundary. I stopped paying attention when a spate of McMansions finally took over a section of Parret Mountain that I used to always call "Strawberry Hill," after the cheap Boone's Farm wine flavor that seemed to be so popular with us in our late teens.
Mayor Bob Andrews was nice enough to autograph our map at the Oregon Mayors Association in Salem recently, and if I had had more time I would have asked him why the Chinese Food place in town is named "Shaw's." Not a bad place, that.
Newberg is also home to George Fox University, which was attended by our second worst president, Herbert Hoover. It's kind of the gateway to Oregon wine country, but best of all it's right next to Champoeg State Park, which is kind of the birth place of Oregon--just two miles from the Newberg Wilco.
21 down, 221 to go.