Fort Ferret

Someone apprehended the fort message box. This little writing project had come to an end. Naturally, I will start over, in another fort, with another tin box, or maybe another receptacle, a clear one this time. Starting over is the very nature of fort message projects and driftwood forts themselves.

I suspect the box was apprehended by an overzealous beach cleaner. They can’t stand to leave unnatural item behind, even organic writing that intrigues or amuses or celebrates. They clean the beach but don’t seem to get the ocean.

Yes, I was saddened by the apprehension, but the scene at the fort after the discovery saddened me even more: big Spring Break trucks making cookies in the sand, roaring up noise and fumes, drowning out the waves, crushing sand dollars, scattering gulls, threatening families and dogs. One of the trucks stopped and a family got out. Naturally, a man had been the driver. He was teaching his kids something with those cookies and that something was uniquely American.

A bald eagle passed overhead, appeared to take in the trucks rampaging this loud way and that, and left the scene. I could hardly blame her. I left, too.

It is not often I leave the beach this way. In fact, I can’t recall another time in all these years of Oregon Coast beach rambling. It was unnerving.

I made my way into the dunes, away from the beach. I turned around for a final look and the rampage was still on. It was like a joust between two of the trucks. Where was a park ranger?

A man emerged from another trail and made his way on to the beach. He was walking with an unleashed boxer/pit bull mix and a leashed…ferret.

Yes, a ferret! I had never seen a ferret on a beach before. It was something out of a children’s book. I smiled. The man walked straight toward the trucks and then veered to his left. He headed to the fort! A ferret was about to enter my fort! Fort Ferret! I laughed aloud and continued into the dunes, no longer unnerved.

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