Essentially Ashland...the Missing Years

I hope you?ll join me on this nostalgic, sometimes whimsical excursion into Ashland?s unique local history and culture. ?Essentially Ashland: The missing years? presents the stories of people and events that have helped make Ashland the attraction it is today. This book covers a period of time -- 1971 to the present -- that most accounts either ignore, or gloss over. It was during the early 70?s that a tidal wave of creativity and offbeat entrepreneurial spirit arrived with the counterculture, helping to breathe fresh hope and prosperity into a failing economy based on timber products. If you?re a resident of our town, you?ll probably encounter some old friends while reading this book. If you?re just visiting here, perhaps you?ll find people you?d like to meet in these pages. Either way, I promise that you?ll deepen your understanding of a place that?s like no other. Many of these stories were originally written for the venerable Ashland Daily Tidings. (I made my debut at the Tidings in 1977 with a piece on the death of Elvis, filing my copy from Belgium?but that?s another story.) Several dozen of my humor columns, which first appeared in the Tidings under the title ?Pugh?s Muse,? are also included in the second half of this book.