V k a i V ili It
< A S < A I »I
A l l >S
i *«« > ji < i
A « (« lie « • C oJteclfck« • C 4 t*
M a x im u m B ro w s a b lllty l
B o c k r o o m b o o k s to r e
p rin ts a r , d a rt
• KXW
UUtft OO
Arcadia
Tc«Dua»
ftsriaaus
ffTDiTXXSUMSBO
Wt StA'I I W* ah
K oo a oxu fUMibs
I
HMOCMSKH
f
43W r3iw
LOCKI'KMQ
l&RO
MQU
T » i« ’
The Nestucca River runs out of the h ills where it
originates in the Coast Range, a rugged, ovec-lug^d
stretch of h ills that sits along the northern quadrant of
Oregon between the Willamette Valley and the sea
Some folks have called the Coast Range a "sacr if ice
jone* for the timber industry, yet even so the area s till
contains some magnificent scenery, trees and
waterways that s till allow salmon to make the ir way
home to fam iliar spawning grounds year after year
Alarmed about dropping fish populations and dwindling
natural habitat, environmentalists and sportspeople
have overseen the enforcement of some regulations that
have curtailed lugging and fishing in the area Yet
others see this area as a potential tourist mecca. or as
the ground on which dollars for e weak local economy
may be generated The Nestucca is only one of the
numerous riv e rs that flow out of the Coast Rsngr along
this stretch of Oregon, but it is one of the larger , and it
is especially popular (or its sport fishing and natural
beauty
Several years ago, Tillamook County and the U S
Department of Tr anspor tat ion got together around a
road project that would rebuild and widen a piece ot
roadway that runs along the Nestucca River east of the
tin y community of Beaver , into the Suislaw National
Forest daep in the Coast Range h ills The funds would
come in the form of a grant to the county to improve
local roads which lead into national forest land L ittle
was said about the proposed project, although some
folks in the a r « opposed it from the onset Their
protests seamed to fall on deaf ears The project was to
involve reconstruction of approximately seven and a
half miles of roadway, the cost of the project was
estimated at some 8 4 m illio n dollars
The work would be completed in two phases In the
summer of 1993, despite lawsuits pending and
environmental impact questions unresolved, the firs t
phase of the project was begun on a stretch between ten
and fourteen miles aapt o< Beaver At this p o in t, with
that piece s till not completed, numerous problems have
been encountered, and all the money is spent
The Tillamook County Commissioners want to make
this winding scenic byway into a b ig -tim e highway
acroos the mountains If three unfinished miles have
cost over eight m illio n dollars, not to mention the
devastation to the h ills and r iv e r , whet do they think
another fo rty or so miles w ill mean9
In 19 92 , a friend and l purchased a tract of land
which fronts along the Nestucca River for
approximately a thousand yards at the beginning of the
proposed project site We were never informed about
the road construction plans, so the letter suggesting
that survey crews would be in the area came as a
su rprise, not quite so surprising, unfortunately, came
the realisation that even though the letter had stated
- C GiO/tear safj tb/y
( would happen 9
j
•
-.If
l
3 ,
*
'»r
p'/z
f to w n • • .they
start to tbrtjet
_ Just Utf/e
thing;
O f ir s t but
F0n.6ET.fF
PONT
DO t h a
,.—, 1» ■ —........
"
emember M ushy one
Writer, you know M ushy?
bear i W eats s o ft
onyvuay Mushy started f o
s tu ff and one
he Couldn't fin d
• A lm o s t-
frr:
on op .
,Jiu5wyf
Ob well...
$ec...
t
?
