Coyote and Sturgeon Morning

NSP Meditations

I stepped out the front door at 6:20 on a Saturday morning. It was gray and bright at the same time. I was loaded up with Old Crow books to distribute to street libraries. I began crossing the avenue and trotting through the intersection 20 yards down the block was a coyote. He stopped and looked right at me. This was no scrawny coastal coyote I was used to seeing on the wildlife refuge or Nestucca Spit or the beaches south of Newport. Oh no, he was large, the largest coyote I have ever seen, with a big head, big ears, and exquisite dark brown and red coloring. He had obviously been feasting away on the neighborhood’s succulent offerings: cats, squirrels and baby ducks and geese.

The coyote turned and trotted away. I followed him at a brisk pace. He turned around and stopped and looked at me again. Our eyes met!

When a coyote looks at you twice in a morning, you best pay attention. I instantly divined his appearance meant something good might unfold soon, perhaps even later this day. I felt it with ten thousand more times of certainty than I ever felt about anything related to Jesus and God in my youth as a preacher’s kid. Moreover, I had received a visit from a nearly all white coyote on an Oregon beach over 15 years ago that led to a drastic change of mind and wiser outcome and I have never forgotten that magical encounter.

I stocked the books and made it to the Willamette River. Dozens of boats bobbed near the bridge hoping to land a salmon. Kayakers and dragon boats were also sharing the channel. I walked to my favorite bench to watch the show. Something about watching people fish makes me feel very good.

Four young men fished from the boat dock below me. They were smoking and drinking energy drinks and malt liquor. They were laughing and casting with astonishing vigor. Three out of four of the men had the mistakable vibe of being homeless, which didn’t surprise me because I have seen homeless men and women fish for salmon in Gladstone, Oregon City, Portland, Eugene and for perch pretty much up an down the Oregon Coast. I’ve also seen scores of homeless crabbing from the docks in Newport.

I was considering the coyote when a bit of a ruckus went up from the dock. One of the men had landed something, and something big.

The next ten minutes was a struggle between the man and the fish. What a show! The three other men were shouting instructions and reeling in their lines so as not to become entangled. This being 2023, the man struggling with the fish somehow managed to retrieve his phone and hand it to his buddy who began documenting this Saturday morning’s malt liquor version of Young Man and the Sea.

At last, the man reeled in the fish and hauled it onto the dock. It was well over four feet and definitely not a salmon. It was a sturgeon! I had just seen a homeless man land a damn sturgeon! Everyone was celebrating and the man posed for pictures with his prize.

Then he released it back into the river. I was shocked, but then again, what exactly was a homeless man going to do with such a behemoth? Carry it away on his bicycle or over his shoulder and then fry it up for supper near his tent?

I looked at all the men fishing from the dock and noticed there was nothing to hold any fish they might catch. They were all there for the pure sport of it. As was I.

My walk home was especially invigorating. I stopped to talk to an obviously exhausted homeless woman in her 60s in the park. I saw a homeless man in the park emerge from a lean-to of branches under a towering Doug fir. I heard a bald eagle chirping overhead. I saw a blue heron undulate in the sky.

Back home, I did a little research: catch and release of sturgeon only on this stretch of the lower Willamette River. The homeless fisherman had obeyed the law.

Fort Building Metaphor Magic

Driftwood Forts, NSP Meditations

Way too long had passed since I’d last built a driftwood fort on Oregon’s socialist ocean beaches.

As the self appointed world’s expert on the art, science and metaphysics of building driftwood forts, I will say there is nothing as good for the soul and body as building one. And I would know because I’ve built several thousand driftwood forts on Oregon’s oceans beaches, mostly by myself, but occasionally with dogs and students.

So there I was on Manhattan Beach north of Rockaway, and I was there very early in the morning after a dark drive from Portland and a brief tour through the Old Town abyss of homelessness. It’s looks terrible in the daylight but ten times worse in the darkness and when it’s 37 degrees and raining.

But the sun broke through at the beach and I had the place all to myself. I didn’t have to pay a cent to access or use the beach and when that isn’t the case in Oregon anymore, I’ll lead the revolution to restore our Great Birthright, as former Governor Oswald West memorably described our ocean beaches.

I love this beach because I have a long history with dogs, forts, a tarot reading and personal survival here. It’s overrun in the summer but never at 8:30 in the morning on a weekday in March.

