Wow, I’m doing some research for an Oregon retirement website and just learned that according to recent survey the 2004 book called “Retirement Places Rated” out of hundreds of retirement areas in the USA two of the top ten places to retire in the USA are right in my back yard – one of them actually includes my back yard because it’s the Medford / Ashland area here in Southern Oregon. The other is Florence, Oregon – number one in the survey of over 300 places. I travel there often and personally prefer this area due to much better weather and our abundant big-city amenities in a small city, but Florence Oregon is a really nice place too and it’s the home of Oregon Coast Magazine and our Online Highways websites including this great Oregon Travel section in case you are planning a trip to Oregon. Our Travel Blog is here and I’ve posted a few good Oregon travel references as a warmup to the big blog I’m starting this month that will cover the entire state of Oregon. More on that later.
Locals call this the “Rogue Valley” and historically our wonderful region does very well in national “best places to retire” and “best places to live” surveys. I’ve lived in the East, Midwest, several California cities, and here in the Rogue Valley and it’s hard to imagine a better place to raise a family or retire. The houses are relatively expensive and the economics for a wage earner are the most challenging aspect here which may be why the population remains modest, though growth in some of our areas has been dramatic.
Joe Duck 
Always felt that many of those ‘places rated’ were too statistically oriented. Number of radio stations per 1,000 people may be a great ratio, but how many radio stations do you plan to listen to? Number of golf courses and their fees can be a nice statistic but only for those who happen to play golf. Crime rates are nice stats but so much of it is politically influenced that its almost as meaningless as some of the other standards utilized for such rankings. A retiree has to go by his own intended lifestyle rather than statistical averages.
FG I agree on both counts – stats greatness isn’t life greatness and people’s preferences vary enormously. I like rural life but some city folks go crazy without walls of concrete and a club on every block. Still, these stats are better than no info at all, especially if you want to winnow down all the possibilities to a few. I think smart retirees actually live in an area for 6 months to a year before making a permanent commitment.
Yes indeed. Many people enjoy Florida vacations each year but when they retire to Florida they’ve had it after a short while. Also many people who buy an RV find that they soon put a for sale sign on it.
One couple was recently profiled as retiring FROM Florida TO Maine! It worked for them because it was a careful selection that met their individual needs. Many retirees want lack of growth because they’ve had it with taxes, schools, road construction and delays. Many retirees value medical care but don’t measure its qualities by a statistical average. I think retirees probably live longer if they are further from doctors and hospitals but who knows for sure? Except for trauma related deaths, being physically fit right up until death at a very old age is best achieved by being in a county where there thousands of times more cattle or sheep than there are doctors! One town had fairly low housing costs but then some pen stroke in Washington, DC increased the train traffic thru that town. Retirees don’t like 4:00am train whistles!
FG I wonder if that health stat is available. I have a hunch you are correct – that there may be advantages to living *away* from hospitals which may incline/force a person to take better care. Almost certainly good health would increase as you get farther from the hospital simply because hospitals are in inner cities. Correlation in that case would not be causation.
Also ofcourse more rural areas would mean a greater tendancy for exercise and a greater liklihood of comparative isolation from germ-farms. So it would not necessarily be the distance per se from the inner city. The thrust of my argument was that these Places Rated books often measure health care by number of doctors per 1,000 population or number of health facilities or something and that is not much of a standard for the care that one might receive there. A community with only one ambulance and only one hospital and only one doctor would rate low but might in fact be fairly high in quality of care.
