I have fond recollections of playing the video game The Oregon Trail at Belmont Elementary School. It never occurred to me then that Oregon might one day become my home, my equivalent to Dr. Ulmer's Xanadu. The game featured an image of settlers braving the Columbia River's rough waters, and it stuck with me through the years. As I forged my own identity, at least partially through fishing the Columbia's strong currents, it occurs to me now that the oar was a symbol for steerage. 
Taken informally, steerage might be viewed as the
product of steering—of using the kayak blade (or the oar in the image above) to
guide a watercraft through dangerous waters. Taken formally, however, steerage
is the literal belly of the boat—the most uncomfortable place in which to
travel. Steerage was hot. It was dangerous. It was no way to travel. As much as
Oregon remains my ideal of what it means to be "home," I had to move to Florida
to elevate my career discourse out of a place of steerage. In Oregon, I worked from one teaching contract to the next, never fully certain of the next semester's work. I was an adjunct and, although the lights stayed on and there
was always food on the table, I felt stuck below deck.
