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WASHINGTON—Sen. Ron Wyden appeared visibly distant during a routine budget hearing Tuesday, staring solemnly into space as if mentally revisiting the harrowing weeks in 1848 when dysentery nearly claimed his life somewhere along the Oregon Trail just before reaching the Willamette Valley—an episode that would place the senator at roughly 1,178 years old today.
Staffers say the 1,100-year-old lawmaker grew quiet after a colleague referenced “long journeys,” prompting what one aide described as “that unmistakable thousand-yard pioneer stare.”
“You could tell he wasn’t in the chamber anymore,” said one intern. “He was back in a covered wagon outside present-day Salem, rationing beans, questioning whether choosing ‘grueling pace’
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