oregon christmas tales

New Book Released! Gift of the Oregon Magi & Other Christmas Tales of Homelessness

Fiction, NSP Meditations, Writing , , , ,

Dear Friend of Nestucca Spit Press:

My new book, Gift of the Oregon Magi & Other Christmas Tales of Homelessness, is out for the holidays and I invite you to support it with a purchase, perhaps multiple purchases to give away as gifts.

This will be the last book published by Nestucca Spit Press, founded in 2002, for the foreseeable future. I sense my writing (and activism) moving in a new direction with this recent move to Coos Bay. I am considering launching a newspaper or literary review to serve my new community.

Information about Gift of the Oregon Magi & Other Christmas Tales of Homelessness,is below. Thanks to all of you who have bought Nestucca Spit Press books over the years, mine and the other authors I’ve published. It’s made all the difference.

Gift of the Oregon Magi & Other Christmas Tales of Homelessness

December arrives. Outdoor Christmas decorations go up, enchant, perhaps even move hearts to better Bob Cratchit places. What happens to homeless men and women during Christmas? What does it mean and how do they celebrate if they celebrate at all?

And how do those who are housed in the midst of homeless in their communities, sometimes interacting with their quasi neighbors, respond to the crisis when Christmas rolls around, if they respond at all?

In Gift of the Oregon Magi & Other Christmas Tales of Homelessness, Matt Love explores these questions and more. “My dream for this book is that every holiday season, readers will read aloud one or more of these stories to their friends and family and begin a discussion about homelessness that affects every community in rural, suburban and urban America and what all of us can do to alleviate it,” said Love.

Gift of the Oregon Magi features 15 tales and one incredible true story. Many have appeared in print or online, but the collection also includes nine tales never before previously published.

The book can be purchased directly from Nestucca Spit Press at www.nestuccaspitpress.com or via Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR4TDMFR

Christmas Rakes (Part 1)

Fiction, NSP Meditations , ,

A wealthy nuclear family lived in a large home in the fashionable and historic neighborhood of Sellwood in Portland. The woman worked in health care billing. The man worked in tech. There was a boy, age 10, a girl, age 11. They were spoiled brats, but not in the classic snotty sense. They were part of the new generation of spoiled brats who didn’t enact traditional bratty behavior. Their quietly obnoxious behavior manifested itself in a total refusal to do anything to help around the house or yard. They had no chores, no responsibilities. They were sluggards, snot-nosed, sloths. They never ventured outside or goofed around in the park or bicycled past the homeless encampment two blocks away. Indeed, the bicycles hung on the wall in the garage and hadn’t been ridden in years.

They had no life outside of the internet.

At one point, years ago, the parents had instructed the kids to take out the trash or dust the furniture, but they did the work so poorly and then not at all, and the parents finally gave up. The kids were so indifferent to anything except their digital gadgetry that they forgot to feed their hamsters and the hamsters starved to death. The kids didn’t cry.

The house sat on a double lot. There was a fancy outdoor kitchen, fire pit and home theater. In the yard, grew towering maples, oaks and a cherry tree that hosted a half dozen squirrels. In the spring, the trees held a million beautiful leaves. In the fall, they dropped them on the lawn.

Simple enough to get rid of them. Call in the Latino laborers to do it. Or perhaps even hit up a homeless man with a $20 bill and a fifth of Old Crow and let your kids watch from the window to see how charitable the family is as the holiday season rolls around.

But this fall was different. The Pandemic had upended the world of work and the family couldn’t find a service to remove the leaves. The homeless weren’t interested, either, even for more money and better booze.

So the leaves piled up.

Thanksgiving arrived and Grandfather came to dinner. He was an interesting man, and his son was definitely not a chip off the old block. Grandfather lived in an old farmhouse on 40 acres outside of Estacada, roughly 20 miles southeast of Portland. In other words, rural Oregon.

He’d been a high school social studies teacher and football coach at the local junior high for 30 years. He wasn’t all that dynamic a teacher or a successful coach, but he was a kind and decent man and cared for his students, particularly when Estacada’s timber economy bottomed out and then disappeared forever.

After retiring, he remained in the area and expected to live many more happy years with his wife. Then she came down with cancer, died quickly, and he was alone on the property.

It was then that Grandfather had choices. Drown in grief and hit the sauce. Turn on Fox News and become deranged. Or continue to engage with the world in positive fashion as he had as a husband, parent, teacher, coach and citizen of Estacada. He did, after all, have a son, a daughter in-law and grandchildren, a family to live for and support in some material and emotional fashion. Thus, he chose engagement and didn’t let his mind or body or property go to seed.

Now about his only child. He was a middling athlete and went on to earn a degree in computer science at Oregon State University. He got a Portland job writing software that his father didn’t really grasp, a job that did absolutely nothing to enrich the world beyond enriching corporations. He was a nice man, kind of feckless, who married a blasé woman he’d met online. They brought the aforementioned brats into existence and bought a dream home in Sellwood.

