Matt Kramer Memorial

Matt Kramer Memorial Memories and Almost Instagram

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches, Oregon Coast_History , , , , , , , ,

Rain and wind blew across the parking lot at Oswald West State Park. It was a weekday morning in October and the parking lot was empty. I parked my car, loaded up my gear and took the path to the Matt Kramer Memorial, perhaps my favorite inspirational place in Oregon.

Kramer was a veteran journalist whose dogged and unbiased reporting helped save Oregon’s beaches from privatization during the fight to pass the Beach Bill in 1967. The state erected a memorial in the park to commemorate his reporting in 1972. Something like that occurring today is right out of science fiction.

I have visited the memorial at least 50 times since I first discovered it 15 or so years ago after reading a footnote in an obscure history of Oregon State Parks. Since that discovery, I have written thousands of words about this unique memorial in at least a dozen publications. I wanted everyone in Oregon to know what Kramer did with his writing. I’ve always said any writer needing inspiration should visit the memorial. Every Oregon journalist in training should lay hands on it and imagine where great journalism can lead.

As I walked the path, paralleling the creek, through a dripping old growth stand of Sitka spruces, hemlocks and Western red cedars, past massive downed trees and root wads, I thought about previous visits to this park and memorial and began to construct a Matt Kramer-themed stream of consciousness in my mind. I doubt he would have approved. He was more of an inverted pyramid straight news man. It is my hope that one day I can become an inverted pyramid straight news man and write on issues with the succinct clarity that Kramer once did. And make the writing count for the greater Oregon good and not have one word of it about me.

There were three field trips, one in 4.75 inches of rain, fires, soggy Subway lunches, pizza, football, Led Zeppelin on the boombox, pledges and poetry, a special magazine, a middle finger to Lars Larson, the Field Trip Runaways smoking dope, jump rope with kelp, presentations, talks and tours, dates, crushes, a Christian youth group outing in my youth, a secret kiss in the driftwood in 1976 with a lapsed Christian girl wearing yellow, rain, mist, Rose, Rose on the Memorial, bringing tools to care for the Memorial (remember caulk next time!) This park and this memorial encompass my whole Oregon life. Honor it forever. Keep writing about it forever. Keep coming here forever.

I groomed the memorial as I always do, and left behind a token for anyone curious enough to visit this place.

It was time to go and continue my journey into reinvention.

I came down the rooted trail from the memorial into the clearing that overlooks the beach. On the beach, in substantial rain, three young people, one man, two women, were taking pictures with phones in that easily identifiable Instagramming/curating style. Their presence seemed impossible since the parking lot had been empty. They very well could have been part of a national Instagram campaign of the types I have been reading about with mounting astonishment.

An idea sprung to mind, catapulted there by rain! Why not head down the beach and give them a heads up on the memorial and let them showcase it to the larger Instagram world? Matt Kramer on Instagram! If they were all gorgeous and wearing cool sexy clothes then it would be even more spectacular!

I watched them ply among the driftwood, along the beach, and hop across a stream. They knew what they were doing with their phones. They were pros!

Matt Kramer on Instagram? #mattkramermemorial. Perhaps one day, but not this morning. That is, unless the trio found it themselves. It could happen. The Instragram van probably wasn’t picking them up for another hour. If it did happen, I wonder what they’d make of the token I left behind. I’m sure it would result in some hashtag.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

A Phone Call for The Beach Bill

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches, Oregon Coast_History , , , , , , , ,

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Oregon’s famous Beach Bill. Undoubtedly, many of us will commemorate this visionary law by going to the beach and cutting loose or taking a nap in a driftwood fort. Either way doesn’t cost a cent.

Besides celebrating, we might also considering educating others about this important anniversary.

To that aim, I have a somewhat guerrilla teaching method to help.

The telephone number in this photograph is from a pay phone at Oswald State Park. This park is nothing less than holy ground in the creation of Oregon’s unprecedented legacy of publicly-owned beaches, one of the greatest spots to surf in the state, the site of the Matt Kramer Memorial, and a perfect place to observe how free beaches enrich our lives.

I would like everyone reading this who cares passionately about Oregon’s beaches to call this number. Someone will answer because the park is sure to be mobbed and the phone is located at the beginning of the trail to the beach and adjacent to the restrooms.

And what person wouldn’t pick up! Hearing a pay phone ring represents an utter novelty in American life and is sure to intrigue park visitors on their way to and from the beach.

Below is a suggested script to use to use with people who answer. Or you can just wing it on your own.