There was hardly any driftwood around, but once you see a few scraps and start building, more magically begins appearing. It’s kind of a loaves and fishes thing with the beach making the subtle offering.

I found an ancient driftlog to anchor the fort. I found a spar and a Y-shaped branch and a piece of exquisite beaverwood. I dragged them to the log and went to work.

I hoisted and connected pieces; I interlocked and wedged. They began to settle into one another and gained strength in their mutual support.

I dug up more wood. I gathered from 50 yards away. Any scrap would do, any scrap would find a role in shoring up the fort, creating shelter and making art.

My master touch wasn’t gone. My mind cleared as I constructed. Bullshit evaporated. Interesting ideas began to coalesce.

I worked for half an hour. A grandfather appeared with his toddler granddaughter. We waved at at each other. He nodded his approval of the fort. He unearthed a long thin pole from underneath a driftlog I had overlooked it earlier. He held it aloft and twirled it. I yelled out, “Can I use that?”

“Yes!”

I walked over and he handed it to me. I said thanks and went back to work. His pole was the perfect imperfectly shaped piece I needed for the right splash of decoration and as a crucial backup for the sturdiness of the fort once the winds and high tides arrive.

I was finished, but of course, I wasn’t. Driftwood forts are never finished. They will need constant maintenance and additions by other anonymous builders who come along. Eventually the fort will collapse, that is their very ephemeral nature, and the wood will scatter. But the wood remains and a new builder merely need come along and start building a new fort with new hoisting, new connections, new interlocking, new wedging, and you will have a new fort entirely recycled from the wreckage of earlier structures or new driftwood that is always coming ashore, blown, eroded and floated down watersheds to reach a tiny or large estuary and then a beach.

As always these days, my mind drifted to the homeless crisis in Oregon. I thought: everything about building and rebuilding a driftwood fort is the perfect metaphor for helping homeless people get off the streets and staying off the streets. I mean, everything is right there.

You give me ten sober homeless people from anywhere in Oregon and a trip to Manhattan Beach for a fort building session and I will prove it.

Some Musings

NSP Meditations

I dug out a Sam and Dave CD and played it in the car. That soul sound from the mid 60s to mid 70s still has cultural relevance in its themes and grooves. It does not sound at all dated. Rock from that era does for sure. Well, all rock does to me now.

I’ve started walking to my nearby socialist golf course to practice for my upcoming return to golf after a 25-year absence. A family reunion event at Sunriver is coming up soon and my cousins insisted I play a round of golf with them. I really couldn’t say no, and relish the idea of playing the course in corduroys! My cousins will both love and loathe that!

I had so many interesting times playing golf with my father in my youth. I accompanied him when hit had his only hole-in-one. We never talked about golf during our rounds of the various courses around Clackamas County. We talked about politics, history, religion, literature and current affairs.

Several days ago I saw a homeless man almost killed by a train that was stalled in an intersection of SE Portland. I thought about writing this incident up in detail but decided otherwise. I also decided not to write up the incident where I observed a homeless woman using a pool cue (the bridge piece) as a walking staff.

Lots of fascinating movements connected to the distribution of The Old Crow Book Club. If you haven’t purchased it, please consider doing so through this site. I could use the support for this unique project. All proceeds from sales are plowed right back into the task of distribution through a network of homeless men and women.

The Portland ordinance banning camping on public property between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM takes effect in a couple of weeks. I don’t see how it can ever be enforced. I’ve said this time and time again, go to Sweet Home for a partial solution that doesn’t require a Cascade Range-sized amount of bureaucracy. I’m heading there in July for an update on that city’s novel and simple approach to alleviating the crisis in their downtown area.

The Republicans in the Oregon Senate finally returned to the session, at least enough to reach a quorum to allow governing to continue. Nothing infuriates me more than a political party refusing to participate in governing when they have been elected by the people to govern. Threatening to shut down government by those governing is not governing. I absolutely hate that the Senate Majority leader canceled the $350-a-day fine for the losers.

Cormac McCarthy died. I was and was not a fan of his novels. I was one of the first teachers to teach The Road to high school seniors. They were mesmerized by it and everyone finished the book. We had such interesting classroom discussions about that novel.

Onward into summer! I want to visit an Oregon place I’ve never seen. Where that might be?