The couple and the brats paid a visit to the farmhouse every now and then, but the older they got, the less they came. Grandfather had tried interesting the grand kids in work around the farmhouse, but they were utterly indifferent and fell down a lot. The son hadn’t been like that growing up. He performed all manner of chores around the property, from splitting wood to mowing fields. He liked it, but surely didn’t pass this trait on to his children. They’d never done a lick of manual labor in their lives. That was for other kids in Sellwood, and of course, the other kids never did a lick of yard work in Sellwood, either. Just walk the neighborhood when the leaves start falling and you’ll learn that.

Oregon Coast Christmas Tales

NSP Meditations, Oregon Coast_History, Writing , , , ,

Friends of Nestucca Spit Press:

I present Oregon Christmas Tales, my latest book from Nestucca Spit Press, a perfect literary gift for the holiday season.

So many people suffer as the holidays approach . . . A neglected boy. A struggling single mom. An addled nurse. A depressed urban couple. A greedy developer. A suicidal young woman. A meth addict. A phony writer. A table of Trump fanatics. A forlorn newspaper staff. A homeless man in a wheelchair. A frustrated teacher. A teenager who has never seen the ocean. Thirteen stories of despair, delusion and dislocation.

They all desperately need some Christmas magic for total transformations of mind, body and spirit. The Oregon Coast will deliver it.

In Oregon Coast Christmas Tales, I tour readers through the lives of the troubled and unfulfilled, the mighty and the marginalized, the lost and the loveless, and lights up their souls with the spirit of Christmas.

The book costs $20 (with $5 for shipping). I also have a special price for purchasing two copies. If you buy directly from the website, you receive a signed edition, special bookmark and a bonus Christmas story called “Psilocybin Santa.”

You can purchase via Paypal via the Nestucca Spit Press website at nestuccaspitpress.com, through this blog, or make arrangements to pay by cash or check or some form of barter by emailing or messaging me directly. The book is also available at select independent Oregon bookstores. A print and e-book version are also available through Amazon.

Thank you for supporting an independent Oregon publisher and keeping my writing and publishing dreams alive.

Tire Center Christmas (Part 1)

Fiction, NSP Meditations

A Writer waited in a corporate tire center for a warranty service he didn’t comprehend. He knew nothing of tires. In fact, he’d never changed a tire in his life.

As he waited, he polished an essay for a slick Zen magazine about noble, silent caring for the world. In his case, caring meant accommodating honeybees building a hive in a wheel well of a vintage Airstream that served as his irony-free writing studio. The essay’s payoff was the delicious ending where he harvested the honey, slathered it on butter he churned himself, and the biscuits made from scratch. Anyone could do it. They just had to notice, care and act. Action.

The Writer didn’t churn butter. He made biscuits from a box. He would never harvest the Airstream honey nor any honey. It didn’t matter. The essay would move hearts and minds, serve the greater good, the larger cause. He, along with many other writers, felt perfectly comfortable making things up, because, well, most writers practice empathy on the page and never in real life. It’s really easy that way.

It was the early afternoon of December 24th in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast. Outside the tire center, a near freezing rain fell. If the temperature dropped another degree, everybody’s Christmas would be shot to icy hell. They’d have to spend the holiday alone or seek out strangers within sliding distance and break figgy pudding with them.

He sat next to a big window overlooking the parking lot. Needles of rain battered the glass. The lot was full. The center was packed. Twas the season for new tires, tire repair, tire rotations, studded tires. Young men in coverall uniforms wearing Santa hats and reindeer horns ran around, rolling tires, checking with customers, trying to expedite service and get people moving on their merry way. It was all sort of a festive madhouse, but those in the waiting room were oblivious because everyone, including small children, fiddled on their devices. Coloring was dead. No talking. No eye contact. No reading magazines. No one even watched Fox News blasting out commentary defending the President’s mocking of a quadriplegic liberal reporter falling out of her wheelchair at a rally because one of the President’s fanatics tipped it over. It was really funny. She’d shit herself, too.

A fake Christmas tree, fresh cedar bows and a myrtlewood Nativity scene atop a straw-filled monster truck tire comprised the holiday decorations. Free coffee simmered on a warmer but nobody cared because everyone sipped sweet $9 holiday espresso concoctions and thought they tasted swell. Drip coffee was dead.

The essay was going well. Words like dappled and glinted flowed effortlessly from tapping his fancy tablet. He had no problem tuning out the chaos of the tire center because he was listening to classic country Christmas music on headphones. He had no idea what was going on around him. He knew everything the essay needed to sing, to soar, and earn him a tidy three grand and a free week long retreat at a Buddhist compound in the Wallowa Mountains. He wasn’t even a Buddhist! During the retreat, he’d write an essay about gathering wild lavender in a nearby Native American cemetery and making peasant lemonade from it. He’d sell that essay lickety-split to a glossy magazine extolling the gritty virtues of peasant life.

Oh what a Christmas Eve it was going to be in Lincoln City! His Yoga instructor girlfriend was driving over the hills and through the woods from Portland for a tasteful bacchanal, and his fans had bought thousands of his books, $19.99 softcover tomes exuding the benefits of practicing empathy. The books were purchased as gifts to instill caring. No one would read them. But they would Instagram the holy living shit out of the book’s cover and let all their world know they were kicking ass making the world a better place. Instagram makes it so easy.

