Roxanne Barnstead:  

Life When I finally decided to grow up (?) I got my BA from Antioch University and now work as a union field rep and organizer for the Service Employees International Union. I live in Oregon now. I have been here since July 1998 - nearly 16 years. We will not willingly leave unless there is not another choice to be made. It is so different from the streets we grew up on, so different from the small industrial town in the Southern Tier of New York where our daughter was born and where we still own a house. Different historically, demographically, politically, geographically,visually - how the hell did I get to this place? Examples of why we love it: There are 7 million people here. That's all. There are 2 Interstate Highways. That's all. The entire Oregon coastline of the Pacific Ocean belongs to the people who live here. All of that! In another year, I will have worked for this employer for as long as I have ever worked anywhere. I never was fired from a job, never quit a job unless I had a better job to replace it with, never had a job I couldn't do, and always was good at the job I had. Most of them were jobs that had me thinking that if I had to go to work the next day and do it again I would surely r...Expand for more