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Editorial
Now & Then
What to start with? Well, as we collapse into September
we find our dance card filled for fall. Locally, nationally and
of course globally. Locally we are concerned with the safety
and well being of our family and friends. Tragedy has
visited. We lost another at the Notorious North Entrance
(more on that later) and we came damned close to losing an
artist. Bob Legg, who plays banjo with your beloved
Rev. and the boys at Bill's, missed death and almost lost his
arm on the Astoria Bridge. He is doing better, but if you
have a moment, you might think about the joy you have
felt watching live music, and then give a thought to Bob,
and when you get behind the wheel of an internal
combustion machine, remember that music and the soft
gentle people who often make it. We will keep you updated
next month.
Nationally, the Packwood Problem is reaching critical
mass. Rep. Furse, D-Or, dropped by Jupiter's as she is
wont to do during recess, and promised that things would
come to a head in September. Since then Battlin’ Bob has
belatedly asked for public hearings. So, another live action
television series on CNN (they already made an offer) that
runs at least 'til Christmas if not election day '96. Please,
Senator, (does he read the Edge? Well, it's worth a shot.) get
a note from your Nurse, saying, perhaps, "The strain of my
efforts to deal with an alchohol problem and the damage
done by my past behavior have put me in a position where I
do not feel that I can represent the people of Oregon in the
manner they have a right to expect. I feel that the work I
have done is something to be proud of, but to continue
would not be in the best interests of the country, the Senate
or the people of Oregon. Thus, I must resign." (Well, we
can dream.) If dreams come true, we, and quite a few others,
suggest that Oregon could do worse than to replace the
junior Senator with Norma Paulus, a Republican more in
the McCall mould, who would speak with - how shall we
put this - perhaps not as dangerous a tongue.
Speaking of keeping a civil tongue in your head, the
Am erican Civil Liberties Union is celebrating 75
years of defending the constitution. (Strange, it seems like
the rights of women to vote were just 75 years old this last
month, huh?) There will be tons of events all over America
this month, so take a chance, and read something you aren’t
supposed to or listen to someone you disagree with. It's
democracy; try it, you'll like it.
Okay, now for the North Entrance from Hell. Several
folks have dropped by and talked about the situation; we
have been on hold all over the Edge, to Highways, Police,
the City, the Media. A local man lost his sister recently at
this intersection, which has taken six lives in five years.
There has been, for longer than that, an ongoing fight
between the community, the city and the Dept. of
Highways. Arguments, explanations, studies, meetings,
task forces; done it, been there. We suggest a simple
solution: first - now, and from now on, we refuse to
use the North E xit Use Sunset Blvd. if you head
North from Cannon Beach; a few blocks could save your
life. We plan to put informational pickets on the bridge
over Ecola Creek to encourage folks leaving on Labor Day,
to turn around in the Les Shirley pumping station lot and
use Sunset to get on 101, heading either way. We
encourage the City and ODOT to work together to reduce the
speed limit approaching the North Entrance to 35 MPH on
101, for the length of the Cannon Beach Exits and
Entrances. As soon as the Fire Station is relocated, we
encourage the use of 2nd St. as an exit from downtown at
least in the Summer and that the North Exit be closed to
■ traffic entering 101. No, this will not make it absolutely
safe to enter or exit Cannon Beach, but short of putting a
parking lot on the east side of 101 and shuttling them in, it
is the best thing we can think of. Until this all happens,
please, don’t use the North Exit. The brother of the
woman tragically killed has asked that no one send flowers,
just help change the situation.
Well, we warned you our plate was full for September.
Now, updates. Sahallie is, as we speak, hopefully, back
on the drawing boards. The Seaside City Council, in a fit of
’ good old common sense, stood its ground, and said fix it or
you know that works. And lo and behold, a new design
would actually (if the city and developers can speak softly,
even though they both have sticks) make the developers
more money (a favorite of theirs), and save the tiny sliver of
a sand dune that is the last reminder of how it use to look,
when the people who used the word Sahallie with respect
lived there (a favorite of ours). We are reminded that the
word 'value' has many different meanings.
Sept 5th the Cannon Beach City Council will discuss the
spraying of 2,4-D by Cavenham Industries on the
Watershed. We, as is well known about town, loathe
meetings, unless they are held in comfortable civilized place
like Bill's Tavern for example. Taverns, in America, used to
be called public houses, and there was born the idea of
liberty, freedom and democracy. Nonetheless, we will be in
attendance (be forewarned, after bracing ourselves with a
couple of pints) to do our duty as citizens, because this
matter has become greater than this small community.
Recently we were appalled to learn that the State Legislature
passed a bill that demanded that no municipality make any
law having to do with pesticides. We were delighted to see
Gov. Kitzhaber veto it. We were again appalled to see it
become a "caboose" on the Light Rail Bill and pass into
what passes for law. If we do not challenge this idea that an
industry (in this case the petro-chemical industry) can
mandate the rights of a community, we are not worthy of
the freedoms we have fought and died for. Any 'Nam Vet
can tell you how 2, 4-D works on plants and people. And it
usually takes a decade or two to surface, often in our
children.
