In public school there are too many rules.
You have to do a mile run in P.E. every month, even
if you throw up. You must eat all of your food at
lunch time. There is no carrying on conversations
while you eat. There is no sharing food with your
friends. In the library, you must keep a distance of
at least four feet between yourself and another
person. (And absolutely no talking.) In class, we
were not allowed to help each other with school
work. And we could not work ahead in our books,
even if you knew the answer. At my school, no one
makes you run a mile, especially if you are sick. We
have swimming lessons once a week at the public-
swimming pool. Once a week a group of students
cooks lunch for the rest of the students. If we cook
Mexican food, we study about Mexico. If we cook
Italian, we study Italy. We have a lot of fun doing it,
and no one scolds us for talking. At reading time,
the older kids often read to the younger kids. Often
someone is sitting on someone else’s lap.
These are some of the reasons I feel good
about my new school
Jessica Rogers, Fourth Grade, Hwy 26
Greetings from Fire Mountain. Most people
in this community are probably familiar with the
school, but for those who are not, I shall illuminate
some of the details. This parent-run educational
community sprouted roots in 1983. Through storms
and sunshine, trailers and people’s houses it
flourished under the care of many committed
gardeners. After finding its home on the edge of the
Oswald West State Park, the school has been nestled
in a beautiful structure for many years. New to the
school this year are myself, Tracy Bocarde and Jill
Hurley. We ebb and flow happily with the new
experience as learning facilitators.
It gives me great honor to draw open the
curtains onto the creativity and perspective of our
eighteen young minds. Each month two or three
students will include something they would like to
share. Since we practice community building
education, it feels important to build bridges between
these dynamite students and the “outside world.” By
the way, we are embarking on the formidable project
of writing a book on Oswald West State Park. We
see this project as a way to tune people into the
importance and significance of that stretch of land,
and to make research projects fun and real. If
anyone has any pertinent information for us, please
call me, Tracy, at 436-2610 or 436-0374. Fire
Mountain was in fact named for Neahkahnie
Mountain, yet another reason to pay special homage
to the park.
Thank you Billy, from all of us, for this
opportunity. Here are the first three students.
Little Miss Claire sat on her hair eating with her
friend Beth, along came a bear and mushed their
eclairs, and scared them half to death.
Allie Waldhaus, Third Grade, Seaside
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It looks like it’s going to be an early winter. I can
hardly wait until I get up there. After surfing all
summer the next best thing is snowboarding all
winter.
Micah Cerelli, Fourth Grade, Arch Cape
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If we could shrink the Earth’s population to a village of
precisely 100 people... with all existing human ratios
remaining the same, it would look something like this:
There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western
Hemisphere (North & South) and 8 Africans,
51 would be female, 49 would be male,
70 would be nonwhite; 30 would be white,
70 would be non-Christians, 30 would be Christian,
50 percent of the entire wealth would be in the hands of only 6
people, only one would have a college education
No one would own a computer.
M am zam H a
News
Dear Camille,
This is the first letter I've ever written you For eighteen
years I've been able to walk down the block, turn the comer at
Gogona Street, knock on your door, and say hello. Now
you've gone out into the wider world, a young woman, fates
cast suddenly to the wind. I am unabashedly proud, yet feel a
marked sense of loss. Suddenly, to my surprise, I find myself
like Lord Chesterfield or Polonius, in great danger of
imparting well-intentioned platitudes and mock wisdom about
life and the world. Forgive me please. Forgive me also for
not writing sooner, but be assured that you've never strayed far
from my thoughts.
Eighteen years past this Halloween Eve,
your lather and mother, lid and Laurie Beers, invited me into
their home to introduce me to a beautiful child, one- day old.
