1beaverCastorcanadensis

February 7, 2019

Castor Canadensis (American Beaver) Man (Part 4)

One summer afternoon, James was outside his RV, rearranging the gallery, whistling, when the park owner came up to him. Months ago, he had asked James about the beaverwood and James told him he enjoyed collecting interesting pieces. Back then, the owner gave him a strange look.

His look now was different. He told James the wood had to go, It was becoming an eyesore. James asked how so and the owner stumbled in response. James pointed out some real eyesores in the park, the year round, collapsed nativity scenes, the disused carpentry set-up and five rusted barbecues leaning against a rig. The owner waved it all away. The beaverwood had to go or James had to go.

It was an astonishing sight to behold to see James drive his Honda out of the park with beaverwood stuffed in the back seat, coming out the trunk, strapped down on the roof rack. He didn’t leave a stick behind and figured he’s just find a free place to camp for the summer and what to do with the beaverwood later.

That’s how James’ Honda ended up at the boat ramp. He’d seen it before while collecting and thought even then it might be a good place to camp near a river and really get to know a river. He might get a few answers from the river. Hell, it worked for Siddhartha and Huck Finn!

He’d stay for a couple of months and devise a plan for new housing when hard rain arrived. At one point, he knew he’d have to return to the world and face the faces he never wanted to see again. He was caught in a story he didn’t want to live.

It begs the question: how do you live your own story when others think they already have one written one for you, their first draft of story, riddled with errors, and badly in need of revision?

James took a run at the question every now and then and he always came up with the same answer: you build one, you keep building it with what you have around you, with what is innate, you rebuild even when sometimes the story gets washed away or torn down.

In other words, you build your story like the way beavers build their dams and lodges, in silence, off to the sides. You model the way beavers live. They are not mindless. They are mindful, attuned, in tune with nature.

But oh my…James did much more than just model. He did more than merely emulate.

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The Old Crow

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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.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

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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.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

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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.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.