FG yup, agree. Assigning a single number to highly dynamic things like a cities “health care” makes it easier to analyze things but it’s very simplistic…
my name is terry wagar I’m e-mailing you because I’m at a loss as to what i can do about a very dangerous murder conspiracy against me and others, for over 2 and a half years I’ve suffered from this conspiracy, it began { as best as i can tell,} when my wife joan wagar started having a affair with a co-worker named eric carlson, there affair started around April of 2005, i had reason to believe they was trying to kill me back then but i wasnt sure at the time, I’m very very sure now! there is a very interesting fact about eric that joan tried to hide from me and my daughters, he is almost identical in appearance to me! my wife nicknamed him doubleclick, when i learned of my wifes affair i also learned of that nickname and asked joan “why do you call him doubleclick ” she said ” oh thats what everyone calls him at work,” ever since my wife joan insisted her affair was over, it never ended, year and a half all kinds of odd things was happening i started getting very sick from time to time, i suspected she was poisoning me but was not sure at the time, i am now! in early 2006 around Feb or mar i went to the hospital asking to be tested because my wife was talking in her sleep saying she was poisoning me, i went to OHSU and signed in, they informed me that its unlikely that they will find anything but they took my vitals and i waited in the lobby, i waited 4 and a half hours and they never called me back to be checked, and no officers came to question me about my concerns. so i went home, i could tell no one there cared. this is just too long to explain so i will try to get to the point, on march 26th of 2007 at 5;55 am i put a audio recorder in joans purse because i heard my wife whispering to someone in her bedroom, { i slept on the couch, our marriage was falling apart.} i heard what sounded like a guy whispering back, so i put my recorder in her purse expecting to finally catch joan in the act and laid down pretending to still be asleep, ten minutes later my wife left for work, what i caught on there was a lot more than i expected, i caught a murder conspiracy! i didn’t know it right away because the audio i got is like 17 hours long, when i heard on it she was with eric two days later i left her and moved in with my oldest daughter shawna, i spent the next week and a half on and off trying to listen to this audio, it didn’t take long to figure out i was being framed for something by my wife and her lover, and they had help! lots of help, i learned i was under INVESTIGATION BY THE FBI and these INVESTIGATORS were good friends with joan and eric and they all met up at our apartment that morning in joans bedroom, they climbed in through joans window, i learned they were there to frame me as a pedophile, eric was posing for pictures in kayles bedroom,{ our youngest daughter,} while the INVESTIGATOR named ERICA { last name unknown to me.} was taking pictures of him while kayle slept, after words eric climbed out joans window and waited for her in her car, and a john ray climbed in and helped joan put something on our computer and then he left the way he came, joan finished getting ready for work and picked up her purse and left for work, once outside joan was talking to these INVESTIGATORS and discussing what they was going to do next, joan and eric on the ride to work was discussing what they was going to say to other employees when they get there, joan mentioned to eric {you woke her up} referring to kayle, and then they discussed breaking into shawnas apartment with ERICA, after lots of listening to that audio i learned joan eric and erica planed to rape shawna and murder her and then frame me for this! they planed to use a signed check of mine to purchase a gun in my name, remember eric looks almost like me in appearance, eric was going to use my ID and one of my checks to purchase a gun, joan was instructed to collect my sperm, eric was going to rape and murder shawna, erica was going to plant my sperm on shawnas body along with other false evidence, joan and eric met up at walmart along with vickie {joans sister} and the investigators and was waiting at the front door for someone to let them in, other employees showed up and the investigators pretended to have caught me in the act, [ referring to eric in kayles room,} and saying they got me on fotogenic, once inside the investigators proceed to put on a phony show of investigating while in the presence of walmart employees while joan and eric and vickie are trashing my name to there fellow employees turning everyone there against me, joan was even addmeting eric has been impersonating me for other crimes, after hours and hours of the investigators claiming in walmart employees presence that i was doing wrong things and joan and eric telling countless lies about me the investigators gave permission to all of them to pedifie me, joan started printing out flyers about me at walmart,{ unknown to me whether they used them or not.} i learned they had me under a illegal video survealence the hole apartment had hidden cameras and the investigators asked there supervisor to take 6;30 off of joan because john ray broke in there, when i left joan and moved in to my daughters apartment about 3 or 4 days later the FBI took over the apartment above shawna and they proceeded to spread rumors in shawnas neiborhood, and was spying on us as well with hidden cameras, they didn’t know at that time that i knew they were up there, the ceiling in shawnas apartment has no insulation so i could hear them up there talking about editing my audio and discussing ways of killing me, i knew because they are members of authorities i couldn’t get help calling 911, not to mention i was very worried for my family’s safety i was afraid to tell shawna about this at this time for her own safety so i just continued to listen to the audio trying to learn as much about this as i could but for my own safety i pretended to not understand it well, about a week and a half after i left joan on April 7th donna { joans mother who also lives at shawnas apartment complex, } asked shawna if i could go to her apartment to fix her computer she said it wouldn’t work on the Internet, i didn’t want to but shawna insisted so i went over to Donna with shawna and tried to fix her computer, donna offered me a cup of coffee and i accepted, she brought me a cup of coffee and what looked like a mayonaze lid filled with sugar, i put 2 or 3 spoonfuls in my coffee and was sipping while working on her computer, finally i told donna i cant fix it and that maybe she should get a new computer, i drank up my coffee and me and shawna left to go back to shawnas apartment which isn’t far away, by the time i got to