Hangin' with some locals

Matt Groening says he chose Springfield for the name of The Simpsons’ home town because it was so generic.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey there are currently 33 populated places in 25 states named Springfield throughout the United States, including five in Wisconsin; additionally, there are at least 36 Springfield Townships, including 11 in Ohio.

Springfield, Oregon, doesn’t have a nuclear power plant, Krusty Burger or Mega Lo Mart, but it’s claiming a bit of the Simpsons for itself with this mural. Sure, why not?

Springfield is also happy to remind folks that Ken Kesey spent his youth there before leaving for the University of Oregon across the river and LSD trips across the universe.

I have a several-degrees-of-separation thing going with Kesey. While in a writing program at Stanford, he worked at the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park, California. It was there he got inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and was introduced to psychoactive drugs by the CIA. My connection, pathetic as it is: in the early '80s I lived in an apartment across the street from the hospital, writing nothing, taking no drugs.