City Fort

NSP Meditations

There I was standing on a tiny stretch of beach along the Willamette River at 6:25 on a Sunday morning.

Nobody was on the river. I passed only one tent on the trail, which surprised me, because if I was homeless in the city, I’d be living by the river and trying to harvest some sustenance from it.

I noticed some stray beaverwood. I noticed the remains of camp fires. The driftwood was slim pick-ins, but I scrounged here and there and went to work.

Thirty minutes later I stood back and admired a serviceable fort. No doubt it would enchant someone, probably homeless. Maybe a homeless person would sit inside the fort, steady themselves, recollect a cherished fort from childhood (we all have one) and began to dive deep into clarity, and perhaps change. A stupid notion? No! It can happen when building or after entering a driftwood fort. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.

Infinitely better (and cheaper) than the jargon a generic and clueless therapist invariably provides.

What I’ve Learned Writing and Publishing Books

NSP Meditations, Writing

Thomas Wolfe wrote in You Can’t Go Home Again, “A man learns a great deal from writing and publishing a book.”

I came across this line while reading Wolfe’s novel for the first time in 35 years. I remember nothing from the previous reading. It’s a sprawling, self indulgent, bizarre, often brilliant, prescient, pontificating mess of a novel that contains some of the strangest and lengthiest digressions I’ve ever read in literature. But I am going to finish it.

It is the aforementioned sentence that I will take away from this reading, because it essentially explains the entire plot of the novel: a writer’s book comes out, and then things began happening to the writer related to the publishing of the book.

I read that line and then set the novel down and began to recall all the things I’ve learned after writing and publishing books. This is different from what I learned about gigging the books, although there is some overlap because I had to gig my books relentlessly to readers or otherwise nothing would have ever been learned because no one would would have ever read them and then responded.

In no particular order of importance, what I’ve learned:

You might meet the best people in the world who will enrich your life, or in my particular case, save your life.

You will realize that most of your friends and family will never read your books, or even women you are dating who were around when you were writing a certain book.

You might a meet dipshit therapist who believes going to expensive therapy is a much better way to solve a person’s problem rather than the free introspection required to write a book.

You will meet some seriously bizarre people.

You will engender jealousy and bitterness from other writers because you finished something and they could not.

You will be asked the secret of your success and offer only three words: Ass to chair.

You will find your best readers because you wrote about something you both care a lot about, like the homeless, a free rock festival, dogs, public beaches, and so on.

You will thank yourself time and time again that you didn’t choose the professor/academic route because these are the most cocooned, petty and neurotic professional people you have ever met.

You will always find inspiration that other writers chose the same unconventional route, like Virginia Woolf and Walt Whitman.

You like the fact that you staged a raucous and unique literary event down by a creek that was attended by homeless people because they were the subject of your book and they all read it with gusto.

Back Deck Musings

NSP Meditations

I am sitting on the back deck on a weekday morning and listening to the jazz on the public radio station. I just completed a little yard work and watering the herbs.

Earlier, I had a pleasant visit with Dad at the assisted living center. We watched a clip of Diane Feinstein looking almost incoherent in a wheelchair while trying to function as a US Senator when clearly she cannot. This prompted a discussion about aging and why certain elderly and obviously incapacitated people in positions of power don’t step aside for someone younger and more capable. We discussed the terrible decision of RGB to hang on way too long and the disaster that came from that.. Now look at Feinstein. Why go out this way and become a topic of controversy and split your own party? When I know the time is right for me, it’s Hart’s Cove or Otter Point or just walk into the ocean and start swimming to Asia.

I recently had the good fortune to walk a long way with a dog on one of Oregon’s socialist ocean beaches and was reminded how this particular beach helped rescue me during perilous times seven years ago. I will never stop thanking the Oregon Legislature and Governor Tom McCall for saving our great birthright from privatization and ruination back in1967. Just look at the Oregon Legislature today, or at least the Republican Party. What a disgrace and dishonor. They think they have a First Amendment right not to govern!

Summer approaches. I have zero plans except to attend a Christian Writers Conference in Canby. What you say? I am there on behalf of a new author client—my Mother. More on this later as it develops. I’m actually looking forward to the event because it’s something entirely new to me and I always learn something from other writers when they present workshops.

I’m still considering getting a dog.

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