the stairs i started not feeling well, once inside i really started feeling very sick and needed to lie down, fifteen minutes later my head felt like there was acid eating away at me from the inside, not thinking clearly i called Joanne asking if she could take me to the hospital, during the drive there joan was looking at her rear view mirror a whole hell of a lot, which gave me the suspicion we were being followed, keep in mind neither joan nor those investigators knew yet that i knew about them, once at the hospital i was so fucked up and hurting in my head that i needed a wheelchair, once i was admitted and taken back to a emergency room i waited and waited and no doctor ever came and examed me, one person came in acting like a doctor but never examed me, he only wanted to put his finger in my ass supposed for a colon test of some sort, but he never asked me what was wrong, never examed my eyes or mouth or ears, never took my vitals, never took a urine sample, i was holding my head in severe pain and all he wanted was to put his finger in my ass, once done he left, a half hour later a male nurse brought me a bottle of something to drink saying i need to drink the whole bottle and then i was going to some room to have a kind of ex ray of some sort, never once did a doctor examine me nor did a doctor come in to explain what was going on, after i drank the bottle the nurse took me to a room for this ex ray then brought me back to my room, about a hour later a doctor came and explained that the only thing they could find wrong was there was a little bleeding in my colon and he recommended i follow up with a colanoscopie, needless to say i was totally shocked at his blatant attempt to ignore the fact that NOBODY EXAMED ME!!! i knew at this time that those investigators had somehow interfered with my medical treatment and done something to prevent a doctor from examine me! i went back to shawnas apartment still in pain in my head, it felt like acid burning in there, and to this day i am still in pain in my head over this, about a week after this i stopped pretending to know nothing about this crap with joan and the investigators and looked up at the ceiling where they were and called them a bunch of criminals and murderers and that i was completely discuss ted with them, shawna was home at this time but didn’t understand why i did that, an hour later shawna left for work and after that all hell broke loose up stairs, a whole lot of people in suits was going up there and there was some yelling and they seemed very angry, a lot of activity going on for the rest of that day in that apartment above shawnas place, at around 8 or 9 that nite several people went up there talking very loudly acting like they were looking at something and said very loudly { yep thats a pedophile alright.} and then him and a few others from that apartment ran out of there yelling at the top of there lungs through out the hole neaborhood calling me a pedophile, from this point on they was pedifieing me openly in shawnas neaborhood, just flat out calling me a pedophile to others in that neaborhood, this hole time i spent most of my time on the floor in pain from donna poisoning me, i flat out knew i could get no help calling 911 since these were people in authority doing this to me, they stopped doing this when shawna was around they didn’t want her to know about it, i told shawna about this but she didn’t believe me because she never witnessed any of it and no one at work mentioned this to her, she believed donna poisoned me but she never understood any of the other stuff, the investigators were quite until shawna left for work and was loud when she left, they would say things like { were going to FUCK you over now you son of a bitch!} i remained in the apartment for about a week after donna poisoned me unable to walk much because of the pain, around this time eric showed up downstairs talking very loudly up at the investigators, { the investigators were on the third floor on the patio and eric was on the ground talking up at them, shawnas app is in between them} and eric was loudly calling me a pedophile and giving my description to others who were out there trying to piss me off, i didn’t go out to confront him because i knew they wanted to shoot me, before he left he yelled up at the investigators telling them to make sure i drink my coffee, keep in mind they weren’t hiding any of there murder attempts from me, after all eric and joan had permission from the authorities to murder me so they just don’t give a shit, i have reason to believe the authorities pressed charges against me and gave my disscription on tv because where ever i go people seem to recognize me, people in shawnas old neaborhood would point over at me and say “there’s the guy they pedified.” ever since i have been under attack behind my back and in front of my face, i learned from that audio that they pedified me in prison so if i get arrested for anything i will likely be murdered in prison, after they poisoned me at some point they broke into shawnas app and replaced my audio with a differant version hoping i would think its the original, i didn’t fall for that,there version is nothing but a death threat against me and shawna and there demonstrating how they plan to frame my hole family and give them the blame for me being poisoned and pedofied, and at the end of it there flat out frameing me as a pedophile using my voice and kayles, although they made the mistake of admitting somewhere in the middle of the audio that there using kayles voice, on there replacement audio they threatened to pedofie shawna if i say something about this, well they already did that, what it amounts to is they tried to kill me and shawna, i caught them in the act , and then they threatened to kill us if i talk about it and then they tried to kill us again, so it does me no good to heed there threats, as far as I’m concerned they murdered me already and there in the process of murdering shawna right now, there have been too many attempts to tell them all on this, let me suffice it to say the other nite joan and a couple of her friends came here to murder me and that plan failed, but there not scared about it because they have some people in authority covering there asses, i write this on November 13th 2007 and at this very moment this apartment is under a illegal video survielence by the FBI, and they allow others over the Internet to spy on us and make fun of us, chances are there going to murder me for sending this because they made it clear there going to cover there asses, but thats why i saved the best for last.
p.s. the address where this ocured is 8800 se causey loop n-205 clackamas OR 97086, the whole neaberhood there has heard of this and the authorities used a warrant to kick out the tenants above shawnas apartment