that permission would be asked before entering our
property, nothing of the sort took place thelolluw ing
was my reaction the morning last August when that
even, took place 'Who do you think you are, crashing
in like this w ith machetes, theodolytes and your
funny-colored plastic rib b o n 9 " "Why, we re with the
gover nmen,, me am ’ Maybe that explanation was
supposed to provide a viable excuse tor whatever
mayhem they wanted to create Don t know why
any one hasn , talked w ith you. the county should have '
"Your letter said someone from your o utfit would gjk
permission to enter our property W e ll. here you are
on it and nobod, asked
W ell, uh, they should have
We re just doin our job This is only a proposal,
anyway, somebody'll be out to negotiate la te r, about
buying the land and all * l see Well maybe i ll just go
give somebody a call in the meantime fhe i^iyw h o
signed that le tte r. he anybody you know9' "Oh yeah,
that s a grad idea, ma am , they ve got it a ll up there
Somebody up there 11 answer all your questions, just
gtve em a c a ll'"
Does this peaceful riv e r valley really need a fancier,
wider road through it? Somebody 'up there has
already decided it does When you ask them why9 '
they come up w ith a lot of nebulous explanations about
logging tra ffic in the past (present9 ), helping out with
county funds. added tra ff ic Never m ind that therr are
seven winding substandard miles before one even gets
to this proposed p ro ject. and on beyond, nothing but
tores! service roads leading into the h ills to towns
forty miles away And when w ill they stop'1 The
questions only generate rh e to ric, no answers
The real insult comes when nobody asks Nobody
asked those of us who live up here it we wanted this
road to be re b u ilt Nobody asked if they could tromp
around on our land over there and stick stakes all over
it w ith blue and white and orange ribbons on them
Nobody asked us if we want to sell that property over
there, the piece we just bought and gut surveyed and
recorded less than a year ago. the part that buffers the
riv e r and our place from the exist inq road with its
noise and high spend trucks rum bling up and down to
the firs t phase of the blasted road project four miles
upstream
What is it they presume, anyway', r iding around in
their government owned wagons9 That the land is
theirs to use as they please9 And I . because I have a
deed registered in some courthouse someplace, pr esume
,t s mine The riv e r just keeps flowing on by, end only
she knows the reel tru th
I guess I didn t feel like being so tough, or I would
have told that gover nment survey crew to get off my
property u n til somebody asked permission and jsve me
a good enough reason tor needing to be there Control
Just a game of control That tacti might have worked
for a minute or two, and made me feel vaguely powerful
in the face ot a behemoth that dnesn, think much about
J
¿unset
‘Dinner
¿ < rv « d 4;OO-5i3O p.m.
¿ u n d u y - ¿IJhursduY. except hotLin^s
‘ W a ln u t £* C r a n b e r r y
¿ t u | | c d C h ic k e n
Hreasl af UuffeJ chicken. baked anti
lapped wiih orange cream sauce
SV 75
.*
'
(g ro u n d ¿ lr ( o ln
Tender ¡leak, ground and cooked lo perfection
Served with mushroom Madiera sauce
$8 75
j**,
t
v
tb ih k m ..
Cant remempt-r.. . .
¿ o ie a (a 1 W ayfarer
OL l VPV
---
Fresh Oregon tale ¡teamed and lopped with
Hay shrimp A lob tier Hollandaise sauce
$1025
4}eef tQouryul^non
Something lo Preserve
In that mad and broken lime we landed on this shore
my while crash cousins ancestors
of Gary Gilmore James WaU Jim Jones Diamond Jim
a bloated tornado on that eastern seaboard We
ripped this virgin girl with smallpox
liquor the plow the cotton gin the handgun -
my ancestors Flea market knights and barons of bathtub gin -*
we split forest gods into toothpicks and sold
you slum in dusty neon carnivals you never knew
you wanted My Grand Da plundered paper and lost it all
tong before I saw life and my uncles, fighting
for the freedom to commit ruination the only god
th e y bowed to
Tenderloin of beef sauteed with mushrooms,
garlic, and red wine Tossed with pasta
and served with garlic toast
$V 50
S eafood l\e\v4mrtf
Fresh seafood sauteed with garlic in a
sherned mushroom cream sauce
$11.75
‘ pinners Include soup or sola J. choice of starch,
veyeiahie of the day, and coffee, lea, or decaf.
‘¡Reservations ¿u^gesUd
And now now after the smoke has cleared
the chips have fallen and the babies they re stillborn
now when the only smiles are thoee of cadavers in the woods,
now when 1 must remember my obligation to love
1 stand on this far off western shore
close to the water the last place to rip apart
and ale hemal Lie into bank account securities
now at last what s left of a tired and rapacious seed
turns nflf* to stare stupid and ashamed to search
dull and terrified to look praying
for something there behind me to preserve
^ W a y fa re r - Q c e a n jr o n t ( D lnln0*
1190 ‘^Mctfk ‘J > .
