{"id":8239,"date":"2023-02-01T07:10:06","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T15:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=8239"},"modified":"2023-02-01T07:10:07","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T15:10:07","slug":"scenes-from-charleston-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/scenes-from-charleston-oregon\/","title":{"rendered":"Scenes from Charleston, Oregon"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-8239\" data-postid=\"8239\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-8239 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>White flakes of burning oyster shells fall on me like snow. I&#8217;ve never walked while oyster flakes fall on me. I&#8217;ve got to find a way to use this phenomenon in a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I walk Charleston with gulls on a frosty weekday morning. This is a port town, home to a commercial fishing fleet, Coast Guard station and fish processors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A rooster crows. Orange and blue layers rise in the sky above the mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several men weave bicycles through empty streets. One is carrying a bag full of cans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I notice a large restaurant facing the bay. It&#8217;s not level. It will never be level again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Boats and more boats stacked here and there on tireless trailers and rotting sawhorses. They&#8217;ll never go to sea again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I pass an RV park that is beyond my abilities as a writer to describe. I&#8217;ve never seen one so cramped, blasted and forlorn. Two sights stand out: crooked pallet fences and weird statuary gardens. This park is like a still life that some artist assembled and arranged to paint the perfect portrait of capitalism&#8217;s destruction of certain Americans<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three old men from the park walk their dogs. Flakes fall on them and it produces the strangest snow globe I&#8217;ve ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s low tide and the mud flats are shimmering, waiting for clammers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I haven&#8217;t been in Charleston in years. I remember the time I performed a literary gig here. I remember the time I visited with a friend who was wearing green shorts and ruminating on acid. I like the grit and grime of Charleston and might consider making a new start here one day.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>White flakes of burning oyster shells fall on me like snow. I&#8217;ve never walked while oyster flakes fall on me. I&#8217;ve got to find a way to use this phenomenon in a story. I walk Charleston with gulls on a frosty weekday morning. This is a port town, home to a commercial fishing fleet, Coast [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-coast_history","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\/8239","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=8239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8242,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239\/revisions\/8242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}