My late Uncle Gordon practiced psychiatry in Los Angeles in the mid- to late-20th century.

I remember hearing him relate the observation of a man whom he knew in the entertainment industry.

Reflecting on the music of the 1940s, the man said: “We were happier then.”

That same comment occurred to me when I heard about an experiment that was tried in a nursing home. The facility’s magazines were supplanted by periodicals from the decade in which the nursing home’s residents were in their prime, and the sound system played music from those eras as well.

Researchers noted that the spirit and mood of the home’s residents rose.

Last Saturday night, my wife and I encountered tunes from the 20s and 30s at Tony Starlight’s Supper Club on Sandy Boulevard in Portland. It was a treat to listen to the less angst-ridden music of that era.

The musicians and singers call themselves the Midnight Serenaders. The lead males wore suits that were tailored in the manner of those decades, and one of the guys parted his hair toward the middle, like Rudy Vallee and other crooners of that period. The girl singer, Dee Settlemeier, wore a beautifully tailored suit jacket with elaborate pleats. She had iridescent red hair, false eyelashes that were teal green, shiny eye make-up and long art deco earrings.

The group’s musicianship on a variety of instruments was impressive. Settlemeier played a vintage ukulele and imitated the growl as well as the cutie-pie sound of female singers of that period. One guy played a Hawaiian slide guitar. Others played bass, saxophone, clarinet, trumpet and a tiny instrument they called a pocket trumpet.

We left a gray Portland Sunday behind as business took us to Eastern Oregon. Seaport Air’s Pilatus PC-12 aircraft took us above the clouds. Pendleton was overcast, but once we drove up into the Blue Mountains, sunshine returned outside La Grande.

The road to Enterprise mainly hugs the Wallowa River, a surging mountain stream with steeply rising slopes next to it. Autumn, of course, has moved more quickly through this region. Deciduous trees have shed their leaves.

One aspect of our deep recession is that railroad companies have parked their empty freight cars in remote locations. Union Pacific has made Wallowa County one big rail siding.

We spent the night at the Historic Enterprise House bed & breakfast, a home that was built in 1910 and extensively renovated. This is an exceedingly comfortable, beautifully decorated accommodation. Out the window of our sitting room was a view of the Wallowa Mountains graced with an early snow.

Small world: the inn’s proprietors, the Burgoynes, lived in Astoria and operated a tree farm, which they sold to Don Haskell.

Winter is at the door, and the visitor senses the challenge of sustaining oneself in these parts through the dark months that test the soul. Wallowa County in particular is at the end of a road. In Oregon we talk endlessly about the urban-rural divide, as though it were something we might bridge. I doubt that many urbanites grasp the emotional side of living in these beautiful, isolated places.

I counted 23 heads of deer, elk and mountain goats mounted on the walls of the Ox Bow Restaurant where we enjoyed dinner in Prairie City. One woman served the 30-some people in the place. She was a marvel of efficiency. Our fellow diners were members of the Car Club and guys watching Monday Night Football.

We drove some 10 miles to the Riverside School House Bed and Breakfast, which sits across the street from the Jacobs’ cattle spread. Judy Jacob has given bright new life to this white schoolhouse with a bell tower. Her breakfast – delivered in a basket – ham and French Toast garnished with large blackberries was a robust beginning to the day.

– S.A.F.