I would never claim to be a farmer. I married one. Not long after we began our family we had a garden, an orchard, cows, chickens and several cats. The children enjoyed the chickens and we thought it might be nice to raise a turkey for Thanksgiving. [Read More]
Get a Life
Reflections on life overheard at the old Bill’s Tavern, the heart of
Cannon Beach, through the dark Mac’s brew and smoky fiddle wail
on a July Saturday night.
Meeting Billy Hults
Billy didn’t bat an eye and proceeded to give the flack a highly polished and brief lecture on the First Amendment and freedom of the press. The Flack had no authority to determine what qualified as a legitimate publication. If he didn’t let Billy pass, he’d be violating Billy’s Constitutional rights (and mine) and adding another unwanted twist to this controversy. Read More
Some kind of crazy heroism
Logging and commercial fishing are neck and neck in a race for most dangerous occupation in America. During some years, as many as 118 loggers die on the job, a death rate nearly 30 times that of a typical workplace, with most of them killed by falling trees. Read More
Women of the Wakonda Auga
The women are the river, the meandering, silent river, the quiet riffles near the bank, where a severed arm raises a finger to the sky. The men are everything else – protagonists, loggers, action, jobs, bluster, egos, wind, and rain slanting down from low, gray skies. Read More
I am a Logger’s Daughter
I come from people that were unwilling to give up or give in to the confines of a place or an era or a lot in life. I come from people that were willing to take on the challenge to fight for a way of life, to persevere, to stick together, to be brave. Read More
Kesey’s Coastal Trip: A Field Guide to the Addled Earth
Ken Kesey, the man himself, loomed large during my Eugene years – an elder prankster, still generating a buzz and mild mischief around almost every worthwhile corner. To me, he seemed nearly as venerable, nearly as emblematic of the town’s gestalt and vibe, as the very university buildings that he ambled past – a man just as steeped in his place as the place was steeped in him. Read More
Haunted
As a grade school kid I served as a safety patrol crossing guard. On a corner near my school stood an old, abandoned house. There was a crossing post on this corner that none of us wanted. Many of the kids claimed the house was haunted. The drapes would move in the upstairs window is […]
Magic on the Necanicum
Each year, as mornings become brisk and mist pushes on shore, magic arrives on the Necanicum. I live in a small cabin near the Necanicum River’s estuary, a special corner of Northwest Oregon where a profusion of wildlife, from seagulls and eagles to salmon and elk, share the water and shore. Every morning I sit […]
Forest Quartet
One of two old Sitka spruces,
The stately old lady we call Iluvatar
Shades the east side of the house.
Where roots meet earth, she is an altar—
To approach her, you must ascend.
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