Last weekend’s Philomath Classic Car Show at City Park brought back a flood of memories, thanks in part to a 1964 Ford Falcon parked among the show cars. The couple showing it had restored it for their daughter, who preferred a classic to anything modern.
It took me straight back to my own Falcon — a 1961 Futura I bought from a farmer for $400, money I’d earned working at a grain elevator over the summer of 1984. He’d fixed it up for his daughter, but she didn’t want it.
On the first day I owned it, some friends and I snuck it into our town’s parade without an entry card, tossing candy we’d bought at the market along the route. Somewhere past the halfway mark, a friend ambushed us with water balloons through the open windows. We made it to the judges’ stand before parade organizers figured out we didn’t belong — and let us know about it.
The car show also landed on a date that meant something more to me: July 11. My dad was born on that date in 1939. So, he was on my mind while I walked among the rows of polished hoods and shined chrome.
My dad’s favorite car was a 1959 Volvo, painted red, with a rounded rear end that many affectionately called the “hunchback.” He kept that car running for many years, and it was always parked in the driveway whenever I made it back to Nebraska to visit. From the back seat, the windows always seemed small, giving the whole car a snug, cocoon-like feel, like the world outside was framed rather than wide open. The floor-mounted gearshift sat right there between the front seats, a fixture of every ride. And then there was the smell — aged vinyl, engine warmth and decades-old Swedish steel, a combination no new car has ever quite replicated.
My dad built stock car engines in the garage of our house back in the early 1970s. He’d spend an entire winter on a single engine, and I spent countless hours out there with him, handing him tools and running inside to fetch him a cold Schlitz. When racing season arrived each spring and summer, we’d spend weekends at dirt tracks around the Nebraska circuit. My dad never drove — he just worked on the engines. But I remember one summer when the team brought home a trophy taller than I was, built on a car that took months of his work.
I’m not into cars as much as my dad — he died at age 82 in 2021. I was able to perform simple work on them in my 20s, mostly because of the auto shop class I took in high school. But then modern vehicles came along with all of their technology and those few skills I had were lost to the past. Today, I drive an SUV that self-corrects if I start to drift off the road, plays audio books I’ve downloaded to my phone and beeps at me if it thinks I’m tired and need to take a driving break.
But you know, I enjoy the old cars. The sights and smells and stories — and a host of pleasant memories.
2. Cascades West and local impact
Representatives from Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments and the Community Services Consortium presented to Philomath City Council on July 13, offering a look at how regional services are playing out on the ground here in town.
Agency Director Paul Egbert outlined three priorities from Cascades West’s strategic plan, released July 1 — customer service, organizational excellence and convening. On that last point, he said the agency is uniquely positioned to bring people together — not to dictate solutions, but to help communities work out their own answers to shared problems.
Mayor Christopher McMorran, who serves on the Cascades West executive committee, said the convening role has real potential, particularly as local governments across the region navigate similar funding and federal budget pressures together.
Egbert then walked through numbers specific to Philomath from the agency’s annual report. Meals on Wheels served 924 meals in Philomath, part of a program Egbert said offers more than food — it’s also a wellness check and a source of social connection for older adults. Through the program, there were also 844 food boxes delivered.
The Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance Program, known as SHIBA, provided one-on-one Medicare counseling to 57 people in Philomath last year, with 25 more served so far in 2026. Egbert noted the sessions can run up to an hour as counselors help residents navigate Medicare’s complexity.
He also highlighted the Foster Grandparent Program, which places volunteers age 55 and older in schools to work with children. At Philomath Elementary, a foster grandparent logged 968 direct service hours over the last school year, working with five students who Egbert said all showed improvement.
Cascades West Ride Line, which provides nonemergency medical transportation, delivered 1,396 trips for Philomath residents.
“These are the little things that happen with people directly, whether it’s a meal, a contact, a foster grandparent,” Egbert said. “When you condense these big programs down to these smaller contacts, they really do make a difference.”
3. No ban on magic mushrooms
It’s taken me a couple of months to circle back on this, but I wanted to give readers the final word on Measure 2-147, the proposed permanent ban on psilocybin-related businesses in Philomath.
When I last wrote about it on May 29, the measure had just fallen behind for the first time in ballot counting, trailing 873 no votes to 858 yes votes — a 15-vote margin. Benton County certified the final results with the gap essentially unchanged: 882 no votes to 866 yes votes. A yes vote favored the ban, so its rejection means Philomath voters chose not to make the prohibition permanent.
The measure’s defeat caps a process that dates back to 2022 when voters approved a temporary ban while the Philomath City Council studied the issue. Councilors extended that moratorium for two more years in November 2024, sending the question to voters at this year’s primary and, in the meantime, adopting time, place and manner regulations that would apply if a ban never took hold.
Those regulations are now the ones in effect. Psilocybin manufacturing facilities and service centers are prohibited within 1,000 feet of public playgrounds and other locations where you’ll find children. Various other rules are also in place such as registering with the city, hours of operation, the appearance of the business and any signage.
To me, it seems like a longshot that we would ever see a psilocybin business in Philomath but you can never say never. It just seems to be an industry struggling through a lot of issues, including the high cost of the procedure. Plus, there’s already a center nearby in Corvallis.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
