Image provided by: Upper Left Edge; Cannon Beach, OR
About The upper left edge. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1992-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1994)
I O' WJLR C fj L UÙIBIA Î A J iM O S ÎÙIA3COT Ji'ZJatY S A T tn m /ÏY Time on the river is healing tim e Not for those great wounds, the b itte r fractures, but for those incessant small abrasions, irrita tio n s and rashes that life so abundantly provides So, when the happy hour snacks at the Local become only salt and oil and texture on my tongue, when I begin to feel like a hatchery trout, fins abraded by confinement in narrow concrete canyons and soul in enui from the constant company of domesticated others. I head for the rive r I go, hoping cool currents w ill firm flabby muscles and juicy river food wash the taste of hatchery pellets from my tongue This is not the tim e for the big, famous rive rs There l find, In different dress, the same people I seek to escape It is time for the litt le river The lit t le river is near Newport Drive up a road that soon turns to gravel, past stands of second and third growth timber, past abandoned homesteads w ith ancient tw isted and bushy apple trees to a place just inside a National Forest Here I turn off the road down a narrow track to a fla t spot beside the stream and park the camper Across the river is a cabin Its owner is working in his garden He shades his eyes, recognises the camper, waves and goes back to his hoeing I’ve known him for years He won't come vis itin g the firs t night But the next day, when the sun is high and he knows I'm loafing in the camper, he comes He comes bringing two of the strange, crude looking flie s he ties from the feathers o ff his own chickens The native trout in the litt le river prefer them above all others "Hey, the camp," he calls as he wades the shallow r if f le and I turn the heat on under the coffee As we ve shared coffee and conversations over the years, his iron grey hair has changed to white, wispy scarcity and my black to grey We both s t ill drink it without cream or sugar and, "Yes, by God," he II have a dollop of brandy in it Me too He talks enthusiastically of the birds he's seen, a fascination of his "Who d ever of expected an old logger like me to become a bird watcher'?" He once said and chuckled at the absurdity of it That was the year I brought him Roger Tory Petersen's Fleld Guide to Western Birds ’ By the next year he had their names in Latin and mispronounced them without embarassment Over all these years, we've never exchanged names, or needed to A fter an hour or a lit t le more he leaves and that w ill be it for this v is it Later, when the sun is o ff the water, I catch two of the small, fe is ty trout from the stream and have them for supper w ith a beer from the cooler and two slices of good rye bread River food BONDED LICENSED uns Akvki»Ti .Likryi KW &i| (ixln'l t a t '•! tiente.' did MZ” DON PETRIE'S ITALIAN FOOD COMPANY 613NW Third 265 FOOD Nye Beach, Newport 1 CU1TCW 0* »O K M » » MACK O» f?"B \orthn'est by Northwest Gallery -• r 2 3 9 N o r t h H e m lo c k C « n n o n B « » (h O re g o n 9 7 1 IO P O B o « 10 21 S O 3 /4 3 6 -O 7 4 1 J O Y C E L IN C O L N . D ire c to r Paetfu \o r th n ett Contemporary Art .< Craft Celebrating 5th Year in Cannon Seai h A N T H O N Y STOPPIELLO = A rchitect f e rth arc h nociute ¿■onauttonl fOucotor faaano aolar J e u y C on ecM nto u* malarial u w 1 tcanaoa m Orafon ana Waantnqlon : »roer^ b* B O Bo. 31 Cennoo Beech. OR 9ZI10 A <lyiag a t a ■ ••A * U 4ia. a« a tle eyy s t a aeetfs u sleep, sad thara c i s t i a lists v h a a il it v ra a g . as wall as esalasi, la resist Sta v a r i Alaap EAT MORE COOKIES > w QUALITY TOOLS, INC. 2966 Hwy 101 N Seaside. OR 97138 Cinnamon Ross, Pizza by tha Sues Muflms, Espresso and Cookiat 230 N HEMLOCK Ph. 4M-2S32 let I edge T J L Y -« ,¡« 0 “Hi INSURED NEW CONSTRUCTION RE MODELING FOUNDATIONS FLATWORK u m IN K W M A n o N ( A U EARTH MERCANTILE AB CHILDRESS BUILDER RB «3Z1BZ00 Phone 4M 2 t<X) M o ttl axtoilu • □ . 738-3074 I hate to be an alarm ist, but Portland's chic and countercouture might want to hide the children Yes THF SQUARE DANCERS ARE COMING! Sure, go on and laugh What possible harm could come from a few unnervingly wholesome couples in gingham, straw hats, arid off-the-rack clogs'? None, of course It s when they gather in groups of 20,000 that things can get tw itchy, if not entirely out of hand C ritical mass, regardless how Norman Rockwellian it might seem, Is s t ill c ritic a l mass To give you some inkling - - for the past week, a caravan of motor homes from all over the land has been streaming from Independence, MO to the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro Better there than Waterfront Park, certainly But their final destination is the Oregon Convention Center where the 43rd Annual Square Dance Convention w ill give horrible new meaning to the verb to boogie' Not laughing so hard now, are we? The second largest army of conventioneers ever to airdrop into the latte capital of America (the record rests w ith Rotary International, whose 1990 gig brought 22,000 black belt networkers to a town s t ill struggling w ith the principle of the Rolodex), the gathering w ill bring square (and round and clog and contra) dancers from hotbeds as unlikely as (s ittin g down, are we7) South Africa, Japan, Taiwan and American Samoa They are. apparently, everywhere The convention is billed, small surprise, as The World's Greatest Square Dance Event" Eat your heart out, Woodstock II There is no question," bubbled Gary Grimmer, executive director of the Portland Oregon V isitors' Association, "that this is an amazing opportunity for the city ‘ Interesting word, amazing S till, it's good to look on the bright side Which, in this case, pencils out to $ 15 m illio n for hotels, petticoats, Dr Pepper, and chicken fried steak On the very brightest side, the Satyricon has no plans to book an alternative accordion marching band for a three-day pancake breakfast Drop the seal ano back away slowly Hit the beach, have we, campers'? Out from the c ity for a lit t le melding w ith the ecology and an excuse to wear s illy clothes'? Captain Lindsay Ball, head of the fish and game division of the Oregon State Police (Jokes Aren't Us), has a teensy suggestion Keep your fushlugginer hands o ff the baby seals It seems that, having bought the t-s h irt and the coffee mug, the legions of the warm and fuzzily correct yearning to save something are making their annual flu rry of nasty mistakes Listen carefully Baby seals gazing w is tfu lly o ff to sea are not hoping to be rescued by children w ith sand buckets They re w aiting for mom to come back w ith lunch Not only should you not drag the litt le cuties, shrieking and thrashing, to the nearest w ild life refugee center, you should not so much as touch them Contact w ith humans, whose scent lingers long after they ve moved on to the k ite shop, is the leading cause of seal orphans That's why there's a fine
