August 21, 2017

Bonnie and Clyde Files 18

Impressions from the river.

The river is sort of gray and definitely slack.

Drizzle on three consecutive visits to the dog sanctuary.

I am wearing the jeans I got married in 20 years ago. I am wearing the wristwatch my then wife presented me as a substitute for a wedding ring.

These jeans are faded and threadbare and have grass stains in both knees. I taught hundreds of school days in these jeans. I got grass stains while teaching in them. I used to go to the ground with my teaching and life. When I went to the ground, I got those stains. It occurs to me that grass stains in the knees of your jeans is a good metaphor for how to live.

I want new grass stains for my jeans. How in the world will I ever be able to get them now?

In the distance, I hear sounds of logging, excavation, and heavy equipment.

Bonnie is looking for something in the river. Aren’t we all?

Clyde’s muzzle is inches from my pocket as I sit on my camp stool and write these impressions.

I picked a few blackberries enroute to the river and tasted them. Close. Summer blackberry harvest on the Oregon Coast is almost here. I will harvest. I might even get blackberry stains in the knees of my corduroys. All my pants used to have either grass or blackberry stains on them. That’s how I used to live.

I got away from that. It went wrong for me.

Return to the stains! How is that for a motto?

Question: will Clyde eat blackberries? I will find out.

Lots of poetry and prose about blackberries..from Walt Whitman to Tom Robbins to Emily Dickinson (I think).

The Black Crowes even wrote a song about blackberries called “Blackberry.” Whenever I hear a Black Crowes song, I think of exactly one person in the world and will only think of that person whenever I hear the Black Crowes. I wonder if that person is reading this?

I’ve written my fair share of prose about blackberries. I need to write more.

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In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

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Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

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In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

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