A Slash Burn Christmas (Part 1)

Fiction, NSP Meditations , , , , , , , , , ,

At precisely one minute past the stroke of midnight, Matt Hancock, a direct descendant of John Hancock, the bold first signator of the Declaration of Independence, was matrixed out of the Clatsop County Jail. Matrixed meant Matt was granted early release because of overcrowding and thus he would not serve the full 30 days of his sentence for violating his probation after testing positive for methamphetamine. It was Matt’s 47th time of incarceration in the jail over a period of seven years, every one of them for a drug and alcohol-related offense or probation violation.

This is what passes for criminal justice and drug treatment in Clatsop County.

Matt walked out into the darkness and into a phalanx of rain that was taking no prisoners because December rain on the Oregon Coast has no rules of engagement. He had no coat, no belt, no money, no phone, no job, no food, no friends, no family, no place to live, no place to crash. He was, however, still addicted to methamphetamine and now homeless walking the streets of Astoria the day before Christmas.

This is what passes for rational reentry into society after incarceration in Clatsop County.

Matt wandered the downtown blocks and admired the holiday decorations. The nativity scene at the Methodist church especially moved him and he thought about sacking out under the straw, but figured he might get caught, but perhaps getting caught wasn’t so bad because he might return to jail and they would matrix out another addict.

Change interested Matt. Cleaning up interested him. Once there had been promise, as there had been for so many Americans with his disease. He could repair anything that didn’t involve using a computer, and had once held down a couple of decent-paying jobs. He liked to fish for surf perch.

There’s been a good girlfriend, too, and a mutt and a cool truck. He was approaching 40 years of age, but maybe he was 39 or 42. Was his mother alive?

Then came the flood of methamphetamine…there was that party….

Hold it right there! We will not delve into Matt’s back story. It doesn’t possibly matter to a holiday tale. What matters now is what people will do to help Matt so he can help himself.

Those people are out there.

Holiday Craft Fair (Part 3) A Christmas Tale

Fiction, NSP Meditations , , ,

Shana walked into the lobby of the event center and stopped. She looked around and beheld a barbershop quartet singing carols, children dressed as elves serving cups of cider from trays, a huge tree that scraped the vaulted timbered ceiling, lights and more lights, and a toy train that was chugging through a mountainous Christmas village and sending up tiny wisps of smoke.

And there indeed was a goat, costumed as a reindeer. And there was a nativity scene, dozens upon dozens of them, all hand carved from wood, stone or cheese. It was some kind of contest.

Shana hadn’t moved an inch. Was it all too much for her? No, she mushed ahead into the main hall. She saw decorated tables and booths and wandered the aisles. She examined and handled and sampled the merchandise.

There were: jams, jerkies, jellies, mobiles, soups, balms, tinctures, perfumes, necklaces, scarves, shawls, doilies, cards, journals, candles, toys, water colors, illustrations, collages, frames, Bigfoot poop (peanut brittle, with or without corn), pillows, rugs, bird houses, bird feeders, dog and cat clothing, glass jellyfish, candy, bird feeders, puppets, head bands, hats, magic wands, feathered this and feathered this, and leg warmers, yes leg warmers!

And all the gifts from the sea! Hundreds of driftwood items, including a gun rack and toilet plunger. Agates galore and painted sand dollars. Lacquered skulls of seals and gulls. Limpets and tiny sculptures made from evil ocean-going plastic.

Shana lingered at one booth much longer than others. At first glance, it appeared a vendor, a man wearing corduroy head to toe, was selling mere sticks and small logs that seemed to be whittled, and badly whittled at that, on both ends. They weren’t even lacquered. Absurd! But upon closer inspection, Shana saw photos and illustrations of beavers and read an artist statement from beavers, and realized that the vendor was marketing the wood as sculptures created by beavers! They had gnawed and chewed branches and trees in the wild, a strange man had collected them, and here they were presented as art! Shana picked one up, it was roughly the size of a corn-on-the-cob, and she brought it to her mouth and pretended she was a beaver eating it for supper. She even made a goofy bucktoothed face.

The man looked at Shana and smiled. “I get that all the time,” he said.

Shana smiled back and shelled out five bucks for the piece. She stuffed it in the back pocket of her jeans, right next to her phone.

More wandering and wandering and handling and sampling. The roadkill elk jerky was incredible. The keyhole limpet necklace otherworldly.

In due course, a trance engulfed Shana and she seemed lost in a vortex of crafting. Only when a Santa atop a sled pulled by four huskies that jingled and jangled through the center, did she snap out of it. She hadn’t said a word to a single crafter outside of a thank you to the beaverwood vendor. She didn’t know what to say to them.

It was time to go, but Shana couldn’t find a way out. Every turn took her deeper into crafting and unique human passions and skills that she never knew existed. She saw a narrow hallway that seemed like an exit and picked up her pace to get on with what she came to Gold Beach to do.

Lighted beads blocked her path. What the hell? Shana pushed through the beads and stopped. She stood on the threshold of entering a forest, a forest of macrame. There was macrame items displayed everywhere. So many hung from hooks it was like a meat locker.

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