August 7, 2017

Bonnie and Clyde Files 15

I wore the Chuck Taylors into the river and Bonnie and Clyde followed me into the water.

Wet canvas molded around my ankles. The cold felt wonderful against my skin. I’d forgotten the feeling. It made me want to camp with a canvas tent again. More canvas in my life!

It was hot and getting hotter. The river barely moved. In fact, nothing seemed to move except a middle-aged man and two old dogs. I stopped in the middle of the channel and my mind drifted:

Movement. Movement. Movement. I crave movement in my time of molasses-colored stasis.

Inertia has paralyzed me. It has also offered unforeseen liberation. By not being able to move forward, I have taken limitless journeys into my heart and mind and the hearts of minds of others. I’ve taken journeys I would have never otherwise taken, let alone conceived of taking.

Journeys such as to this river with these great dogs. Such as to establishing a new indomitable friendship with my sister. Such as the rediscovery of classic novels and an understanding of why they endure as classics. Such as practicing silence and disinterest in the face of outlandish noise and agendas. Such as experiencing the tangible health benefits of purple cabbage and turmeric. Such as learning how to surface from the shallows of my former life. Such as traveling the Klondike Trail to prospect for a new voice for my writing and new service to my community. Such as embracing the idea that I will become a man who knows how to caulk.

That’s a lot of movement without moving. The unforeseen journeys will, I have no doubt, continue.

I heard some splashing and looked around. Bonnie had flopped down in the middle of the river and stared straight at me. Clyde had retired to the bank and was snoozing in the tall grass.

The spell was broken.

We didn’t make it across. Perhaps next time we would, if we felt so moved.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting senior dogs at the Angels for Sara Sanctuary and a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)

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The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

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

of Oregon Fiction

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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.