The sun materialized on the North Oregon coast and the temperature pushed 75 degrees. Preposterous! I loathe everything connected to the sun except relishing its inevitable super nova and subsequent black hole. There are no black holes with rain\u2014only light, clarity.<\/p>\n
I placed my items on the counter of a convenience store in Warrenton. The Indian clerk smiled and asked how it was going. He loved my last name and always punned on it. Love Man!<\/i> His command of the English language astounded me; it was easily more refined than half the English teaching colleagues I worked with in my career.<\/p>\n
I told him I had just visited the beach and walked and played for an hour. His face went blank. I knew the look. Most of my coastal principals had it etched on their countenance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen was the last time you went to the beach?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He hesitated. \u201cI haven’t been yet. I work a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
That I already knew. He probably worked 60 hours a week and slept on a cot in the utility closet. He was always there when I patronized the store. He had Indian music cranked and smiled non-stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long have you lived here?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix months.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean you’ve lived here for six months, ten minutes from the beach, and you’ve never seen the Pacific Ocean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven’t.\u201d<\/p>\n
I walked to the front window and found the open\/closed sign. I closed the store.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere going to beach\u2014right now,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can’t. I have to work. My family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want me to call ICE?\u201d<\/p>\n
It would have been the only humane threat of deploying ICE in recent memory but the situation called for it. This was Oregon dammit! I had a Tom McCall duty to help this newcomer.<\/p>\n
I told the customers the store was closed; there was an Oregon existential emergency<\/i> in progress. I was the Doctor of Love in charge. Scram!<\/i> They scrammed.<\/p>\n
I wrote Oregon existential emergency; store closed.<\/i> on a napkin, dabbed it nacho cheese goo and stuck it on the front door.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou used the semicolon accurately,\u201d the clerk said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
The clerk came out from around the counter. He was ready to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ever built a driftwood fort?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat’s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
We were about to leave when I turned around, sprinted to the cooler, and hauled out a 12-pack of Rainier.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ever drank a Rainier?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me. I sensed fear and distrust.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I with the right person?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re with the right Oregonian. Let’s go.\u201d<\/p>\n
(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n\n The sun materialized on the North Oregon coast and the temperature pushed 75 degrees. Preposterous! I loathe everything connected to the sun except relishing its inevitable super nova and subsequent black hole. There are no black holes with rain\u2014only light, clarity. I placed my items on the counter of a convenience store in Warrenton. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[171,36,96,48],"class_list":["post-3882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","tag-beach-bill","tag-beaches","tag-ocean","tag-oregon-beaches","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\/3882","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=3882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3884,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions\/3884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}