Smartacus and I loaded up the U-Haul for my son’s final season in Eugene. (photo by Chris Erskine)

EUGENE, Ore. – I love orange chicken and Bermuda shorts. I love 12-string guitars.

Some things just trigger the heart, right?

So it is with this ramshackle cof­fee shop on the edge of campus. It’s like when Tolkien has a fever … the colors, the warp. The homemade scones are big as burgers, and the barista looks like she hasn’t slept in months.

“Everyone up here is rebelling,” explains Smartacus, who is about to begin his final year in Eugene, the land that fashion forgot.

My son is talking about the scruffy pedestrian in Portland who opened his takeout burger and flung the unwanted tomato into the street. But he also could’ve been talking about the young woman in Eugene with a raccoon tail poking out of her hemp satchel.

Thing is, if everyone is rebelling, is that really rebellion? Or is that, suddenly, conformity? For sure, this is a freaky-deaky place. I like it more and more, even as it defies my attempts at explanation.

Hey, who am I to weigh in on anything?

On our way up, the flight atten­dant explains that if the flotation device doesn’t inflate, you can manually blow into the tube.

And I think: “I can’t even blow up a balloon. What makes you think I can blow up my own life vest while sharks nibble at my knee?”

I’ve played out this scenario many times. They say not to inflate the life vest until you exit the plane, and I just know – sure as winter wheat – that several of these dweebs will inflate their vests the moment they put them on, clogging the aisles. Suddenly, I’m kicking at windows, desperate to save Smartacus.

Generally, a trip to Eugene does not inspire faith in America. It inspires bemusement, sure. Or, like my Bermuda shorts, it inspires envy.

Yep, this is one of those travel­ogues I’m rather fond of. Ride with me across the Pacific Northwest for a minute, as we check out the sights, the vibe, the peanut butter-and-jelly burgers.

As we’ve established, it’s always 1969 here. Hair is at all angles, never brushed. Showers and shavers are discouraged, possibly illegal. You can’t tell the dogs from the cats.

But, brother, are these folks folksy. Like the woman at the Safeway deli making 20 Italian subs, who chats me up about how fresh their bread is. “Have you tried the sushi?” she asks. “I took it home to my daughter. She loved it.”

Or the beertenders at Max’s bar, serving up icy $4 drafts on a quiet summer evening. They are all a lit­tle ticked off about something or other – a boss, a boyfriend — which is what I look for in a good beertender: honesty, candor, psy­chosis.

Kind of like the sleepy barista I was telling you about.

Look, nobody ever had a soulful moment at a Starbucks, or a berry scone that blew your mind. At Starbucks, or any chain, all you get is exactly what you ordered yester­day and the day before. You don’t get Tolkien, that’s for sure.

And there was this frazzled clerk at the U-Haul rental counter, dart­ing this way and that, pumping gas on “a very bizarre day.”

“Some Arabs came in earlier,” he says. “Wanted to buy the place.”

You can certainly see why. There’s the thriving U-Haul con­cession. And the busy gas pumps. And the carwash (free with an $8 purchase). Go ahead, put a price on paradise.

Anyway, we got Smartacus moved from one apartment to another, in preparation for his final year here. His gleaming new place is just renovated. The old place was every parent’s nightmare, a dingy old house where 10 young scholars bunked last year. It represented Dante’s seven circles of filth. College at the time of cholera.

So, it’s been a productive trip, getting my son from a dump with a dysentery fridge, into the new place, with brand new toilets and a dream kitchen.

We toast our success at a nice restaurant, Sweet Waters, as spark­ing as the adjacent river. It’s hot on the patio, and the servers have their hair off their necks, as one does in August.

Yep, it’s too warm by half out here, which is something you could say about the entire Pacific Northwest these days, that it’s now almost as deep-fried as California.

It’s far too hot to be ordering a chewy red wine, which takes cus­tody of my mouth, turns my tongue into a fist and slams it back toward my throat.

Guess I’m partial to beverages that swallow you back.

Like quirky little Eugene does.

Gulp.

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