I meandered a narrow strip of beach\nnorth of Newport at high tide. The last time I’d here I was a teacher\nwith my students and we were making some kind of weird Oregon history\nwith the most visits to separate Oregon beaches by high school\nstudents in a single day\u2014nine. That record will never be broken.\nThat was quite a day and fine memories of it gave me a pleasant\nvertigo. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not long into my meandering, I saw what\nappeared to be a log jam at the entrance of a large culvert. I\ndecided to investigate because there was nothing better to do. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not a log jam. It was a fort,\none of the largest driftwood forts I’d ever encountered. (No\nphotograph could do it justice because of the lighting and its\nbehemoth size.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before entering I came across a fire\npit with blackened wood and cans of fancy ice tea strewn about. That\nstruck me as odd. Typically I find containers of alcohol of one kind\nor the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also discovered a round of wood with\nwriting on top in multiple colors of Sharpie. I read the writing. It\nwas the serenity prayer from AA. That was a first in all my driftwood\nfort days. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fort beckoned so I entered it. It\nwas almost like a human beaver lodge in its construction, spacious\nbeyond belief, 20 feet in length, three rooms, roofed, sturdy on\nsides, benches, shelving. It occurred to me that people may have been\nusing it for a home. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its makers left behind their\nnames\u2014Travis and Ashley\u2014and the date of their creation. This was\ntheir third fort built on this beach. Travis and Ashley also\ndecorated the fort with other colorful signage lettered in groovy\ntypography. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat down on a bench inside the fort\nand wondered about its provenance. An instant creative writing lesson\nfor students formed in my mind. I would show them a brief slide show\nof what I had seen and let them riff away. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who were Travis and Ashley and how had\nthey come to building incredible driftwood forts, drinking tea, and\nfighting for an announcing\/affirming their sobriety? I truly wish I\ncould meet them. I wanted to know everything and not just imagine\ntheir story. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My initial thought about Fort Sober was\nthat Travis and Ashley had taken fort building in a direction\nentirely alien to me. A few minutes later, I didn’t think that. I\nthink we are both doing the same sort of thing: healing, expression,\ncreativity and activity for mental and physical fitness, and mind\nexpansion\/contraction through building, building, building something\nthat won’t last, can’t last, but then building again and again, and\nunderstanding and accepting the Zen nature of driftwood fort\nbuilding, and by extension, daily life. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, of course, it’s damn fun to build!\nJoy is god. (That’s no typo.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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