FROM THE LOW ER LEFT CORNER
VicroKia SToppieLLo
A lm o s t a shut-out
I would like to take this opportunity to thank
the community for responding so warmly to my
reading this week. I am non-plussed at the sheer
numbers who turned out last Tuesday at city hall.
Perhaps the dearth of entertainment this rainy
November accounts for the crowd. Maybe some
thought I’d reveal some lurid gossip or a juicy
scandal or two. Whatever the motivation, thank you
all immensely.
I sometimes think of history as a people’s
collective dream about the past. Louis DeBemieres
in his fine novel Corelli’s Mandolin says history
consists of ‘hearsay tempered with myth and hazy
memory.” 1 subscribe to that notion. “Facts” are
shifty things, less tangible than impressions, not as
durable as the stories and deeper truths.
In the aftermath, a number of people have
expressed interest in seeing the manuscript
reproduced in some published form. I am flattered
and humbled. As I’ve suggested this past year, I feel
the manuscript is roughly hewn at this point and
needs to be sculpted and fleshed out somewhat more
fully. 1 harbored a secret hope that the public reading
would generate additional interest. Perhaps diffident
voices, over-looked stories, unknown sources would
step forward. If the words I’ve linked together end
up with a spine and numbered pages, the text cries
out for some dusty old black and white photographs.
Our historical society has offered me access to their
collections. If any of you have photos in collections
or scrapbooks pertaining to local history, I would
like to consider them for their inclusion. Any leads
on potential interviews with additional informants
would also be extremely helpful.
The Professor’s address and phone number
follow. A Luddite and practicing techno-phobe,
your Professor has no FAXes, TVs, Webs, or
.corns. He can often be found haranguing and
extemporizing on Osburn’s Grocery porch, The
Cannon Beach Cookie Co., The Espresso Bean,
Hane’s Bakerie, or Bill’s Tavern. Thank you all
once again for your kindness.
(DON'T be a victim of inferior FRAMING)
AWARNING
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It was a howler the other night, high
winds roaring and sighing in the tall trees around
my friends’ house in Nehalem. I awoke many
times, wondering if any trees would fall —then
reminding myself it hasn’t rained much yet this
season. Soils are relatively dry, so toppling trees
are unlikely, but high wind does sometimes snap
off the tops of trees standing in unprotected
locations, especially those no longer enmeshed
with their fellow's in thick stands. Later in the
fall and winter, when there’s lots of rain, is when
a windstorm like the other night’s would result in
flooding, mud slides, and uprooted trees.
The view around the Nehalem house is
more open than years ago. There used to be a row
of relatively young firs and spruces, 30 feet tall,
along the street below the house. The PUD came
through and not only topped them, but
completely removed every one. Now the view up
the Nehalem Valley is more expansive from the
house, for better or worse.
There are lots of things we do to trees in
the name of our own comfort or safety. I say
comfort because people often fear trees, fear that
they will fall, crush a house, car or person. In
fact, this seldom happens. It’s a little like the
statistics for plane travel: in terms of passenger
miles, there are statistically few fatalities, but
when the fatalities occur, they are sudden,
instantaneous, and shocking. So we regard plane
travel as risky, and likewise we fear living near
big trees in winter storms.
The odds, of course, are all in our favor.
The match between humans and trees is almost a
shut out. The logger who is killed by a tree that
splits as it falls, sending projectiles in all
directions, the wind tossed giant that drops onto
the suburban roof, killing the occupant as she
sleeps, the old snag that suddenly gives way on
the state park hiking trail—those are a few
examples of the trees' revenge. I say revenge
because the trees are Rising the battle, and the
few human lives lost are like a few grains of
sand removed from a beach littered with billions
of trees taken for our benefit.
Many trees don't even serve a useful
death. Some are cut down so a builder has an
simpler task working on a clear cut lot. Some are
taken down because the home owner is tired of
raking leaves. Others are removed because the
household says "they're too close to the house"
and no further explanation is necessary. Trees are
removed to improve the view, even though the
view gained perspective and focus from its
framing by trees.
Other trees are removed in public places
"because they might fall on somebody," or they
shade the roadway and delay the melting of winter
ice. Seldom is there an apparent examination of
the tree's health, evaluation of the direction of a
potential fall, or consideration of the statistical
probability of such an event at a moment when
someone is nearby.
At the Arcadia Beach wayside, south of
Cannon Beach, two very large old conifers were
cut right down to the ground apparently with this
rationale. A tree had fallen and killed a child in a
state park somewhere and that was reason enough
to chainsaw these two giants. Even the logs were
removed, so that no sense of history or
perpetuation of the forest through nursery logs
would remain. Scrutiny of the rings showed no
sign of disease. A more likely story is that the
highway department, which is in charge of the
waysides and is no respecter of trees, saw an
opportunity for some quick bucks from logging
two big old trees. After all, they're the same
folks who use what I refer to as the "grim reaper"
to trim back limbs, small trees and brush along
what's supposed to be scenic Highway 101. That
equipment leaves behind a display of tortured,
npped and shredded limbs, a sight to send an
orchardist reeling.
So while I lay awake during the night,
listening to wind whirring through big trees in
Nehalem, I think these thoughts. I think of trees
falling, examine the facts of the matter, and
realize that in fact I've only heard a tree fall once,
long ago, in a forest, at a distance. It was a
unique experience, like hearing a cougar's cry for
the first time—something you remember with
gratification and respect, but may not want to
repeat.
Victoria Stoppiello is a writer living in Ilwaco,
al the lower left corner of Washington state.
Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy, but they don’t
know the meanin’ of the word. Mose Allison
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We think in generalities, we live in detail.
Alfred North Whitehead
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6
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