In my 22 years of living at the Oregon\nCoast, I have seen many people doing strange things on or near the\nbeach. Sometimes I figure out what’s going on, (I think) and other\ntimes, no possible explanation exists, and I simply marvel in the\nmystery and applaud the eccentricities of my fellow human beings. I\nalso applaud there being there, at the ocean’s edge. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week ago, I saw what surely ranks in\nmy top five of Strange Human Sights at the Beach. Hell, it might be\nnumber one. Only the man pretending crucifixion on a driftwood cross\nmight top it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could explain that one. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this new one…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I pulled into a parking lot where a\ntrail led to a secret beach. I was there hunting for choice cuts of\nbeaverwood because this place, along a secret river, is the best\nplace in Oregon I’ve found so far, and I am an expert in these\nmatters. Perhaps the only one<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A green sedan from the mid 90s was the\nonly vehicle parked in the lot. It was sagging, beat-up, rusted, and\nlacked license plates. It had the unmistakable aura of a meth rig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one was around that I could see. The\ndriver was hiking? I encounter a lot of these kind of vehicles on the\nOregon Coast and they never cease to intrigue me. I seek to learn\nmore about them but not by asking question of their owners.\nObservation only. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I made my way along the river and\nscored a few mediocre pieces of beaverwood. I headed back to the\nparking lot and saw a young reedy man exuding unmistakable traces of\nmeth loading a piece of driftwood about the size of a large end table\ninto the back seat of the car. A white and brown pit bull had its mug\nstuck out the rear passenger window and stared straight at me. A\nwoman with long black hair and a full head taller than the man stood\noutside the car. There was tinge of meth about her. She saw me,\nsmiled, and waved. I waved back with my right hand clutching\nbeaverwood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw the man folding up a rectangular\nbaby stroller with fat tires and sec ruing it in the trunk of the\ncar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A baby stroller? And no baby?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn’t make any sense and then it\ndid. They had transported the piece of driftwood from the beach in\nthe stroller! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They would drive the piece somewhere\nand make some kind of use for it that I imagined was ???????<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I felt tempted to go over and ask, but\nthe current editorial mantra requires: mystery over journalism. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But dammit, on occasion I weaken on\nthis stance, especially when a jagged story is ten feet away. I’m a\njournalist at heart, not a maker-upper. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my 22 years of living at the Oregon Coast, I have seen many people doing strange things on or near the beach. Sometimes I figure out what’s going on, (I think) and other times, no possible explanation exists, and I simply marvel in the mystery and applaud the eccentricities of my fellow human beings. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5077,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[436,405,48],"class_list":["post-5076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","tag-driftwood","tag-meth","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\/5076","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=5076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5079,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions\/5079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}