The Last Battle for The Refuge

A Broken Heart

Do you know what it is to have your heart broken? What it means to get your ass kicked in a battle to preserve something you love? Well, I do.
The headline read: "Nestucca Bay Refuge Opens with Art, Audubon, and More."
The article, in part, read:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service…will host a Celebration of Wildlife…on Saturday, Oct. 11. The free community-wide event is in honor of the grand opening of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge near Cloverdale.

The refuge will open at 9 a.m., with a ribbon cutting at 10:45 a.m. and free guided walks from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Visitors are also welcome to explore the new Pacific View Trail.

In 2004 the Oregon Department of Transportation awarded (a) grant to the USFWS, to design and construct visitor facilities on the refuge. The project includes two parking lots; a paved, wheelchair-accessible trail that leads to an elevated viewing deck; road improvements; interpretive panels; and a restroom. The paved Pacific View Trail and Deck perched atop Cannery Hill, afford visitors a sweeping view of the ocean…

I served as caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge for ten years, from 1998-2008, and ascended Cannery Hill over 8,000 times during my tenure. I must have been the luckiest American alive to enjoy this privilege.

What was once a bankrupt dairy farm, an abused and forlorn piece of land, I helped restore to fuller ecology. Indeed, I led the restoration and cleared acres of blackberries, planted 2,000 trees, and organized over a hundred volunteer groups to plant an additional 20,000 trees. I ripped out miles of barb wire and hauled away tons of garbage. I gave the land everything I had, and in turn the land gave me everything of things I didn't even know existed. This exchange—an exchange older than words—changed my life and created the human standing before you today. I love the refuge so much that I tattooed its greatest symbol on my body. Tell me an employee of the refuge would do that. Many jobs undermine our best principles. A while later, they disintegrate them.

And now the humans invade with their pavement and their cars and their plastic and their restrooms and their expensive optics. USFWS estimates that in the peak season, 250 vehicles a day will park on the refuge. At the point, visitors won't see any wildlife. But they will have a sweeping view of the ocean from the Pacific Wildlife Dispersal Viewing Deck.

To think that my service on behalf of the refuge enabled humans to visit the refuge is one of the most unbearable thoughts I've ever had. But it's probably true. No, it is true. I happily labored there, but not for other humans. I was called "selfish" at a public meeting after I read a statement in opposition to a public presence on the refuge. "You want it all for yourself," a woman said angrily.

I only wanted humans to leave a natural place alone. To do nothing. To let it heal and become wild. They could not. They almost never can. Both the Left and Right are guilty of this. Rednecks don't run marathons on Antarctica.

Not too long ago, as I drove by the refuge and saw the pavement and the Pacific Wildlife Dispersal Viewing Deck from Highway 101, I nearly vomited out the window. Then the nausea ebbed and the sound of a breaking heart commenced. It sounded worse than anything I'd ever heard inside of me.

What is a wildlife refuge? I know what it is not: a place where humans intrude on wildlife for human satisfaction. If you define the phrase any other way, you are unconscious. You are a human who stands in a smoking clearcut and claims nothing is wrong. Or believes a salmon raised in a concrete pond is a wild fish. As the writer Derrick Jensen clinically described these humans, "You are insane."

If I was half the man I wanted to be, I'd take a flamethrower to the deck or chainsaw it to the ground the night before the ribbon cutting ceremony and film it for all the YouTube world to see. I would free Cannery Hill.

Unfortunately, I am a coward and don't possess the courage of the tree sitters or the whaler rammers.

I was going to boycott celebration—if the celebration is the word. I prefer the more accurate noun 'desecration.' Defilement is good one too. But what good does it do a writer to sit out his story if that story is in play?

It does no good. So I'm going up there, on my own. No, not to watch the insane cut the cute ribbon. I'll visit the refuge beforehand, before dawn's early light, and offer my little gift.

1:06 PM - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Sonny’s Comeback

The first rain of the season fell while Sonny alternately walked and crawled fifty yards down the beach. At one point, she collapsed in the sand and howled. I let her rest for a few minutes and then helped her back to the truck.

The next afternoon she limped 75 yards and didn't need assistance on the return. We even roughhoused for a few seconds and Ray joined us in the brawl. When I slammed the tail gate shut, and Sonny stood up to lick me, I smiled for the first time in a week.

You want to know what I would give to have this dog run again? Pretty much everything. I might even vote for McCain and have sex with Palin with the lights on and her hair up. But that's not the way these things work.

