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Victoria Stoppiello
All I want for Christmas is...
^ » ESPRESSO
The Professor would like to present a couple o f bits
o f doggerel as prefatory material for his screed this
month:
"Rory, get your dory.
There's menhaden in the bay!"
Rory got his dory,
But the fish had gone away.
& £+■
The clams might show,
But you won't know,
If you don't go.
^PORTLAND
R0AS17NS
COFFEE
¥
Sadly, both clams and menhaden appear to have
vanished in many parts o f our country. Unlike schools
of migratory fish, our regional bivalves, the northwest
razor clams, move only a scant distance in their short
lifetimes. They scuffle up to the surface o f sand bars to
feed on plankton, then kick back down a few feet into
their sandy beds. Tagged clams have been found to
travel only 50 feet or so laterally in a year.
The little rascals, toothsome and tender as they are,
take a terrible beating from armies of shore side diggers.
They've always reminded me of Schmoos, those small,
vulnerable little mushroom-like entities that appeared in
early A1 Capp cartoon strips. Schmoos, like razor
clams, were succulent and helpless. They practically
begged for predation.
For decades the harvest remained bountiful and
seemingly boundless here. Numbers started to fall off
on local beaches by the 70's. People blamed El Nino,
the eruption o f Mt. St. Helens ("lots o f pumice on the
offshore bars. The clam spat can't establish itself
properly"), and shifting currents from the South Jetty of
the Columbia River. Forget that clams were once
extracted by bulldozers from local beaches, that cars
skimmed across clam beds at low tides, and that armies
of diggers yanked, maimed, and pillaged with
abandonment for most o f the 20th Century. Clamming
on northern Oregon beaches for the last two decades
could be optimistically described as "spotty." By the
90's, the average person's daily catch included a
preponderance of yearling clams about the size o f an
extra small oyster removed from the shell. Oregon's
bag limit remained 24 clams. The season ran from
September to July, digging permissible on any low tide
series. Commercial diggers dug in the same areas as
sports diggers; less than ethical commercial harvesters
hauled sacks home to stock the freezer.
On November 11th of this year we travelled to the
southern Washington beaches for their short opening.
Conditions were sweet: gentle surf and mild weather.
In 10 minutes each o f us dug our limit o f 15 clams, each
o f them the size of a basketball sneaker. Other clam
diggers we encountered evidenced the same success.
One needn't be a Rhodes Scholar to see the wisdom
o f Washington's radically curtailed seasons, strict bag
limits, and stringent enforcement.
I feel obligated to nudge the State o f Oregon gently
out o f sheer embarrassment. When will our Oregon
Department o f Fish and Wildlife stand in and make
some tough decisions? Thirty miles away in the State
o f Washington the clam fishery is thriving. Here in
Oregon the creatures seem destined to go the way of the
dodo and the abalone. Commencing changes tomorrow
may be too late, but to do nothing is unthinkable.
« TRILLIUM
4 NATURALT90DS »
ESPRESSO
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Victoria Sloppiello is a writer living in Ilwaco at
the lower left corner o f Washington state.
Man-machine identity is achieved
not by attributing human attributes
to the machine, but by attributing
mechanical limitations to man.
M ortim er Tanbe
T h e P ro fe s s io n a l Solution F o r Wood
♦ Highlights the Natural Beauty o f Wood
♦ Will Not Flake or Peel
♦ Easy to Apply and Maintain
The morning o f winter solstice arrived
w ith fresh snow on the ground. M y husband
asked, "Why do people get so excited whenever it
snows?" M y intuition replied, "Because it's a
transformation." It's the time o f year we look for
magic.
M y thoughts turned to Christmas. A
while back I heard a radio host reading children's
letters to Santa. One writer wanted a bunch o f
Barbies and a computer. I thought back to my
own past Christmas wishes; I wanted a horse at
six, requested a miniature refrigerator and range
when I was seven, and a bicycle at nine. You'd
think I w anted a car at 16, but all I wanted then
was to gel out o f Vernonia!
— ■ -
As an adult, I've been asked what I'd like
fo r Christmas and a few years ago, my w ish fo r a
new bathroom sink was fulfilled. This year I've
been thinking about Christmas wishes and have
come up with a few: I'd like to stop worrying as
much as I do. I wish that those 1 know who are
struggling with cancer would fu lly recover. I
wish my older relatives would find peace o f mind
as they approach the end o f life. I wish we'd all
get along a little better—a retreaded version o f
"peace on earth" that applies to the where I live
just as well as to the Middle East.
But most o f all, I wish the salmon
would return. M y feelings about this aren’t
totally rational. I don't fish and I know I can live
without eating salmon, but it goes deeper than
the material fact o f fish coming and going in the
rivers. I f the salmon runs returned, then I'd know
things are going to be all right.
I used to take salmon for granted. We
caught them, smoked them, canned them, cooked
them, ate them. Carved them, painted them,
counted them, waited for them. And now we wait
for them some more and the counts aren't very
good. I feel myself growing tense, wondering if
their numbers are so depressed that they might
not make it back. A combination o f events could
deliver the fatal blow, not just to one run, but to
many. How far down can we push them and still
have them bounce back? What are we waiting
for? Are we really w illing to take the chance o f
losing them forever, like the passenger pigeon,
just plain gone, no more, none, not any?
I feel a frightened twitch in my gut
about this. Salmon are not just a symbol, not
just an artifact from another era. They are an
indicator o f our own chances. I f w ild salmon
can't make it in this land o f the salmon and cedar
people, this environment to which they are
wonderfully adapted, what are our chances? Do
we really believe that we can live beyond nature,
beyond the restraints o f clean w ater, clean air
washed by forests? Can we live w ith polluted
streams, a landscape of pavement and buildings
only? Can you eat electricity?
The other night I asked a few friends the
rhetorical question, "How many people are
thinking they want the salmon to return?" and
the other three said in unison, "Everyone does."
But the realist in the group said, "That's not the
issue. The problem is everyone wants someone
else to make the change, no one wants to stop
building, reduce their electricity, stop dredging,
stop elcarcutting, get the cows out o f the
streams, stop fishing. We all point our fingers at
someone else to change their behavior so the
salmon can come back."
That's both a realistic response and a
disheartening one. M y little efforts arc so
insignificant compared to the Corps o f Engineers
blasting and dredging three feet out o f a hundred
miles o f Columbia River. M y little house's
energy conservation is only a drop saved from the
m illions o f megawatts that get swooshed through
the Columbia River's dams. M y little voice
asking to protect wetlands and streams w ithin the
town o f Ilwaco is a whisper compared with the
txMim o f "can't stop progress" and "it'll be good
for economic development."
But I've got to start somewhere in order
to have any peace o f mind. I can suggest, I can
wish, I can imagine. As the song goes, "you
may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only
one. And maybe someday you w ill jo in us..."
DLANL JOHNSON
K LM tS T A T t
Sun Country Log Home Store
Timber and McMinnville, Oregon (800)827-1688
www. TheLog HomeStore.com
Free S a m p le Available!
Though we travel the w orld over to find the
beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find
it n o t
Ralph W aldo Emerson
THE OSBORNE WORKING
STUDIO & GALLERY
IN AN UNJUST W O RLD... JUSTICE.
Personal Injury Lawyer
“
GREGORV KAFOl'RV
202 Oregon Pioneer Building
320 S.W. Stark Street
Portland. OR 97204
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UPPER LEFT EDGE DECEMBER 2000
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