There I was with Elmer, building a driftwood fort at Bastendorff Beach at the south jetty of Coos Bay (pictured here). The sun was out on a weekday morning. Twenty-five foot waves smashed over the jetty sending up blasts of cannon fire and sea spray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elmer was doing his thing while I built. Occasionally, he’d help drag a piece of driftwood to the construction site and sit down inside the fort as it grew and grew. What a dog!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More cannon blasts and sea spray. It was easily the most intense setting for any driftwood fort I’d ever built, and we’re talking well over a thousand by now in my 25 years living on the Oregon Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What a fort I was building! A tepee\u201430 feet high\u2014with lattice and with enough interior room for a fire, sexual shenanigans or a tarot reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’d labored on the fort three consecutive mornings. I actually looked forward to rounding a dune and seeing my creation of art and shelter. There is no more cosmically satisfying way to begin a morning than building a driftwood fort. Everyone should try it once and see for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On this third morning, it occurred to me that I was becoming a fort master again after a four-year hiatus in Portland and caring for my father until he died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had this fort going at Bastendorff, another on Coos Bay, three at Whiskey Run Beach, and one at Seven Devil’s Beach. The weather this winter had been unusually dry and it was easily the best accumulation of driftwood along the Oregon Coast I’d seen in over a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, a fort master again! What a way to empty one’s mind. What a means to a Zen moment. What a method to withstand the current American cruelty and madness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I worked for half an hour and quit. A driftwood fort is never finished, nor will they ever last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We would return the next morning for round four, adding, bracing, shoring up, fortifying its called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning we rounded the dune and…no fort. It had been burned to ashes, and whiffs of smoke still emanated from where it stood. All that remained were embers and six charred cans of Keystone Light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, I wasn’t angry. I was overjoyed. Something had gone on inside the fort before the conflagration. Maybe a tarot reading and fellatio. Maybe some folk music and rotgut wine. Maybe an existential epiphany. Maybe someone even got laid. Maybe all of the above!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There I was with Elmer, building a driftwood fort at Bastendorff Beach at the south jetty of Coos Bay (pictured here). The sun was out on a weekday morning. Twenty-five foot waves smashed over the jetty sending up blasts of cannon fire and sea spray. Elmer was doing his thing while I built. Occasionally, he’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,5,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-driftwood-forts","category-meditations","category-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\/9723","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=9723"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9726,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9723\/revisions\/9726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}