The comeback is underway. I hear the theme from "Rocky" on the beach. Sonny and I have been talking together. We've been talking about goals, pride. I tell her she's a Love godammit! I've massaged her legs like Mick massaged Rocky's shoulders. She even has her special fighter's towel. I've rolled out every coaching cliché employed in sports history. They must have worked on someone. Shit, they worked on me once, thirty years ago.

I doubt Sonny will ever return to her former wild sprinting abandon, perhaps the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld. And at least thirty of you reading this know what I am talking about. You've seen it! But I still have faith she will outrun me one of these mornings. When she blows by me, all will be well with my world. Well, almost. The important parts.

Tomorrow, we'll attempt one hundred yards. I hope it rains. Sonny prefers it that way. I gathered that after 1500 beach runs with her. She told me.

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In Hoover’s Rock Zone

In the Rock Zone

Laura turned 35 and wanted to celebrate in grand Newport style.

Naturally, she chose Hoover's, so the call went out to her friends to rendezvous on Saturday night and participate in the publicly-viewed, typically drunken, doctorless, musical psychotherapy session also known as karaoke.

I blew threw the doors as the clock neared eight and detected the presence of Shifty and Shaky, the two Busch Light-in-a-24-ounce-can swilling hustlers who shook me down for a hundred bucks two weeks ago when I allegedly scraped their piece of shit Capri while backing up a friend's luxury Volvo out of Hoover's parking lot.

Laura greeted me with a hug and I presented her my gift: a live mouse trap and an Oregon Lottery scratch-off ticket. The joint was packed with its usual assortment of Raymond Carver/Bob Seger characters and I waded through them to order a beer.

On my way to the bar, I passed a 400-pound man, obviously intoxicated, verging on collapse, and a reedy dude with a wispy red beard and sideburns decorating his sallow face. He carried a pool cue in a case, dressed in red and white except for a black baseball cap turned sideways, and wore a thick gold chain dangling to his waist. He brought to mind a vision of how a young Kris Kringle might have turned out had he sampled crystal meth and hip hop.

Back at the table with Laura's friends, I sipped my beer and abruptly made the acquaintance of an older woman who informed me that: 1) She was a grandmother with 11 grandchildren; 2) she had been drinking in Hoover's since two p.m.; 3) she loved Newport; 4) she loved to rock.

I ordered another beer and when I returned, the woman looked straight at me and asked, "I'm looking at a real man, aren't I?"

Before I could answer, she followed up with, "Are you a rocker? Are you in the rock zone?"

"The rock zone? Where is that?" I replied.

"You know, the rock zone."

It might have been the most penetrating existential question I'd ever been asked.

"Sure, I'm there."

"Well, you look like you belong."

After a delay attributed to a computer malfunction and not human drunkenness, the karaoke machine finally booted up, the music blasted on, and a portal to the rock zone flew instantly open. Many entered.

The emcee warmed up the crowd and then Laura opened the real show with a swing classic. As soon as she sang a few lines, Hoover's came to life as only Hoover's can.

The last thing I saw as I left an hour later was the grandmother shaking her booty on the dance floor while off in the far corner, in the blue glow of a beer neon, Kris Kringle made out with a blonde as he clutched his pool cue in his left hand.

9:54 PM - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Citadel of the Spirit Goes to Press

On Monday, my new book, Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon's Sesquicentennial Anthology goes to the printer, a full month ahead of schedule. I have now nearly completed a project that started just under two years ago.

The 509-page, 198,000-word manuscript looks absolutely wonderful. My designer did a wonderful job and Henk Pander's paintings give the cover the kind of bold look I was seeking. I've also viewed the documentary film, Politics of Sand, accompanying the special edition, and I think it's the best documentary about an Oregon historical topic I've ever seen.

I should have copies ready to distribute in less than two months, well in advance of the book's official release on Feb 14, 2009.

The big Portland launch is set for Friday, February 13, 2009, at the Powell's downtown store. I hope all of you can attend. I want to break the record for attendance at a downtown Powell's event.

Below is the Thanks section of the book. Some of the readers of this blog are contained within this long piece. Find yourself.

THANKS

I must begin by thanking all my contributors. What incredible effort they expended on my behalf! But I know what they really did it for—Oregon. We all did.

Next on the list to acknowledge are all the people who bought the special $100 hardback edition of the anthology. Their patronage helped me finance this project and I seriously doubt I could have done it without them.

Henk Pander donated the use of the stunning Oregon images that adorn the anthology. I am forever grateful for his generosity and faith in my project.

