The Dalles Community Advantage Magazine April 2023

Wood You Believe?

Neal Creek offers forest products, pro help

By Angie Helvey, Contributing Writer

Photos by Henry Schifter

With warmer weather on the way, it’s the perfect season to plan your next landscape project. Whether you’re a commercial landscaper looking for bulk materials or a homeowner designing your dream property, Neal Creek Forest Products provides all the necessary supplies and includes an experienced and knowledgeable staff to guide you.

Neal Creek owner Paul Jones has an extensive background in forestry and started the business in 2018, growing a small firewood retail operation into the largest provider of local, sustainable materials in the Columbia Gorge. Their inventory boasts an impressive selection of locally-sourced building materials and mulch, compost, soil, rock, gravel, Western Interlock paving stones, and premium firewood.

Neal Creek also offers various services designed to make your life easier, including delivery of supplies, commercial and residential snow removal, and green waste recycling. They even feature an on-site mill for custom projects. Paul and his team love working with customers and pride themselves on highquality materials and superior customer service. “Our company’s vision is that our products and services put a smile on people’s faces,” Paul explains. “Whether they have a lush garden because of our compost, a beautiful yard with a fresh layer of our mulch, a hot fire with the firewood we produce, or a clean driveway with the help of our snow plowing, we love to brighten someone’s day and offer services that are a great help to people.”

Neal Creek values sustainably sourcing their products and keeping our forests healthy. They work closely with the National Forest Service to utilize resources produced from fuel reduction or thinning projects out in the woods. Some 80 percent of their offerings are upcycled or recycled, including firewood, lumber, mulch, and compost. Paul is proud to keep sustainable practices at the forefront of their business. “We understand how vital healthy forests are to the preservation of our planet, and we’re cognizant of how our business decisions could affect these valuable resources,” says Paul. They’ve also recently ordered their first firewood kiln and will be the first company in the area to offer kilndried firewood.

The Neal Creek team is ready to assist with any project and offer advice on what products and services best fit your circumstance. “I love being able to help people and answer all their questions when they don’t know what to get or how much,” shares Lily, Neal Creek office manager.

Paul is proud to cultivate a friendly and experienced crew. “Three of our main employees started with me in 2018, and it’s been great to grow the business with them. They’ve gotten to know all our customers, and we love the relationships we’ve built with little employee turnover,” Paul says.

Contact Neal Creek Forest Products for access to the largest, local, and consistent products supplier in the Columbia Gorge. You can be proud to work with a company that genuinely values preserving our complex forest ecosystem and offering fantastic customer service guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Neal Creek Forest Products is located at 3275 Neal Creek Mill Rd. in Hood River. For more info, check out nealcreekfp.com, call (541) 645-5605, or email info@nealcreekfp.com.

BILL BIXBY The INCREDIBLE HULK & MORE

By David Grove, Contributing Writer

Although actor Bill Bixby certainly played many different types of characters throughout his nearly 32-year television acting career, the essential Bill Bixby television persona is that of an everyman who makes the fantastical seem plausible.

Bill’s career breakthrough in Hollywood came in 1962 when he landed a starring role in the science-fiction television sitcom “My Favorite Martian,” which aired on CBS between 1963 and 1966 over three seasons. In “My Favorite Martian,” Bill plays Tim O’Hara, an eager young newspaper reporter who, in the show’s pilot episode, discovers a crashed spaceship and its Martian pilot, a Mars-based anthropologist played by Ray Walston. “Growing up in the 1960s, I was a big fan of “My Favorite Martian,” and a lot of the show’s appeal, for me, had to do with the impact that Bill made as an everyman,” says magician David Copperfield. “We dreamed, and experienced a sense of awe and wonder, through Bill’s eyes. As an actor, Bill was the man who experienced, and observed, crazy and impossible things. He was relatable. Bill played us.”

