When I was young boy my parents owned a business at the southwest end of Woahink Lake. There is no sign of it there now, almost as if there was never anything there, but in the 1960's it was a going concern. So what did we sell??? Dune buggy rides! "The Place", that’s what we called what was really named The Sand Dune Buggy Excursions, was where I spent most of my childhood. You know how everyone gets a nickname; well that was ours ... “The Place”. There was a big parking lot a gift shop, cafe, a house, and garages. There were even docks on the waterfront complete with a filling station. My dad built dune buggies in our little single car garage out of 1940's & 50's cars. He cut the entire back end of them out and put in two bench seats facing one another. Of course there were no doors and no hood, but there was a nice handle welded to the dashboard to help whoever was in front to hang on! There were three of these little red painted cuties and one large one that we called the big rig. Now you would think these things would sink like a stone in the sand but my dad had outfitted them with airplane (or balloon type) tires. You wouldn't believe how those things could get around. With a 3 speed on the tree and a good ol flat head six they looked like a ball to drive... aaaahhh, if I were only old enough. I couldn't drive ‘em but I could ride ‘em... and I did. I rode so much that I could close my eyes and know just where we were, whether we were doing a side hill or about to go over a fifty foot dune ... Backwards! You can imagine the screams from the overjoyed riders; they had never seen nor heard of anything like it. The drivers were great, what a cast of characters. There was Rocky, Don Harmon, A.J. (his real name was Floyd but dad deemed him A.J. after A.J. Foyt a race car driver of the time ... I bet you can guess why.) Even my uncle Albert drove for us a while. They’re mostly all gone now but the memories they impressed upon me will be cherished forever.
So how much for a ride? If you look close at the picture (you’ll need to have a copy of a 1965 Life Magazine lying around, we were on the cover) and you can make it out.... 75 cents.
My dad was the boss and the drivers knew it. Even years later they would talk about getting called into his “office” (the three by five restroom at the snack bar). I think you can sense the feeling of discomfort that little "visit" with the boss would bring on.
The Place had a pinball machine (you should have seen me, on my stool, flippers smokin’, just short of tilt, I was quite the wizard!). There was Woahink Outlet, with a cement walk bridge. It was a great hide away, private, and a good place to fish. The dock at The Place was cool, it had a shed sized building on it where they used to (before our time) sell tackle, supplies and even gas to people on the lake. But what I liked was right below the dock about ten feet under the water, an old fifty gallon drum... upright, lid on. You can imagine my glee as a young boy when I saw the biggest smallmouth bass ever known to mankind just hovering over the top of that drum. Now I don't know why, but every day he would taunt me. I could see him plain as day and I knew some day he would have to get hungry even though I had dangled every sumptuous bit of bait I could find right in front of his ungrateful face. This little game went on for I don't know how long but one day it was my day. Dog day afternoon... I tricked him with a bullhead I had caught and used for my trophy getter. You guessed it... it worked and the fight was on. Fifty pound boy against fifty pound fish over the fifty gallon drum with five pound test. Well the odds were less than fifty-fifty that I would land this monster. Right at the height of the battle the line snapped. But just as it did, my friend Alan saw it coming and grabbed the line just before it went out of the last eyehole, and together we hauled the fish in. I have the picture to prove it, (which I’ll share as soon as I can find it.) Small mouth bass, big grin boy!
There were a lot of grins back then. And thinking back now maybe that’s why we called it “The Place”, it was.
The Rhododendron Festival is held in Florence Oregon each year in the 3rd week of May.
There have been some changes to Florence since the first Rhododendron Festival of 1908. The population has grown from fewer than 500 to more than 8,000. The streets are paved, and the Siuslaw Bridge spans the river, and computers are commonplace. The town has enjoyed many improvements in this last decade. It has a new library, hospital, convention center and justice center. Logging, farming and fishing are no longer the major industries. They have all but disappeared. The annual Florence Rhododendron Festival has grown to over 100 entries and attracts over 15,000 visitors. Each spring the wild rhododendrons bloom in the hills and fields of Florence as they have been doing for 1,000 or more years, and the white-pink flowers still represent the end of winter and the imminent arrival of summer. Each year there is a parade and a Rhododendron Queen, and each year beautiful wild flowers of Florence echo the theme of the first Florence Rhododendron Festival, “Watch Florence Grow."