Rachel Tobie performed a marvelous job designing Citadel of the Spirit and was a wonderful collaborator in bringing out my vision for the "look" of this book. She taught me a lot about the art of graphic design.

A hearty thanks goes out to Tom Olsen, a great friend and fellow illuminator of Oregon's special conservation legacy, who allowed me to include copies of his important film documentary Politics of Sand, in the special hardback edition of the anthology. If you haven't seen the film and love Oregon, then track down a copy and watch it with your family. Then go the beach.

It would have been absurd, not to mention hypocritical of me to have book about Oregon's sesquicentennial printed outside the state. I enlisted Pioneer Printing in Newport and they did a wonderful job. This entire book is literally made in Oregon by Oregonians and will be read almost exclusively by Oregonians who purchased the book from Oregon independent bookstores. I call this "sustainable literature."

An able troupe of typists assisted me preparing the historical excerpts: Lori DeCarlo, Audrey Guerena, Dani Berger, Amber Nortness and Amity Jones. Shannon Carson was a big help on editorial matters and copy editing.

A few special friends offered suggestions, encouragement and enthusiasm that vastly improved the anthology and my mental health: Erin Ergenbright, Tom Olsen, Audrey "Toots" Guerena, Heather Hensley, Gina Ochsner, Jim Lynch, Melissa Madenski, Kim Bernosky, Tom "Rock" McDermott, Jeff Baker, Nora Robertson, Carla Perry, Ramona Creighton and Walt "Pioneer Pride" Curtis.

I owe much to the many, many librarians and volunteers at local history museums across the state. They enthusiastically assisted my research and pointed me toward several new discoveries. To these crack guardians of the Citadel, I say thank you. Keep it up. I'll be back.

Other people and places that warrant my gratitude: My mother, Dawn Engel, stepfather, Marty Engel, father, Karl Love, stepmother, Pauline Love; Kim Stafford (firing me up); Dana Spink (tracking down the centennial anthology); Rex Amos (Rick Rubin materials); Jeff Baker (letting me run with story ideas); Rose DeBlock (great friendship, candor, and rambles down Nestucca Spit—our incidents inside Fort Clatsop and atop the Matt Kramer Memorial almost made it into the book); Writers on the Edge (helping to legitimize my writer's voice); Café Mundo in Newport where I serve as the Writer in Residence and read every Thursday night at open mike; the Sportsman Tavern in Pacific City (a good place to edit); the sorely missed Migrations Café in Pacific City (a good place to write and bitch about the Pelican Pub and the Cottages of Cape Kiwanda, twin satanic engines of destroying a special place on the Oregon Coast); Cindy Popp (for just being Cindy Popp and helping me become the person I always wanted to be); Aaron Koch, (retrieving a document at the University of Oregon); Stephen Anderson (Ralph Friedman suggestion); Laura Wilt (ODOT historian); Sandi Williams, my excellent boss in the Lincoln County School District (total freedom to do my job); Ramona Creighton, my program assistant, a great friend, whose expert administrative work on my behalf and passion for Oregon history has helped me turn out Oregon books; Romalyn Schmaltz (Bay City rolling); the Oregon Coastal Refuge Complex of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (superb landlords for a decade in my role as caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge); Lena Burdett (web site); Chuck Johnson (Bob Straub stuff); Gregg Jackson (studio space in Pacific City); Jeremy Wilson, Mike Gipp, Blair Kramer and the Hardings (trust to lend me their memorabilia); Nestucca Spit (its tranquility and quintessential Oregon story); Bob Straub (being a son-of-a-bitch in the successful effort to save Nestucca Spit from the grasping wastrels of the land).

And, finally, the dogs: Sonny, Ray and Jo Jo. What a team we were for six years! If only we could ramble Nestucca Spit together again. Those were the best days and nights of living at the Oregon Coast.

Do what you can, should, to protect Oregon from the Citadel's enemies. They'll never give up. They're out there now, as I write this, gathering signatures, writing columns, blogging, disparaging homosexuals and Mexican laborers, talking bullshit on radio stations, taking big PAC money from out-of-state nuts, trying to undo the very reasons that inspired me to produce this book and make Oregon one of the most desirable places to live in the world. Don't let them win. It's up to all of us.

8:25 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Sonny Update

Thanks to all my friends who've expressed concern about Sonny's rare condition. Here's the latest: she has started walking but not very well, and only a few feet. At times she seems depressed but I have been rushing home from school to hang with her. We've gone to the beach several times so she can smell the ocean. I have to carry her down from the parking lot but the load is worth it.