Now, finally, thanks for all of the support we have received
this summer. We shall survive, we will get by. Thanks to
you. But. . . the gentle Ms. Sally, Uncle Mike, your
beloved editor, et.al. are looking for some serious help. Has
anyone out there ever done anything vaguely resembling
this? We think we need a publisher. Some gentle,
intelligent person, who can figure out how to get the paper
to and from the printer and to the outlets, and get the bills to
the advertisers, and get new folks involved, and mail the
papers to the subscribers, and figure out the books and the
taxes, and all that stuff that Microsoft probably sells the
software for, but in a better way. So, if anyone happens to
be interested in talking about something this silly, give us a
call. We, too, would like to see the Edge survive and
prosper. This month we will be printing 6,000 copies, due
to demand. We will be newly available in Ashland, and
Vancouver, B.C. as well. And no, we are not kidding.
Dear Cannon Beach,
When Oregon poet William Stafford died, I was stunned
speechless: I was shut down by the shock of his actually
dying - it was as if I didn't think it was possible, or even
plausible, that this particular man and poet would, or even
could, die. And when someone said to me, "But Kelly, he
was seventy six years old," trying to be of comfort I
suppose, I was floored again. "So what? What's your point ?'
Less than a year later, when a beloved family member
died, I was shocked by death more than ever, in spite of
having been prepared by their having had a terminal illness.
But there is no preparing for death and all the sensible
explanations in the world both prior and post fail to impale
the mystery of this most mysterious and disturbing event.
At my father’s funeral, everyone present was horrified
when a revered and respected dear friend of my father s
brushed right by my mother at the end of the ceremony
without expressing a single word of sorrow to her. As he
ran out the door I followed him and took hold of his arm,
and he pushed me aside so hard I fell, and while many
persons there tittered and whispered words of shock and
indignation at this toughbutt of a retired naval captain's lack
of correct procedure regarding condolences to the departed
one’s family, I had never felt so moved by anyone's
demonstration of love for my father in my life. I even raised
my hand in a kind of crude salute, and busted out laughing
with a kind of crazy joy as he sped away in his car, for I
found his reaction to be the most honest and genuine
response of anyone else there. To a man who d served
alongside my father in the Korean War and Vietnam, my
father's dying of a terrible disease made no sense to him, it
made absolutely no sense at all.
When someone we love leaves us suddenly through death,
it isn't supposed to make sense; it isn't supposed to impart
new wisdom, or leverage heroism to new levels. It isn't
supposed to open up a window in our eyes to better ways of
doing things, new possibilities, etc., in spite of the
paradoxical fact that it often does.
I'm not sure death is supposed to do anything. But I
know that it does do this to those who are left behind: it
hurts. It simply and absolutely hurts all over. And its
probably just human nature that tries to speed the process of
grieving along, by trying to make sense of the death of a
loved one.
Many of you might have read the front page story the
other day in the Oregonian about a young woman who was
so threatened for her life, that she leapt to her death off a
bridge in Detroit in her frantic attempts to get away from a
group of men who were beating her up. Not only was her
forced - and to her terrified mind, necessary - suicide
outrageously senseless, the group of onlookers who cheered
her violent tormentors on were as ravaging and senseless as
any group of monsters could possibly be. The story was
paralyzing, it brought my mind to a complete stop — I felt
about as helpless and hopeless as anyone could feel. Later
on, the only fragment of peace I could glean from the story
was the fact that her tortured soul had gotten away from her
tomentors at all, and then I wondered what kind of a world
am I living in that I could find any semblance of peace in
such a thought as that? No sense there, no sense at all. It
makes for tremendous rage and pain and grief for all who
were a heck of a lot closer to the woman of that story than I,
a mere reader of the news, was though. It makes for all of
that and more, but it still doesn't make any sense.
So, I won't begin to try to make sense out of local
resident Jim Hall's having recently lost a beloved sister in an
automobile crash at the north end exit of Cannon Beach. I
won't dare try. But if we don't simply shut the north end
exit off to all outgoing traffic, and also take every and any
single fierce action we can take to severly slow all traffic
both north and south of this Death Pocket in the curve of
101, then that, well, that makes absolutely no sense at all-
And for any of us to quietly stand by and not do or change
anything in regards to that Death Pocket is just one more of
those senseless monsters that the world needs no more of.
My heart goes out to Jim Hall and his family. William
Stafford wrote in the first stanza of his poem Toward the
Space Age', these words and they have been of great comfort
to me:
We must begin to catch hold of everything
around us, for no one knows what we
may need. We have to carry along
the air, even; and the weight we once
thought a burden turns out to form
the pulse of our life and the compass for our brain.
Kelly Jurgensen
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Harry S. Truman
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