Reflections on a Print Shop

NSP Meditations

A young bearded man paid his bill at a tiny mom and pop print shop that have practically gone the way of the bowling alley. He picked up his order and admired the color copies of a CD cover for presumably a record he recorded. He somewhat had the aura of an rocker so here he was getting a CD ready for one his fans. Rock lives!

People still make their own CD covers and have them printed at local print shops? Apparently so.

A man behind rocker man was there to print copies of a Christmas tale he was including as a bonus story in the print edition of his Christmas book.

Paper! Paper!

That same writer man had been in the print shop a couple weeks ago to pick up his order of a mini memoir booklet he designed for a family member.

More Paper!

On the counter was a dozen or so blueprints rolled and rubber banded.

An inspection of the orders to be picked up revealed a variety of print projects: Sunday service schedule, cards, fliers for lost pets and yoga classes, wedding announcements.

Paper. Paper. Paper.

This was all coming from a tiny mom and pop print shop in rural coastal Oregon. This must be going on all over America.

Weren’t we all supposed to have gone paperless by now! Wasn’t paper dead?

Never! Give us paper or give us death by text message and please send us a homemade Christmas card!

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Museum of Old Names

NSP Meditations

A Saturday stroll through a Pioneer cemetery on the Secret Coast that doubled as a museum of old American names provoked some ruminations:

First, they poured a lot of concrete and laid a lot of marble to mark the dead. It seems like such a waste of time and materials.

How does a first name come into general use and then pass away into oblivion? What changes in our culture for a name to fall into disuse or one to skyrocket in popularity so that a teacher has five Ashleys in one classroom?

Who knows? Perhaps a new movie or reality show star takes off. A sports star or a cartoon character. A doll or rap mogul. Someone who dies for a good cause.

Perhaps Americans were duller a century ago. Perhaps less pretentious. Perhaps everything connected into our current destructive vainglory as a nation is somehow connected to these new names.

Something else to ponder: Certain Old Testament names have vanished while others remain. (e.g. Aaron versus Moses, Rachel versus Ruth). Why? Why? Why?

Let us consider the names etched into quasi permanence into the concrete and marble in a tiny disheveled cemetery that evinced no charm nor morbidity. Even the crows seemed indifferent.

Eva

Abe

Leonida

Ralph

Etta

Bonnie

Elmer

Constatine

Claude

Maude

Harriet

Fred

Gertrude

Esther

Pearl

Fannie

Gus

Dennis

Estelle

Effie and Elvin (married)

Why did these names fade away? Don’t we need a return to Elmer and Estelle? Yes, it seems we do.

Pro Wrestling in Vernonia!

NSP Meditations, Oregon Coast_History, Sports

I was digging through my Oregon historical ephemera when I came across this poster, a gift from my fifth grade teacher. I thought I’d post it to generate some smiles and teary nostalgia.

Oh to have been there! Vernonia! Jimmy Snuka! Tough Tony Borne! It sure smacks of better days for rural Oregon! The whole town probably turned out.

Corona Virus Election Thoughts

Corona Virus Thoughts, NSP Meditations

What will happen? How many people will die as a result of maskless people attending a Trump rally?

Jack Nicklaus came out the other day with his opinion that the number of covid deaths was over-counted for political reasons. He didn’t comment on cancer treatments or how to set a broken leg.

Record voting. Record and wily voter suppression by Republican officials at all levels of government. Republican officials making people wait in long lines to vote, trying to kill people who want to vote by forcing them into inclement weather and/or expose themselves to the virus.

The Pandemic is worse than ever but here we are playing football and letting people in the stadiums. I mean, they did that sort of thing in Rome! Wait, they didn’t! They shut down the games when cholera or typhus hit. We’re dumber than Rome!

After this botched election (yet another one) will we finally get some national reform? A universal ballot and method for voting for federal offices? It is time.

I read a story in the NY Times that pastors were training to defuse potential violence at the polls. People will be carrying rifles and pistols at the polling places. Someone is going to get shot.

You wonder if Trump voted for himself. You know his wife didn’t. They voted by mail.

More rap moguls have come out for Trump. I cannot fathom why.

I’ve never missed voting in a federal election.

Many people are considering getting off the grid if Trump is elected. I would consider this if I had a partner. I have some resources.

I watched The Charge of the Light Brigade film from 1968 on election eve. It occurred to me that the history and metaphor of that blundering, blind incompetence is exactly like what has happened to Trump and his supporters. They charge right into the Valley and well…you know how it ended. And not at all poignant like the poem.

My one real wish for a Biden win is that it will help drain the poison injected into my mother by the Presidency of Trump. I know she can regain her faith and optimism once he leaves office.

I may build an election day driftwood fort for no other reason that it will help clear my mind.

Oregon Tavern Age: Jaguar

NSP Meditations, Oregon Tavern Age

A shiny silver car pulled up in front of an Oregon Tavern Age joint. I was inside the joint writing a letter to an old flame at my usual table at the window.

I looked out the window and beheld a four-door Jaguar, a few years old, mint condition, probably a 40-50k car. Clean as whistle with no road grime.

A bearded man, the driver, exited the Jaguar and headed for the joint.

Wait! It was the same bearded man I had seen often wandering down the road, carrying a guitar without a strap, sometimes with a couple of dogs, occasionally asking me if I had a smoke or would I drive his van out of impound, the same man I saw sleeping on the beach and emerging from the woods for past six months, and the same man who was often accompanied by an OTA woman with no teeth.

Next I took in the woman in the passenger seat who puffed on a cigarette and then got out of the Jaguar.

Wait! It was the OTA woman with no teeth, who before I saw with the bearded guitar man, was seen driving a battered sedan with three of the windows smashed out.

I looked at the Jaguar again. Two dogs were staring straight at me.

The couple moseyed up to the bar in their masks and ordered rum and cokes. They took their drinks to the video poker machines and started playing line games. I watched them laugh and lose money. They kept on playing.

This scenario posed a dilemma for a writer: you want the truth of the Jaguar or do you want to make it up? Journalism or fiction, always a tension for me.

I finished my love letter. I finished my IPA. I got up to leave and took a final look at the couple. They were still at it and now on a second rum and coke.

My mind was made up: I wanted to go journalism on this story, but not this particular moment. Next time.

Secret Coast Radio #24

NSP Meditations, secret coast radio

Welcome to the Secret Coast Radio podcast broadcasting somewhere on the Secret Coast

Let us begin by saying:

We prefer the first person plural over the singular.

We prefer mystery over journalism.

We prefer woolen shirts over woolen minds.

We prefer the act of encouraging voting instead of suppressing it.

We prefer nature’s medicine to treat depression and trauma over quack cures advertised on television.

We prefer giving gifts over receiving them.

We prefer clean and well ordered garages and shops over ones in total chaos.

We prefer strolling in old cemeteries over sitting in new churches.

We prefer in believing in sound public health measures over believing they are the product of conspiracies so stupid an American should be embarrassed to utter them in public.

We prefer courtesy over contention, candor over cornpone, kind over cagey, cutoffs over khakis.

We prefer socialism over the sloth of inherited wealth and people who actually understand the definition of socialism over those who don’t have a clue what it is.

We prefer collaboration and collegiality over what passes for national governance today.

We appreciate how hard so many people are struggling during the pandemic over those who don’t care.

What is this podcast about? Who are we?

Like we said, mystery over journalism.

Let show number 24 begin.

The link to the show is:

http://www.buzzsprout.com/385945

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