It was a week ago this morning that her paralysis set in. I need to have patience and faith here--not two of my better traits.

1:21 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Sonny’s Tragedy

Sonny's Tragedy

Last Wednesday morning on the beach, before school, before the sun had risen, I searched in vain for Sonny. Ray jogged behind me as I called out to Sonny, wondering where the hell she was. In all my years of rambling Oregon beaches with Sonny, she'd bolted and disappeared countless times, but always returned.

I called for ten minutes. Twenty. Nothing. I started up the path to the road thinking she might be waiting there when I heard a strange yelp, then a cry. It sounded like an animal in pain. I sprinted up the path in almost total darkness and came across Sonny splayed on the asphalt, drooling, somewhat convulsing, and unable to walk. I felt her body and she seemed paralyzed in the legs, but lucid. I picked up her up began carrying her the half mile to home. At some point, exhausted, I set her down, tied her to a post and sprinted with Ray to get the truck.

An hour later I dropped Sonny off at the vet. She still couldn't walk. I couldn't conceive of what was wrong with her. She had no bruises, cuts, or punctures of any kind. How does a dog simply become paralyzed in the legs?

In a daze, I taught four periods at NHS and then rushed over to the vet's. The vet informed me that Sonny had contracted coonhound paralysis syndrome, a rare virus originating from raccoons that is apparently passed through saliva. Sonny's condition could last four days or eight months or forever. We are talking about Sonny here, my great rambling companion of nine years whose reckless running down the beach has cheered me up on more that one occasion. To see her run the way she does is one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. I know many readers of this blog have seen her run like this on the sand and on the refuge and you can imagine my distress at the prospect of her never walking again.

There is hope. In the past couple of days she has shown some improvement and can walk a few feet. I still have to carry her outside to go to the bathroom, though, and she can't really manage stairs. I have started a physical therapy regimen and she seems responsive to treatment. All I can do now is have faith that my great husky will walk again. Running would be a bonus.

7:02 AM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

My Last Saturday Morning in Newport

Last Saturday Morning in Newport

Saturday morning. The Pacific Time Zone sleeps in but I hit the beach at 6:15 A.M. to run with the dogs.

I see no other human beings around to taint our moment. Streaks of yellow and orange fill the sky and three tiny lights on the water. I book, I haul, I dodge dead murres, Steve Prefontaineing-it down the wet sand, ready to do anything to make America a better place. And that includes having sex with Sarah Palin with the lights on for world peace. That's how much I love my country and if you don't, you can go straight to hell. Or worse—part of subsidized Alaska where the roughnecks all live on welfare and think they exist as the last cowboys on the earth.

What a perfect Oregon Coast morning! Thank St. Oswald West for that. I do forty push ups in the surf for the sheer helluva it. Why not? I changed my life and run this beach whenever I want while the rest of the galley slaves talk about celebrities in their cubicles. Forgive them Lord, they know not what they miss or cannot conceive. Which is great for me because I never have to see them on the beach.

The run over, I stash the dogs at the house and head to the Newport Farmer's Market to buy a real tomato, you know, the kind of luscious asymmetrical and discolored beauty most Americans have never tasted and that Sarah Palin wouldn't eat because a political consultant told her a hippie grew it.

The tomato costs me more than a gallon of gas. Which is at it should be. I take a bite as I drive away from the market and wonder if a majority of Americans will ever experience the pleasure of tasting a real tomato. I doubt it.

Next stop, a second hand store I haven't visited yet.

Barely a minute of exploration and …Eureka! Pure gold! A Grease eight track tape still in the package—fifty cents; a Thermos that probably belonged to a hard hat worker from an era when hard hat workers made their own lunch instead of buying shit from a convenience store—one dollar; an Oregon Centennial high ball glass in mint condition, just begging for some Oregon-distilled whiskey—one dollar; an intact twelve-ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper probably from the Johnson Administration, sweetened by Hawaiian sugar, not Midwestern corn syrup—ten dollars; and, most excellently, a Fog Hat cassette, Stone Blue—twenty-five cents.

On to the Uptown Tavern for a Lovin' Lager from the Siletz Brewery.

Inside, I hear this conversation:

"What's that word called?"

"Colonoscopy?"

"Yeah right. That's it."

"Proctologists? I have to ask this to my doctor. Why did you pick this profession? You spent four years in medical school for this? Did you flunk out or something and that's how you got back in—scoping assholes. If I had a choice I'd look at sick pussy instead of sick asshole."

