By JAYSON JACOBY

Baker City Herald

Pretty much everything of consequence that has ever happened to me happened in Oregon.

My birth, to start with.

This event must not have impressed me at the time as noteworthy since I don’t recall it, although I’ve been told that I screamed in a disturbing fashion.

Oregon, which was born, in the political rather than the biological sense, 149 years ago today, debuted with less volume, I suspect. Although in my defense, the state wasn’t breathing air and seeing light for the first time as I was.

Anyway, I have for as long as I can remember harbored a great affection for this state, and this is not solely because it is where I have eaten the vast majority of my meals.

I love Oregon in part because of its mountains.

They are not so grand, as mountains go; even the state’s tallest summit, 11,239-foot Mount Hood, would likely be left off any but the most comprehensive list of prominent peaks in the Alps or the Andes or the Rockies.

Yet many of Oregon’s mountains exude a true magnificence if only you get near enough.

Mount Washington, in the Central Cascades near Santiam Pass, is of modest stature 7,794 feet even by the standards of other Oregon ranges such as the Wallowas.

But when I stand on Washington’s north shoulder and I look toward the top, the precipices of its basalt pinnacle loom so awesomely, and create such a sense of sheer swooning exposure, that Washington seems to me at that moment the measure of any mountain.

Oregon is renowned as well, and rightfully so, for the variety of its landscapes, a wealth which few states can claim.

I am smitten with them all.

I marvel at what Oregon has accomplished with simple sand, which is strewn across places as different as beaches and deserts.

Oregon gets a lot out of its trees, too. In the western rain forests grow Douglas-firs and red cedars so thick you could bore a road through their trunks, while up at timberline in the Wallowas stunted whitebark pines have endured centuries yet attained only the height of a young child.

Oregon’s waters come in an array of colors: the hard gray of the Pacific, speckled with creamy dollops of foam on a rough day; Crater Lake’s inimitable shade of blue; Red Mountain Lake in the Elkhorns, which was once known as Green Lake and still should be because green it indeed is.

Despite all its attributes, Oregon has frequently tested my affinity.

I have been and this is but a brief list of my predicaments which omits the especially embarrassing episodes:

Stuck several times in Oregon snowdrifts

Fatigued nearly to the point of catatonia by the ludicrous grades of Oregon hiking trails

Bewildered by the seemingly intentional disregard for logic that defines the road network in certain swathes of forest and high desert

Through my years in Oregon and that would be all 37 of them I have cultivated the smug notion that I’m something of an expert on my homeland.

I know how deep Crater Lake is, which of the Three Sisters is the tallest and which is the toughest climb, and why our state tree, the Douglas-fir, has that dash in its name.

It turns out, though, that my knowledge of Oregon amounts to a thin frosting of trivia. And there’s a lot of dense cake underneath.

I could, for instance, guess at the number of American Indian reservations in the state. But I’d probably be wrong.

(I was right about being wrong. I thought there were four. There are five. I looked it up.)

I’ve never hiked in Portland’s Forest Park, strolled through old town Florence, or, so far as I’m aware, ventured within five miles of Myrtle Point, Prospect or Elkton.

I’ve spelunked at Oregon Caves, where the tours are guided and you can buy an ice cream, but never in Malheur Cave, where there’s not even a sign.

I’ve been to the Capitol but I’ve never watched a legislative debate.

My ignorance in these and other matters doesn’t depress me, though.

It’s quite a lot, it seems to me, to expect any person to take the whole measure of one state even a small one like Delaware or New Hampshire.

And Oregon’s considerably bigger than those two states combined.

In fact you could toss in Rhode Island and still have room enough within Oregon’s borders to shove in, say, North Carolina.

Although Southerners, from what I can gather, don’t take kindly to being shoved.

So anyway, here’s a brief, eclectic quiz about Oregon.

Even if you don’t know all the answers I certainly didn’t you probably won’t need to poke around much to find them.

1. Which of Oregon’s incorporated cities lies at the highest elevation (one point)? Which Oregon city proclaims itself as the state’s andquot;tallest town,andquot; but really isn’t (one point)? One bonus point: what type of character, mounted on a sign, greets visitors to this self-proclaimed tallest town?

2. Match these three Oregon landmarks with the natural force that created each one (one point each):

Wallowa Lake; Steens Mountain; Crater Lake.

Volcanic eruption; glacial erosion; earthquakes.

3. Not counting Interstate 5, three major highways span Oregon from its northern border to its southern. What are these highways’ numbers (three points), and name the largest Oregon city, by population, that each highway passes (three points):

4. Two Oregon towns share the record for the highest temperature ever measured in the state. Name the towns (two points, plus one point if you know the record temperature):

5. During the early 1980s a religious sect established a commune in Central Oregon. Name the group’s spiritual guru (one point), the name they applied to a village after commune members gained a voting majority there (one point), and that town’s original (and current) name (one point). One bonus point: What was the guru’s favorite make of car?

6. Name the county seat of Coos County (one point):

7. Name the county seat of Grant County (one point):

8. Name Oregon’s largest county, by area (one point):

9. Name the town that was, early in 20th century, the center of Oregon’s wool industry (one point). One bonus point: Spell the last name of the settler who was the town’s namesake (though in greatly garbled form).

10. One of Oregon’s more unusual tourist attractions goes by two names. One is the House of Mystery. What’s the other name? (one point). Two bonus points: Name the town nearest the attraction, and name the Baker City merchant who grew up there.

