Near record-high gold prices are drawing growing numbers of cash-strapped Oregonians to the state’s pawn shops with items ranging from the sentimental — pocket watches — to the odd — gold nuggets and dental crowns.

What a difference a year makes. A year ago, Portland-based heavy equipment manufacturer Esco was surging along on strong prices for metals and oil as well as emerging markets in India and China. Not any more.

Oregon’s new workplace smoking ban is a big reason why lottery and video poker sales in bars and restaurants dropped 20% in January and 15% in February compared to the same time last year, according to the Oregon Restaurant Association.

Need those Italian leather loafers or well-worn hiking boots resoled? Don’t be surprised if you wait three weeks for the repair.

It wasn’t that long ago in Oregon when hard-rock mining with a pick axe was a common line of work, when crews of immigrants competed for work laying railroad tracks, when farmers harvested wheat by hand and loaded it into horse-drawn carts.

Alice Doyle has been in the nursery business long enough to pick up on a powerful trend in plants.