At that moment the nicest thing that ever happened to me in
my life occurred
"Meet your new God daughter Camille," Ed told me. I was
completely flummoxed, teary, and without words. Through
the years, in my otherwise childless life, I have been as proud
of you as if you were my very own. I get a bit schnuflly right
now remembering that night. As a Godfather, I fear I have
sadly neglected your spiritual up-bringing. My sense is that
you've handled that rather nicely yourself. 1 once told your
friend James Massa that I expected him to tighten up and make
me proud of him.’ "One day I'll be gone," I told him. "I
don't have any children of my own. I've decided that you will
be my replacement. Don't mess up."
’i ou, too, Camille, will be one of those who takes my
place. Perhaps you can cast a brighter light on the world than
my generation and its predecessors.
The years have dril led away swiftly like fluffs of dandelion
oh a fall wind. Only yesterday you were swaddled in blankets,
smiling peacefully in that tiny dory-boat crib my brother made
you. Now you've passed beyond kindergarten, school plays,
soccer matches, the senior prom, and your first Mustang.
Camion Beach has always been a little town with great
stories. We love our characters, their shortcomings and
triumphs. In Hights of imaginative fancy we magnify and
intensify their small triumphs over the average, humdrum, and
quotidian. Both you and I share that heritage and good
fortune. A friend once told me that my life was like a poem,
the various verses tuid stanzas composing a life work of
intense and ratified emotion. In my life many of the
memorable and most lyrical passages transpired during my
tenure at the University ol Oregon, the place you have chosen
for advanced schooling. I'm quietly pleased that you will scuff
through those same pathways of fall leaves I once trod, haunt
some ol my old haunts, ponder the perennial questions we
once pondered.
V ou may think me a doting old sod, but my one regret is
that I can't join you for a campus walk and tell you how
tilings were. First I'd show you the ancient ginkgo tree that
sits near historic Deady Hall. On fall days 1 would stare up at
its branches and dream of the mythical golden raintree and a
peaceful world.
On October 8lh, 1970,1 left die war in Vietnam. On
October lOdi, 1970 I began graduate courses at the University
of Oregon. The week before I amved, students had installed
craters on die grounds of the R.O.T.C. building to demonstrate
against the war. I would try to describe for you the
restlessness on campus, the student dissatisfaction with a
world gone dark, a dream diat had died. In diose years our
heroes ap|ieared on campus in Eugene, people who spoke out
against inequities and social injustice. Senators Wayne Morse
and William Fullbright, young John Kerry of the Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, Ron Eachus who had travelled to
Hanoi widi Jane Fonda.-AVe students tasted change in the very
air we breadied. We could make a difference. Nixon and the
old hypocrisies were shrivelling and failed.
We could visit Minnie Washbume Park and the steps of
Condon Hall where Steve Prefontaine, David Knight and I
would fraternize on soft spring days, free of care, mercifully
denied prescience and a vision of things to come 1 would
certainly show you Ilayward Field and try to conjure die
electricity and roar of the '72 Olympic Trials. The flashes of
yellow and green circling d ia l unique venue during die 1970's
raced through the annals of track and field liistory Jim Ryun,
Dave Wottle, Kenny Moore, Lisse Virens, Francie Larrieu,
Emile Puttemans, Lee Evans, Bruce Jenner, and the rest left
their footprints on that oval. Bill Bowerman stalked the
infield in his slouch hat <uid overcoat, forever the coaches
coach.
If you were a few years older, we'd visit Maxie's and
Taylor's for a pint or two. The walls of those venerable public
houses have acted as sounding boards for students' ideas,
dreams, and fears for generations and apficar destined to do so
in your life as well.
Finally, I'd take you to the library I lived in the
University of Oregon Library, Camille. It was a place of
dreams made manifest All the voices that ever spoke in the
world were there, some obvious ¡uid accessible, some furtive
and elusive. They talked to me, strove to clarify the abstract
concepts ;uid queries posed by my professors. In the spring of
my life, the memories of those halcyon hours spent in the soft
murmur of the library indelibly etch my recollection of college
days. Perhaps I can visit you one spring day when the
flowering plums and tulip trees grace the campus grounds.
Those were the moments that break the spirit's sleep.
My love to you,
Peter
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