I drain the beer, drive over the Yaquina Bridge, and park near the south jetty to check out to the surf competition called the Gathering. A stiff wind throws up sand and makes writing in my journal in the beer garden nearly impossible. Out to sea, surfers struggle to catch a wave. But no one seems to care.

Suddenly, an attractive and obviously drunk brunette woman in her early thirties plops down next to me and begins to tell me the story of her life. In short time I learn, that standing fifteen feet away are: 1) her boyfriend she wants to break up with; 2) the dude she wants to sleep with; 3) the woman who's sleeping with the dude that the woman telling me the story wants to have a three way with, but not with either of the two dudes standing fifteen feet away.

After fifteen minutes, she finally interrupts her monologue and asks me what I do for a living.

"I teach English and journalism at the local high school."

"What's your name?"

"Matt Love."

"As in Mr. Love?"

"Yes."

"That's hot."

We talk a little while longer and then I excuse myself and wander back through the dunes to the truck. I start the engine and punch in Foghat. I turn the volume to eleven. The first song, "Stone Blue" erupts from the speakers and nearly blows me out the cab. A slide guitar never sounded so good.

Fifteen minutes later I walk down my beach with the dogs. No other human being is around. The clock has just struck noon.

12:28 AM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

First NHS Dance of the Year

The second ranked Gladstone Gladiators rolled into Newport Friday, September 12, and skinned the Cubs 52-30 in NHS' home football opener.

 The defeat hardly dented student enthusiasm for the dance after the game. At 10:00 p.m. a couple hundred Cubs forked over a sawbuck and filed into the cafeteria to shake, sweat, swivel, jump, bump, boogie, and grind to the beats thrown down by senior mixmaster Ross Martin.

 His DJ philosophy? "Gotta please everyone," he yelled over the noise. His job was to keep the masses moving and uncomplaining.

 And move the masses Martin did, with a sonic stew of hip hop, techno, and rock.

When he punched up the lesbian tease pop smash, "I Kissed a Girl" the by Katy Perry, the place went nuts. No girls were, however, actually seen to kiss other girls. (That's for the next decade.) But when the song ended, a majority of girls did have to hike their jeans back up to a more respectable level, meaning at least halfway down their hips.

"I hate dances," said Principal John Zagel, NHS class of 1981. He voiced his unconvincing opinion during a brief stop patrolling the dance floor, immediately after taking a direct hit from a strobe light. "But yeah I went to them."

Vice Principal Aaron Belloni, NHS class of 1997, also patrolled the room. "Yeah I went to dances," he said, "but I was a little more conservative."

Neither Zagel or Belloni intervened with any student on the dance floor. They let the music and the kids play and embraced the eternal and wise philosophy of the Who: "The Kids are All Right."

The clock struck 11 and the lights came on. Zagel stood at the back of the room and wore a smile on his face, but, perhaps, not because the night was over.

Matt Love, new English teacher at NHS, exited the school and walked toward his truck. A blue-haired sophomore, Kelso, a student in Love's Beginning Journalism class, ran up to him on the street. She'd played clarinet in the band that evening , danced the super freak all night long, and was somewhat out of breath.

"Hey, Mr. Love, do you mind if I call you McLovin?"

Love thought for a moment. "Sure, but only between you and me. Don't let it go around."

Kelso threw up her right hand and Love slapped a high five. He drove home under a full moon and Yaquina Bay barely moved. He had just finished his second week of work.

6:36 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Sand Writer

The Sand Writer

On a low tide one morning a while ago, at the moment when light wins a majority over darkness, I found myself on my local beach, walking the dogs.

At first, I couldn't see much around me because of a drifting fog and assumed I was alone, as I usually am at this hour. Then the fog scattered, the sun came halfway out, and I beheld a half mile down the beach what appeared to be a tall thin man dancing with a staff.

Now, I've seen many interesting and unusual things on the beach in my eleven years of regular rambling at all hours of the day and night on the Oregon Coast, but I'd never seen a man dancing with a staff. A naked woman in broad daylight, an Old Believer wedding, a dolphin jump, a mermaid beckon me, and a pack of coyotes chase the dogs, yes, but not a man dancing with a staff.

I had to investigate.

As I moved toward the man, I noticed a large pattern in the wet sand designed in a parallel fashion to the ocean, meaning it was meant to be viewed with a person's back to the ocean. I looked down the beach and noticed several more patterns. They extended as far as I could see and had to be recent, I thought, since the tide had just receded.

