Slant: Empty Red Boxes, Dana’s Cheesecake, and City Club

Our printer in Klamath Falls delivers 30,000 copies of Eugene Weekly early every Thursday morning to our location on Lincoln Street. Then our circulation crew puts them in the red boxes and racks all over our community. Lately, we have had a few complaints that boxes and racks are out of papers by late Thursday and Friday. If you have that problem, please give us a call 541-484-0519 or send an email to Circulation@EugeneWeekly.com. That tells us if maybe we should be printing more papers. That’s a good problem to have. 

Finally, some good news about Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. He’s only 5 feet 9 inches tall, and, as the story goes, that’s too short to be president in this age of television. We don’t condone it — presidential fitness is not about looks or stature — but the conventional wisdom is that American voters don’t want a short president. From our perspective, we don’t want a racist, anti-education, anti-immigrant president. We’re watching folks line up against President Joe Biden with trepidation, and rooting for the politicians who care about people and the planet (Biden is about 6 feet tall, FYI).

After 40 years, the owners behind Dana’s Cheesecake Bakery, Dana and Colleen Bauman, have decided to retire. The popular Oregon Country Fair and Saturday Market booth announced the news on its Facebook Feb. 15. It’s the end of an era, and we’ll miss eating the cheesecakes and other sweet treats there, but we look forward to the next business to take the bakery’s place at Fair and Saturday Market. 

Congresswoman Val Hoyle will be at City Club of Eugene this week with “An Update to Local, Regional, and National Issues.” Her noon Friday, Feb. 24, talk will be in the Maple Room at the Inn at 5th. The former labor commissioner’s 4th Congressional District includes Benton, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Lane and Lincoln Counties.

We got word that longtime community member Cynthia Waters died in a car accident on Feb. 8 when her car slid into another, three miles short of Willamette Pass. Her friends tell us that she co-facilitated  a local depression and bipolar peer support group, and served as an active board member and guide for Nearby Nature. She was also a master gardener, dog-sitter and skier. Friends will gather to share memories 1 pm Saturday, March 4 at Francis M. Wilkins Shelter at Hendricks Park. Waters’ friends say she “was an Earth and animal lover, deeply caring, curious and playful” who had just bought her own home and “was joyfully nesting, living her best life.” Her friends have not been able to get in touch with her contacts and are hoping to get the word out. For more info visit MajorFamilyFuneralHome.com