A couple of weeks ago, University of Oregon’s student-produced magazine, Flux<\/i>, asked if I wanted to contribute a letter to Oregon for an upcoming special edition. Here’s what I sent them, even though Sonny the husky passed away last year.<\/p>\n
Dear Oregon:<\/p>\n
I just returned from walking my dog on one of your publicly-owned ocean beaches, or the \u201cGreat Birthright,\u201d as former Governor Oswald West memorably described them.<\/p>\n
It was raining. I saw gulls, bald eagles, sanderlings, a decomposing whale, three driftwood forts and the remains of several bonfires. I didn’t see another human being for miles in either direction. Great notions for love and life emerged, as they always seem to do when I walk on the beach.<\/p>\n
My experience didn’t cost me a cent. As long as You remain the state I love, it never will. If there ever comes a day when a fee is required to access beaches, You will have certainly died.<\/p>\n
Please don’t die. The hot word is out about You again and people just keep coming and coming. Most newcomers have no idea about our unique legacy of publicly-owned beaches and the groundbreaking legislation that codified it into law. My job is to educate them. I will do this until the end of my days. It’s the least I can do. I owe Oregonians from decades and decades ago for saving the beaches from privatization. It has made the crucial difference in my Oregon life. It does every day I visit.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Matt Love<\/p>\n\n
A couple of weeks ago, University of Oregon’s student-produced magazine, Flux, asked if I wanted to contribute a letter to Oregon for an upcoming special edition. Here’s what I sent them, even though Sonny the husky passed away last year. Dear Oregon: I just returned from walking my dog on one of your publicly-owned ocean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32,74],"tags":[171,172,50,40,47,6,48,13,53,54],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","category-oregon-coast_history","tag-beach-bill","tag-beach-dogs","tag-bob-straub","tag-dogs","tag-driftwood-forts","tag-matt-love","tag-oregon-beaches","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-history","tag-tom-mccall","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2781,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}