You: Hello, did you know today is the 50th anniversary of the Beach Bill, a law which forever ensured that Oregon’s ocean beaches would remain publicly owned and free to use?

(The person may or may not know about the Beach Bill.)

If the person answers “yes,” then ask: “How are you celebrating the anniversary today?”

If the person answers “no,” then say: “Well, now you know. Spread the good word.”

I encourage readers of this blog to share this post on social media. Get that phone in Oswald West State Park ringing off the hook!

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

Homage To Matt Kramer

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches, Oregon Coast_History , , , , , ,

Oregon’s revolutionary Beach Bill, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this Friday, nearly died a quiet death in a House subcommittee until Oregonians began to realize what was at stake if their beaches fell into hands of private property owners. That realization transformed the Oregon political landscape overnight and came about, in large part, thanks to Matt Kramer’s reporting on the issue

Matt Kramer was a veteran Associated Press reporter covering the Capitol beat in Salem during the battle to pass the Beach Bill. In the space of three months, he wrote approximately 50,000 words of hard news alerting and educating readers about the threat to the state’s beaches if the bill suffered defeat. One article in particular, headlined “Beach Bill Revival Sought,” appeared May 5, 1967 in newspapers across the state, and helped galvanize public support for the bill.

To honor Kramer’s journalism, the state erected a memorial plaque to him in 1972 in Oswald West State Park, overlooking Short Sands Beach.

The plaque reads: “The people of Oregon hereby express their gratitude to Matt Kramer of the Associated Press, whose clear and incisive newspaper articles were instrumental in gaining public support for passing of the 1967 Beach Bill.”

Anyone who loves Oregon’s ocean beaches should make a pilgrimage there and lay hands on the memorial. I visit all the time and always gain incredible inspiration from Kramer’s journalistic accomplishments. I guess you might say I consider him a hero.

Lost and Found 11 / One Year In

Lost and Found, NSP Meditations , , , , ,

One year into this strange new world…

I lost $100,000 in income and savings; I found untold riches in human compassion and understanding.

I lost my old ocean dog; I found two old river dogs; I found the oldest dying dog story of all time. (Hint: The Odyssey.)

I lost freedom of movement, expression and association; I keep finding ways to reinvent them. People have been helping me reinvent them.

I lost all love for Astoria; I found a new way to perceive it that might change everything. That perception derived from recognizing Astoria as a the final collection point for one of the great abused and cursed watersheds of the world. (Hint: Celilo Falls, fish hatcheries and Hanford.)

I lost all hope for future professional accomplishment; I found that I would have to redefine it, out of the limelight, where I’ll never venture again.

I lost my physical fitness; I found it with new, improved strength.

I lost fear; I found fortitude.

I lost a facade; I found a foundation.

I lost my place on people’s lists—crossed off; I found my way on to new lists, penciled down by others. Oh, to be added to new lists(I heartily recommend it), even a list of one! (Good band name; List of One.)

I lost everything important; I found my previous identification of importance utterly banal.

I lost sight of myself in the dark after the relegation to The Registry; I found watching The Great Escape taught me how to tunnel to light and freedom.

I lost the feisty younger sister I never had; I found a taciturn shaman for a new brother.

I lost belief in the definition of the word “salient,” as in salient facts; I found truth whenever I came face-to-face with characters in classic world literature and they were talking to me like Robert De Niro talking to the mirror in Taxi Driver. I couldn’t answer.

I lost my aversion to semi-colons; I found they provide a certain simple eloquence.

I lost most of my home decor; I found a replacement in beaverwood.

I lost faith in music; I found records that restored it.

I lost my theme song; I may have found a new one. (Hint: a minor Stones hit in the 80s.)

I lost my personal metaphor; I found a new one. (Hint: Jack Kramer Autograph.)

I lost the interpreter of my aesthetic dreams with her coat of many colors and groovy fonts; I found an old tactile friend—hello cut and paste!

I lost truck with the notion of second chances; I found it as flimsy a concept as an inflatable outdoor snowman flattened by a Christmas storm.

I lost all faith in the Bill of Rights; it’s never coming back.

I lost my idealized version of romantic love; I await finding a new practical one.

I lost what the Matt Kramer Memorial in Oswald West State Park (pictured here) originally meant to me; I revisited this most sacred spot in Oregon journalism and rediscovered it. (Hint: the word “incisive.”)

I lost a certain voice as a writer; I found the greatest story of my life, or should I say, it found me. It ran me over.

I never lost appreciation for the magic of building driftwood forts.