In the NBC television series “The Magician,” which aired between 1973 and 1974 for one season, Bill plays Anthony (Tony) Blake, a famous jet-setting stage illusionist who uses his performing skills to solve crimes. Bill himself

was a competent amateur magician. “I think that Bill was underrated as a performer, both as an actor and as a magician,” says Copperfield, who appeared alongside Bill in Copperfield’s 1979 CBS television special, “The Magic of David Copperfield II,” which Bill hosted. “I think that Bill was better than most, if not all, actors who performed magic on television. Bill was cool. He very much acted like, and certainly looked like, a real magician. Again, I found Bill to be so believable and relatable. With “The Magician,” I believed that Bill, playing a magician, knew what he was doing.”

Of course Bill is best remembered–largely due to the proliferation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe–for the Marvel Comics-based television series “The Incredible Hulk,” which aired on CBS between 1977 and 1982 over five seasons.

In “The Incredible Hulk,” Bill plays Dr. David Banner, a brilliant scientist who becomes a fugitive after a cell-altering process causes him to transform into the show’s titular monstrous green being, played by Lou Ferrigno, whenever Banner experiences great anger or stress. “[Bill] was my first, and only, choice for David Banner,” said Kenneth Johnson, the show’s creator and executive producer. “The network [was] very happy that I convinced Bill to come aboard. He was just terrific as David Banner.”

Following the end of the series, Bill and Ferrigno reprised their roles from the series in the 1988 NBC made-fortelevision film “The Incredible Hulk Returns,” followed by the films “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk” (1989) and “The Death of the Incredible Hulk,” both of which were directed by Bill. “Bill took me under his wing and taught me a lot,” said Ferrigno. “He was the first star [whom] I ever met. Bill was very genuine, quick, witty. I remember being so proud when Bill said to me: ‘Your character has connected with the public.’”

Born and raised in the bustling city of San Francisco, California, actor Bill Bixby, best remembered for the television series “The Incredible Hulk,” nonetheless discovered and fell in love with the outdoor lifestyle at an early age.

Throughout his childhood and teenage years, Bill spent many summers vacationing with his parents in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, specifically within the range’s Cisco Grove region, where Bill’s mother’s family owned an acreage

compound. Between 1955 and 1957, Bill spent much of his summers working as a bellhop and fledgling entertainment organizer at the Jackson Lake Lodge in remote northwestern Wyoming.

In July 1971, as a wedding present to his first wife, actress Brenda Benet, Bill purchased 110 acres of land alongside the beautiful McKenzie River in Lane County, Oregon. Bill’s ranch, which was known as the Hidden Valley Ranch, served as his primary vacation home and sanctuary throughout the rest of his career and life.

Whenever Bill visited Oregon, he stayed at the property’s main house, which could accommodate four people and offered a clear view of the surrounding McKenzie River Valley. Off to the west, there was Finn Creek, which ran behind the property’s barn and slaughter house.

To manage the property, the land and ranch, Bill selected his beloved maternal aunt, Ellen Hayes, who lived in Oregon until her death in 1997, and her husband, Ernest Hayes, who died in Oregon in 1986. “They [Ellen and Ernest] did a fair job of buying and registering cattle and maintaining the buildings and land,” said Ellen’s son, John Schubert, who died in June 2022. “Financially, the ranch wasn’t profitable, self-sufficient, nor would I say that it was a money pit. Bill loved the ranch. He needed someone to manage the ranch, and he was very happy with how [Ernest] and Mom took care of the property while Bill was in California.”

Diagnosed with cancer, Bill made his last visit to the beautiful Hidden Valley Ranch in Oregon, where he celebrated Christmas with family, including his Aunt Ellen and mother Jane. Bill died on November 21, 1993, in California, at the age of 59.

Lou Ferrigno & Bill Bixby in The Incredible Hulk November 4, 1977 –May 12, 1982

Bill Bixby & Ray Walston in My Favorite Martian September 29, 1963 – May 1, 1966

Bill Bixby as Tony Blake in The Magician March 17, 1973 – April 15, 1974