A few years ago, Bend became all of Deschutes County – at least, in the eyes of Uncle Sam. When it created the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area, or MSA, it included every square inch of Deschutes County – Brothers to Sisters, Tumalo to Terrebonne, Redmond to La Pine. I once knew why, but I forget.;-)
Then there’s the other big government entity that says what’s where – the U.S. Postal Service.
To their way of thinking, “Bend” extends beyond Sunriver, almost to La Pine, west halfway to Sisters, and north halfway to Redmond – in terms of mailing addresses, that is.
So are those folks “Bend” residents? Of course not, they are MILES from the city limits, and never will be part of Bend – and if I know those rural residents as well as I think I do, they’re darn GLAD not to be really “in” Bend, whatever their catalogs, junk mail and bills tell them every day.
I raise the issue because we did a story of a big drug bust down south of Sunriver, and after using “South county” for a while – a most unwieldy term – I dared to call it a “La Pine” home where it happened.
Well, not exactly – but a heck of a lot closer than Bend is!
So of course, I came in for some grief, trying to “lump” these criminals in to give La Pine a black eye.
Puh-leeze. All I want to do is give people a better sense of where these locations are, good, bad or ugly. If someone from Oregon Water Wonderland is elected president – hey, it could happen – I bet folks would be glad to say they are from “La Pine,” or “Sunriver,” or even “Bend.” Even if they’re not really from any of them.
Geography, politics, crime and … well, human nature. Is this a great country or what?
Leave it to Barney 