L>mnon‘Qeach 4 5 b -1 108
Kitzhaber ‘94
— Bill Cluaie
4800 S W Griffith Park Drive. Suite 300
Beaverton, Oregon 97005
the riv e r s tru th or mine, lust that somebod» said some
bucks should be thrown this way and these guys were
given a job assignment, and to get their paychecks
they re doing it That s the ir tru th It the riv e r gets
fu ll of s ilt and stops flowing, or the salmon stop coming
up it to spawn, who knows what difference it w ill make
in their private hearts at night, when they (ace the
wall w ith just themselves and the dark9
The state owns the road, they say. and. w ell, the state
says it owns the r iver too I only “own" up to the high
water mar k if it's consider ad navigable, and it doesn't
seem to matter that only a white water r aft would itere
to take on these rocky shoals At one time, fifty years
or so ago. before they logged out all the forest up above,
drying out the land and devastating many ot the ftwder
streams along the way, folks say it was Must have
been a sight to behold bark then' By most standards it's
one of the most picturesque riv e rs around today, except
where the u priver projert has dug out streambeds and
caused washes that made the river run red in the
middle of the driest month of the year
And it the State owns the road, and the State owns the
r iv e r , which one comes firs t, in the scheme of things9
Would they' sacrifice this beautiful, p ris tin e r iv e r , the
trees alongside h e r, the earth that bounds her. (or a
bigger highway. seven miles ot brand new road in the
middle of the woods, to help the c ity folks d rive (aster
for a little while on their way to fish and litte r and
leave campfires smoldering9 Don t get me wrong. I ve
been one ot those, wanting ns bad as the next per son to
find some p m r and quiet in one of those National Forest
campgrounds Now i live tiere But even back then, I
never really minded dr iving over rough roads or
tr aveling a little more slowly to get to those spots,
much nicer to see the riv e r left undrfi led once I got
there
Not like the mess up the road1 Looks like a war Tone
up there, like tanks and a rtille ry have been blasting
away' at the landscape for months, then ear thmovers
brought in, try in g to cover up the chaos Then they
have the audacity to spray putrid green stuff all over
the reddish black soil, "instant grass", to pretend the
whole thing won t wash away the firs t time it rams
Streambeds have been disrupted, huqB chunks of
embankment a rv a d out and moved, no living thing has
been left undisturbed, bugs, people and a ll. and they
s till haven't stopped the hillside from sliding down the
way it has for eons, rig h t across their fancy new
roadbed Some of the folks up there male a fuss to star t
w ith, but it didn t stop the machines from cominq in
and doing it anyway Other folks, whoever they may be,
think the roed project brings them bucks, I suppose,
although nobody that I can tell is really owning up to
much Any way you cut it, the rive r doesn't win
When my kids were small, we used to r eed a book
about a tree that loved a little boy. and the little bay
who thought he loved the tree, but the little boy just
kept going to the tr« * and ask ing for more and more
u n til one day he came and there was nothing left but a
broad stump for the then-old man little boy to sit on
and think about all he d lost Any guesses which one
knew the most about the real meaning of the word
Love9 Trees, and riv e rs , jus, give and give to all the
little boys who come and ask for one more favo r,
laboring under the delusion that they can make the
trees and riv e rs come back the same as they were
before all the asking star tod Just like you can't plant
an old growth fores, and make it come bark , you sure
as heck can I make a river run after you've plundered
and polluted, maimed and bur led her
The r iver keeps on giving and giving, a lesson in the
k md of Love we al I need to k now a good deel more about
But s till we can t get the message W ill we grow up
and see before the riv e r is gone and all we have is an
empty bed of rocks to sit beside and tell our children
and grandchildren about9 Ah, the grand times we had
here' How pretty the water looked when the sunlight
shone Jus, so' And the ftsh , ha, 3wam here once, came
home to lay I heir eggs so new ones could leave and
re tu rn year after year' The lush fe rn s , ha, used grow
along her bank s where the water lapped gently against
the rocks'
What w ill it take9 I wr ite this and choke back a
large lump tha, rises in my chest, sits there, and
pushes up the tear s that wait just behind my eyes The
g rie f about what we re doinQ to the land, the trees, the
riv e rs , a ll over this earth, is so overwhelming tha, i,
mostly goes denied Who wants to feel it 9 If everybody
did, there'd be so much weeping and raging going on all
around there'd be no time to get the work done Those
fellows on that survey crew, (to they ever get a wave of
it. looking up from the numbers in their scopes and
charts9 Or what about the workmen up above, wteldinq
the ir huge machines while they rearrange the
landscape in irre v e rs ib le ways, a landscape that was
perfectly splendid before they came9 I'd like to think
maybe some of them do The one fellow said, "We re
lucky We get to leave before the Bad Boys move in "
( It's not e n tire ly clear which ones he was re fe rr mg
to ) But if any of them fer I it, 1,'s not enough to stop
them Government jobs, and contracts, are plums these
days Road construction pays well too
What w ill i, take9
Joyce L Cochran
Blame, Oregon
Fall 1993
It's better to debate a question
without settling it than to settle a
question without debating it.
Joseph Joubert
UFFLR LtfI Ibtt. MUCHIW
I
7