The man wasn't dancing with the staff. He was writing with it.

I came upon pattern one:

It was an extraordinarily complex maze that must have taken a long time to construct. There wasn't a footprint inside it anywhere. I stood at the entrance to the maze, examined it, and decided not to enter.

Fifty yards away, I came across pattern two:

Is that your dog?
It's raining cats and dogs
I stepped in a poodle

A few yards farther on, pattern three:

I went this way
They went that a-way (hyphen included)
No,
Yes,
Maybe,
Never,
Okay.

Then, finally, I discovered the last pattern:

Peace of what?

I looked up and the man was gone.

Who are you Sand Writer? I know that prophets once carried staffs.

2:27 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Dear Literary Agent

Friends: I thought I would share a draft of a letter to a potential literary agent about my new book on Nestucca Spit. Comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Dear Literary Agent:

I seek an agent for my book about a special Oregon Coast beach. You came highly recommended by my friend, the novelist _____.

Can it be said a person owes a debt to a place if that place helped him become the person he always wanted to be? Yes, a debt is owed, and in payment I wrote One Man's Beach: A Thousand Rambles Down Nestucca Spit, a 50,000-word book of memoir, history, documentary, polemic, sex, meditation, and photographs about a special ocean beach, Nestucca Spit, that everyone can visit for free and stay as long as they want because a relentless Oregon politician won an epic fight to save it more than forty years ago.

In the summer of 1997 I moved from Portland to the Oregon Coast. A year later, I discovered the Spit in and this unique stretch of beach quickly became the most important place in Oregon to me, a place where I felt like a master spy for an uncreated government or a notorious Romantic poet. I also sometimes earned or received great notions there. It was also a great place to have outdoor sex.

After the discovery, I began going to the Spit as often as I could, but mostly at dawn with the dogs and/or when it rained so I wouldn't have to encounter any other human beings. It never cost a cent to use, which is one of the great advantages of living in Oregon, as opposed, say, places where ocean beaches are privatized, which is most everywhere else in the world. A couple of years ago, I sensed my time on the Spit changed my life and I felt compelled to investigate and contemplate how and why this place exerted such a tremendous influence on me.

I made those discoveries and many, many more. I became addicted to rambling the Spit and the truth and consequences of who I was, who I wanted to be, what I wanted my country to be, what it took for me to survive, what turned me on, unfolded right in front of me. Whether it was trying to recover from a fiancé who dumped me, watching two of my beloved dogs fight one another to death, stripping naked to plunge into the ocean to erase a professional disaster, nearly having to put down a dying seal, reconnecting with my high school girlfriend, refusing to help two men whose truck was stuck in the sand, all of these episodes and many more happened on the Spit. Virtually everything in One Man's Beach happens on the beach happens in real time, which is unlike most books about a natural place. What also distinguishes this book is that it's fun and sexy. In many places it is not serious, but compelling nonetheless. What happened to writing about nature that was fun? Or sexy? Or occasionally unserious? Where people are drinking beer? All we ever seem to get from the genre anymore is either breathless description and an overwrought sense of place or the action narrative of conquering something. I believe my book represents something completely new and will connect to a much wider (younger) audience than the traditional nature memoir.

If I hadn't lived in Oregon, none of this would have happened. I would have never had the opportunity to experience what I did and I explore this thesis in the book. I like to believe that Oregon's unprecedented history of protecting its ocean beaches is a political story, a model, worth touting to the rest of the country, and that's exactly what I do in One Man's Beach.

The most sacred tradition of Oregon's recreational heritage is the public's right to the free and uninterrupted use of their publicly-owned beaches. I grew up in Oregon participating in this rich tradition and feel damn lucky I did. It made all the difference in my world and I believe One Man's Beach conveys that feeling to anyone who reads it, whether they live in Oregon, Kentucky, Malibu or New York City. The book will especially resonate with those who live in coastal states who didn't protect their beaches like Oregon did. They might want to become more like Oregon and less where they are.

A little about myself: I teach English and journalism at Newport High School on the Oregon Coast and am the author/editor of the Beaver State Trilogy: Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever Inc (2003), The Far Out Story of Vortex I (2004), and Red Hot and Rollin': A Retrospection of the Portland Trail Blazers' 1976-77 Championship Season. Published by Nestucca Spit Press, all books received excellent reviews and the latter two sat atop Powell's Books PNW Top Ten list for several weeks. I also regularly contribute columns to the Oregonian and several environmental-themed magazines.

Thanks for the consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Matt Love

4:21 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment