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May be relocating to Oregon for a government job in Prineville. I am a hawaiian mixed bisexual male, been partnered for 6 years now with another hawaiian bisexual male, and we are from the State of Hawaii, and unsure of where to live in this large place. We are from the island of Oahu, which is the 3rd biggest island in the chain and home to Honolulu, the 11th largest U.S. metropolitan city, though we reside on the westside of the island in a city called Waianae (very rural isolated area). Can anyone give some advice to what to look forward to and what to look out for. We have read about the "small community" type living area (total homebodies so we're cool with our computers and tv), and yes we have no idea how to drive through snow! It is becoming heavily populated here in Hawaii and I would like to start living life. Jobs here are scarce, and the cost of living is atrocious...reason I began looking for a job on the mainland. I have fears about many different things, mainly how we will be perceived upon moving there due to our sexualities. We are openly gay but remain guyish in most of our ways. Bend seems like such a far drive and redmond seems cool! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
May be relocating to Oregon for a government job in Prineville...Jobs here are scarce, and the cost of living is atrocious...reason I began looking for a job on the mainland....I have fears about many different things, mainly how we will be perceived upon moving there due to our sexualities.
I do not want to be the one to wizz on your parade but, unfortunately, jobs are a lot scarcer here than in Hawaii. Even government jobs are not secure and if yours is in state government, given the recent emphasis on budget cuts and state employees being laid off, I am afraid your tenure in one of them would be as ephemeral as...as... as snow in Oahu.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oregon's unemployment rate, while much better than the 13% it was in late 2008, is still holding high at 10.6 percent. Crook county, where you are looking to settle in is looking at 17 percent; not much better than Detroit's. Hawaii's by contrast is 6.6 as of May.
If you do have a secure job waiting for you here, go for it and welcome! I've been to Prineville and it is a good looking city in a beautiful setting. There are many opportunities to hunt, fish, ski, swim and hike in and near here. As an added dividend, Prineville is a lot less expensive than practically anywhere in Hawaii. I am sorry I can not answer your inquiries about how gay friendly Prineville is because I doin't know. Others may be able to help. But if you can gain employment here and remain so there are few places east of the Cascades that are better to live.
I can't speak first hand about treatment of gays in Prineville, but I will say that Central Oregon is very conservative except for pockets here and there, most notably in Bend. At the same time, Oregonians tend to have a live and let live philosophy and an inherent sense of what is right. That is not always true, of course. The KKK was quite active in parts of Oregon in the last century and there are groups of white supremists in Oregon now. However, a recent situation in very conservative, small town John Day serves to illustrate Oregonians' spirit. Recently, a group of white supremists wanted to buy property close to John Day, moving their enclave from Idaho to central/eastern Oregon. Practically the entire town showed up at a town meeting to protest the proposed move to John Day.
I would think that overall, you would be welcome in Prineville, but there will be those who are vocally homophoebic - unfortunately that is probably the case whereever you go.
I've lived remotely, east of Prineville, for a decade, and it is stunningly beautiful up here on our mountain. Left our professional life in Portland for this, but still have the property there too. We aren't big on socializing (homebodies too!), so I actually don't know with certainty how you'd be received in Prineville.
But this is a conservative area, religion is a big deal, lots of ranchers (still called a cowtown) and massive unemployment numbers in Prineville (which can make people cranky, and small crime is up). I have heard nasty stuff about having a black man for a president; otoh, at other places, I heard great praise for Obama having common sense and being practical in his approach. Our local postman from Prineville who delivers the mail out here told the local postmistress that me and my dh were quite obviously "living in great sin". Why? Because we clearly were not a married couple, and he knew that for a fact because our mail was addressed to my "dh" with his name, and I had a different name! Yeah, we have different last names; and have been married for 30 years, longer than that guy. I am not religious, so this seemed pretty bizarre to me - but we've also had our hay guy of 6 years ask us one day if we attended church and which one. I don't care about such things, but note that other people apparently do.
When the movie Brokeback Mountain came out, there was a bar breaking brawl down the road when one cowboy called another by a name of one of those characters - I heard it was major ugly, because of the insinuation that this cowboy was gay. Had a neighbor (was from Portland, had a vacation "ranch" here, but had lived here as a kid) who informed dh that he might want to take off the rainbow sticker from ranch truck, otherwise someone might think he was gay (I had to look that one up, didn't get the reference. The sticker had been on the truck for decades from the prior owner). Dh left it on the truck. Same fool also thought our english saddles might get "misinterpreted", as real guys only use western saddles in cowboy country. Actually said he was just being nice and giving us a "heads up" warning because he liked us. Geez.
So, there is some intolerance that I've witnessed/heard about; and there is also a lot of live and let live. Just depends. I mention the above because due to the religion factor out here, if I was openly gay I'd probably come visit Prineville for a few weeks first before deciding to live here. If I were a social creature, I would live in Bend. I have met a lot of at least superficially nice people, and out where we live, it is so remote that neighbors really do things for each other when needed, more so that over in Portland even. But I am white, not gay, and wish I knew for sure how they would receive you guys, because you'd probably love the environment here - hiking, fossils, biking, sunsets that still take my breath away, no city lights so the stars are unfreaking believable on a clear night (and there is an observatory too in the area!), quiet lakes and streams, comfortable dry air. Gardening is a bit hard due to temp extremes from day to night, and a very short growing season (I didn't even plant a garden due to late freezes up here, an unusually wet spring/start of summer, and hail).
