RURAL REFLECTIONS: One voice

Published 8:00 am Thursday, July 3, 2025

This column is a little different. Well, maybe most of mine are “a little different.”

After my column was published last week, emails started coming in. I absolutely love receiving “mail” from those of you who check in each week.

High school senior paper. Questions were asked and eager grads answered. One question: How do you see your future? Hmm. I just wanted to get married and have babies. So I answered: I want to be a journalist. Wow, where did that come from?!

For many of us, life gets in the way of dreams. Although I can’t say that mine a was a “dream.” No, it was just a “popped into my head” answer. I was still determined to get married and have babies. Of course, it was the ’60s.

Why do we allow ourselves to dodge our dreams? The Loxley girls were not brought up to know we could pursue our dreams. College was in the future, but we had no opportunities in a small school to be exposed to the possibilities. Church and school were our only sources. With three girls bending towards the arts, it was a travesty. We were caught in a web.

So how do we get out of that web that either we create or one that is holding us back? What allows us to soar? And would we take the chance if we saw it?

When my children were in high school, I began writing social dramas to reach out to people hurting, those who had no voice. For 12 years I wrote and produced shows on AIDS, teen pregnancy, drugs and alcoholism.

Yes, a door opened, and I walked through it. I did not need a degree that said I could do it. Just one person had faith in me and said, “Write.”

Today there are many who do not know how to use their voices. It is difficult to put yourself out there and talk about your concerns and worries. I decided to become a voice.

In this time of a country falling apart, an earth in danger, violence and hate becoming the norm, we need every voice. I find it hard to believe that I am a journalist, yet for the first time in my life I feel at home. What I write is not about me. It is about you.

You are my friends. I am here to listen to you. For some reason, I walked this path to be here for you. We are a family of people needing one another. Our borders do not contain us. Our oceans do not separate us. Our religions most certainly should not separate us. Our skin color will not separate us. And, I personally do not care what your sexual preference happens to be. That is your business, and I support you.

Thank you for taking me with all my ramblings and observations. Yes, I am a bit quirky, but
then our differences are the beauty of this tapestry we weave together. We are indeed family.

Pamela Loxley Drake is a Beaverton resident and self-described lifelong “farm girl.” You can contact her at pamldrake@gmail.com.