Image provided by: Upper Left Edge; Cannon Beach, OR
About The upper left edge. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1992-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 2001)
ty u t/n *7A e G o su teb Victoria Stopplello Don’t throw the fish out with the bath w ater The Reverend Hults told me the responsibility for penning a short eulogy falls squarely on my shoulders. I’m not good at these things. They seem to catch us up with an alarming frequency these days. Several weeks ago a mutual friend told me Terence had undergone surgery. In the days that followed, he bequeathed his beloved prayer beads to a close friend. 1 felt say knowing what that meant. I first encountered Terence at the Wavecrest Inn, a coastal outpost harboring a rare cut o f characters indeed. He had just drafted in behind a swarm o f weekenders in his aged red Fiat sports car. Seated in the small roadster, tweed driving cap, round wire-rimmed glasses, boyish smirk, he looked for all the world like Mr. Toad o f The W ind in the Willows just swirled in off the High Road. At dinner that evening he regaled us with stories o f the old Iran he loved so dearly, dandling Gray C , the cat, on his knee. Poem for People who Love Poets T his poem is dedicated to the people wh<i lo v e the people w ho love. Y ou know w ho you are. Or m aybe, you don't. Y ou cou ld be on e o f the ten thousand m om ents w e write about or the breath w e wake to every morning. Y ou are every hand that has touched us, from the First to slap us into the world to the o n e to c lo se our ey es for the last time. T h is is for you , w ho are our peace and our fire, our safety and our cage, the ones w e cry for alon e and the on es w e push aw ay, you are the needle and the bottle and the knife and the gun. Y ou arc the hand that pulls us up w hen w e are s o far d ow n , and the kiss that lo v es us w hen w e have forgotten to lo v e ourselves. Y ou are safety and misunderstanding. Y ou are the danger that w e lick o f f the ed g e o f the knife named life. Y our nam e is on e o f the ten m illion w ords for god , and your body is our tem ple and our crypt. Your dreams are what w e fear, and your fear is our every day and night o f exhaled stars, you are our creation and our undoing. T his is for you. T h is is for you w h o allow' you rselves to be transported by our dream y sigh s, w h o bleed the revolution w e have co n ceiv ed , w h o shut o f f the television and turn on your minds. T h is is for those w h o giv e us the silen ce to speak into, w h o listen and hear the ech o es w ithin your hearts. A short, com pact man, Terence would sit astride a stiff chair. His body canted slightly toward one side, favoring legs attenuated by childhood osteomyelitis. Like an ebullient Emir at a desert east, Terence held complete sway over a dinner audience with his storytelling. When he com m enced a savory story, his face gleamed like a child at Christmas. At those times, one could glimpse the boy within the m an. He loved to dance and favored a flagon or two o f an evening. In m y m ind’s eye, I can see him as he appeared one special evening, a beer brewing night at the Wavecrest. Don Thompson, the innkeeper, and Mike Knop were brewing beer under a covered outdoor deck. Gusts o f wind and fits o f rain whirled around the bubbling pot o f ale wort. Don, Mike, Ron Logan and I hunched over the beer pot inhaling its pleasing vapors. Suddenly Terence materialized out o f the darkness behind the inn’s huge wisteria bush. Worsted up in woolens from toe to chin, his jaunty tweed cap scrunched to his eyebrows, he bid us “good evening” and joined us over the brew. “ M y, that smells good!” he exclaimed. A thick fog settled on the lenses o f his wire spectacles. We com m enced a round o f stories as the south wind soughed through the old wisteria limbs. Last summer Ron Logan and I visited him at his Seaview, Washington home, Crank’s Roost. We offered to take him to dinner at the Depot or the Shelboum e Inn, but he declined, telling us he could only swallow milkshakes. We sat in the serenity o f his little garden sipping Vodka tonics. Bed-ridden for a great part o f his childhood, Terence