This whole area, however, is bigger than just Prineville - and is just a blast for recreation activities. There is a lot of beauty and peace in the High Desert, and I wouldn't let any vocal local keep me from a job due to their homophobia if it does exist in a meaningful way in our "cowtown". However, I'd probably rent in Bend or Redmond, and commute to the job in Prineville, and see how it went. If things went well, then I'd look to rent in Prineville closer to work. The commute isn't horrible - you might find it different but that is because everything is close on an island (dh went to HS in Hawaii, and I often stayed with an aunt there, and we miss it - are you sure you want to leave, lol?. At my age, living a peaceful life is paramount; I was pretty fiery when I was young about such social differences and intolerences, and would fly right into the center of a storm. Now I try to avoid such things, if they get in the way of my enjoyment of life.
P.S. You can learn to drive in snow - lots of empty places around Prineville in which to practice.
Last edited by sugarsugar; 07-13-2010 at 02:11 PM..
Location: Waukegan,il. Approx 40 miles north of Chicago.
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Wow, sounds like Prineville could be a very beatiful place to live if you are straight and arent capable of excepting people that are differnt than you. Not referring to any people here that are posting. You all sound very intelligent. Over all it sounds like back hill thinking. I wouldnt like that. Wheather I am straight or gay.
Yeah, I worried it would sound too negative, but I think life is too short to be stuck somewhere unpleasant, which is why I say always check out where you want to live by putting your boots on the ground. Any place can have ugly along with the good, and everyone's tolerances to such things depends on the area's general attitude about X and/or one's sensitivity to that kind of thing.
I live way out from the city, so remotely that my nearest neighbor is 2 miles away. It is not important to us to socialize in the town we live near; we have friends from all over that visit and that we stay in touch with online/by phone, so whatever happens in the town doesn't have any bearing on us. I can laugh at it, and then make sure I am not around the offender again (but I do that everywhere). Where it is enlightened out here, it is delightful and perfect. Where it isn't, it can be ugly.
The way we chose to set up our new life (running a small cattle/horse operation, plus some other things we do from home), has resulted in as near a perfect life as I could have ever imagined (I grew up rurally; dh was lived rurally but spent time in places around the world with a dad who at one point was a diplomat, so rural living/things that are different are comfortable situations for us). I could have just said that I find it perfect out here (which I do), but his post got me thinking about how it would be living there right in the town, if I were in his shoes, not in mine, and I remembered those few things I listed. Are they the majority or the minority? Because of how we live, I just don't know, but if it were me, I'd like them mentioned to me so I could make sure they were just isolated incidents that could happen anywhere.
I find the solitude of the high desert to be so wonderful that I can't imagine not living here. Every morning and evening, the high desert makes me glad to be alive (being this remote, all I hear is red tailed hawks, horses, cattle and even the cry of a bald eagle, not sure how I'd feel in town). Dh just spent a week at a lake fishing under the big pines. Glass Buttes is not far away & has obsidian of all colors, there is a major paleontology center in John Day, the Painted Hills are close (best seen when it has rained and the colors are vivid), and I even recently found leaf fossils right on our ranch (omg! omg! Am currently systematically searching shale areas for bird fossils, which a neighbor allegedly found on our place some years back. I will faint if I find one). Hiking the Sisters, going further to hike Lookout Mountain and the Strawberry Mountains and the Blues, I mean there is no end to how cool it is to live on the dry recreation side of the state.
But note, it is the natural beauty that I know the best, not the human part of the equation. That said, please don't write it off totally just based on the events I noted, but do take it into consideration as something to check out. Of the 3 cities mentioned, Prineville is still the rural ranching one, with the good/bad baggage that may come with that background (there was the annual cattle drive just a couple of weeks ago to kick off the coming fair and rodeo, right down main street). There are rodeos in quite a few places nearby in the summer, and I have had to slow down coming home out here because the neighbors had their cattle on the road moving them. That doesn't happen in Bend or Redmond
Last edited by sugarsugar; 07-13-2010 at 03:08 PM..
Thanks! I really enjoyed your post, and no I did not find anything negative about your post. I am pretty tolerant to how folks perceive "gays" whether in cowpoke towns or large metropolitan areas...surprisingly I am openly gay, yet I do not have many gay friends (sorry LGBT members, too flaky for me). I can see how living where you live would be so peaceful, and neighbors 2 miles away, jiminy christmas I could be as gay as I wanted! LoL! I do intent to set foot there soon, just waiting on the job! I just interviewed for a Human Service Worker position working with the Elderly between prineville and madras. I have been doing a whole hell of a lot of research, and your post was very very interesting. Makes me hope and hope even more that I get that job! If there are at least 2 other couples as yourself that we could run into we would be seriously two happy hawaiians in oregon!
Thanks for the advice! As I replied to SugarSugar, I have had an interview with a State position, so we see! I will need to take a trip and set foot there first and for most, just wanted some local insight! Can't wait
I can see how living where you live would be so peaceful, and neighbors 2 miles away, jiminy christmas I could be as gay as I wanted! LoL!
That made me smile, and sums up what I like best about the way we've arranged things - we are free to be as "us" as we want way out here
We came from decades of living on the wet side of Oregon - one day, I decided I had to have more sun and real snow in the winter, instead of endless rain. Figured the worst thing that could happen was that I could go back home if things didn't work out. And now I realize the worst thing that could have happened to me was to have missed out on experiencing this.
Are you going to be okay with the cold weather in the winter here, coming from Hawaii? Sounds like with a route between Madras and Prineville, you will get a lot of experience with driving in the snow, etc What made you pick Prineville, other than the job?
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. At my age, living a peaceful life is paramount; I was pretty fiery when I was young about such social differences and intolerences, and would fly right into the center of a storm. Now I try to avoid such things, if they get in the way of my enjoyment of life.