11. Athletic contests between the University of Oregon and Oregon State University are known by what military moniker? (one point). Two bonus points: Which school has won more of these intrastate football games, and which holds the lead in mens basketball?

12. Oregon shares its birthday with one other state. Name the state (one point). For a bonus point, name the Baker City Herald employee who also was born on Valentine’s Day:

13. Early in the 20th century Oregon’s governor ordered his secretary, accompanied by members of the state militia, to close the saloons in a mining town that was getting too rough for the governor’s taste. Name the governor, his secretary, and the rowdy town (three points). One bonus point: What’s the name of the town that’s there now?

14. Oregon’s official state nut is the hazelnut. What is this nut’s other name (one point)?

15. Name Oregon’s last Republican governor (one point). Name Oregon’s last two-term Republican governor (one point):

ANSWER KEY 39 possible points.

1. Greenhorn, a historic gold-mining ghost town at the farthest western reach of Baker County, is about 6,300 feet above sea level. Lakeview, at 4,800 feet, claims the honor; and, considering that Greenhorn has at most two full-time residents, Lakeview’s boast is not unreasonable. The famous sign on the outskirts of Lakeview features a cowboy.

2. Wallowa Lake/glacier; Steens Mountain/earthquakes; Crater Lake/volcanic eruption.

3. Highway 101 (Coast); Highway 97 (Central); Highway 395 (Eastern).

Highway 101 Coos Bay; Highway 97 Bend; Highway 395 Pendleton.

4. Prineville (July 29, 1898) and Pendleton (Aug. 10, 1898). Record is 119 degrees.

5. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was the guru. His followers, who dressed in red, voted in 1984 to rename the town of Antelope, in Wasco County near Madras, as Rajneesh. After the commune collapsed in 1985 (members, among other acts, salted salad bars in The Dalles with salmonella), Antelope residents voted to restore their town’s original name.

The Bhagwan’s favorite car, by the way, was the Rolls Royce.

6. Coquille. Although its population is about one-fourth that of Coos Bay, the county’s biggest city, Coquille bucks the trend of having the most populous city as county seat.

7. Canyon City. Second consecutive trick question. Many people assume John Day is the county seat, and with good reason it’s the biggest city in a county that has few settlements of any size.

Out of Oregon’s 36 counties, eight have as their county seat a place that isn’t the county’s most populous. They are, in addition to the aforementioned Grant and Coos: Clackamas (county seat, Oregon City, largest city, Lake Oswego); Curry (county seat, Gold Beach, largest city, Brookings); Malheur (county seat, Vale, largest city, Ontario); Morrow (county seat, Heppner, largest city, Boardman); Polk (county seat, Dallas, largest city, Salem this is a bit of a misnomer, though, as Salem spreads across two counties, Polk and Marion; nonetheless, the part of Salem in Polk County contains more people than does Dallas); Sherman (county seat, Moro, largest city, Wasco).

Further trivia tidbit: In four of the preceding eight counties, the county seat not only isn’t the most populous city, it doesn’t even rank second. Those four are Coos, Grant, Malheur and Morrow.

In Coos County, county seat Coquille, with a population of 4,210, is smaller than both North Bend (9,720) and Coos Bay (16,005).

In Grant County, county seat Canyon City, with a population of 660, ranks third behind John Day (1,850) and Prairie City (1,100).

In Malheur, county seat Vale, with 2,050 residents, finishes third, behind both Nyssa (3,220) and Ontario (11,325).

In Morrow County, county seat Heppner, home to 1,415 people, also places third, trailing Boardman (3,175) and Irrigon (1,830).

8. Harney, 10,228 square miles. Or, if you visualize area better in acres, there’s 6,454,920 of them in the county. And approximately twice that many jackrabbits.

9. The town is Shaniko. It’s in Wasco County, north of Madras. Shaniko was named for August Scherneckau, who had a farm nearby. The local American Indians pronounced his name as Shaniko.

10. The Oregon Vortex/House of Mystery is near Gold Hill, in Southern Oregon. A former resident is Tom Kulog, co-owner of Betty’s Books.

11. The Civil War. Oregon leads in football, Oregon State in mens basketball.

12. Arizona, which entered the Union, as the 48th state, on Feb. 14, 1912.

Photojournalist S. John Collins entered the world on another Feb. 14, but during a year much later than 1859 or 1912.

13. The governor was Oswald West. On Dec. 30, 1913, Gov. West, a Democrat, told his secretary, Miss Fern Hobbs, to travel to Copperfield, a Baker County town along the Snake River, and relieve of their duties the local officials who refused to shut down the saloons.

On Jan. 2, 1914, Hobbs’ train arrived in Copperfield. When the officials refused, Hobbs declared martial law, and the militiamen rounded up 170 revolvers.

A fire destroyed most of Copperfield the next year, and the town’s post office closed, two fires later, in 1927.

Today the site is known as Oxbow, for the Idaho Power Co. dam just upstream on the Snake. Idaho Power preserved the Copperfield name in a campground and park.

14. Filbert

15. Vic Atiyeh, elected 1978.

Tom McCall, elected 1966, re-elected 1970.

RATING SCALE

30-39 points: You could help Oregon’s Secretary of State write the Blue Book, a compilation of Oregon facts

20-29 points: You’re either a native Oregonian, or you read a lot

10-19 points: If you weren’t born here, you’ve learned a lot about your adopted state

5-9 points: How do you pronounce andquot;Oregonandquot; again?

0-4 points: Baker County Public Library, 2400 Resort St.