became, like Odysseus, a man o f many turns, a passionate traveller. While the three o f us sat in the summer air, Terence reminisced: a night in a Mexican brothel as a teenager (the fam ily he stayed with thought he was in church!) a dhow ride in the Middle East, his days on a pomegranate farm in Iran. That was the last time I saw Terence. He was m y favorite kind o f historian, a story teller o f great merit. His engraved words on the Vietnam Memorial, a painful juxtaposition o f Oregon events and the facts o f that war, detail in a special way how the unfurling present becomes our history. I complimented him that evening on his latest book, Seven Shades o f Mem ory. “That’s very nice,” he said, “ but, really, none o f it’s true.” I told him it felt very true to me. S am A bsher V Conafr & y.'-' G A dditions C ontracting QiiAi.rTY C onstruction R emodel L evel - S tabilize eneral o o Cell: 440-0278 P O. Box 2577 Fax: 717-0389 O Gearhart. OR 97138 O 738-7563 4 _ ' wreacefTeoGe CCM 114007 amul 200 j T h is is a m essage for you , the lovers o f those w h o love. Y ou have ch o sen a d ifficu lt path. In our hearts w e are gy p sies w h o cannot know safety. W e feed on the tension that w ould kill others, w e poison ou rselves for enlightenm ent and are transformed, w e see the depth and beauty w ithin your hearts m ultiplied in the infinite reflections o f a ch ild ’s eyes. F orgive us. W e are incapable o f your version o f sanity and w ould spit at it if it were offered. F orgive us. For the dam age w e cau se, for our thoughtless trampling through your unsuspecting liv es, for our tears and blood and sex and rapture that w e cannot help but heave at any standing clo se enough to sm ile. Forgive us. W e are treading an unknown path, playing a gam e with n o rules, dressed as soothsayers w hen w e are on ly idiot children, seek in g a hom e s o we'll have som ew here to g o to break the dishes. Protect yourselves. W e ch o o se to live d eep ly rather than long, w e cannot accept the safety you offer, but rather dance with m adness and her gifts o f tainted prophecy. Forgive us, protect us, inspire us. L eave us to curse our muse and the blood y sacrifice sh e dem ands. T his is for the lovers o f those w h o love. T h is is dedicated to you. Gabrielle Bouliane, copyright 1998 f n j o y t h e peaceful b e a u ty a n d n a tu ra l surroundings o f Y fUlapa B a y a n d th e n o r th end o f th e Long B each Peninsula. CALL FOR THE DAY'S MENO: (360) 665-4543 M oby Du HOTEL & OYSTER FARM Located in NihcolU. Washington on Sandndge RdJust Smith of Bay Ateme Weary but savvy and hungry travelers sooner or later discover the homey & eclectic comforts, outstanding regional cuisine and spectacular scenery o f The Moby Dick Hotel ft Oyster Farm, in Nahcotta on the Willapa Bay The Moby Dick, one o f the coast's quaintest hotels, hosts a remarkable restaurant where even Chef Jeff McMahon, well known to Portland followers, admits getting distracted by the scenery But when it comes to focusing on his evening menus and special events, Jeff is an incredibly diverse and talented treasure worth getting to know during your next visit Chef Jeff McMahon has worked most recently as chef at Portland's Saucebox Cafe ft Bar and also in New York, London and Los Angeles, although he is at home now at the Moby Dick. He has been teaching seminars and classes for five years and is a serious student o f traditional cuisine The Moby Dick Hotel A Oyster Farm is offering three special events beginning with a Spring Cooking Seminar Weekend: Catalan Cnisine - Barcelona and Beyond, May 5 - 6 ,2 0 0 1 . This seminar is limited to eight participants who will experience hands-on learning in the hotel restaurant's kitchen. The bold cooking o f Spain's Northern Mediterranean region is rich in identity and history and includes many unique dishes that can be successfully recreated at home This May 5-6 seminar includes lunch and dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday, Catalan region wine-tasting, use o f the finest Catalan/Spamsh mgredients and local bounty, discussion o f the history, foods and techniques o f the Catalan region, three 3-4 hour sessions in the kitchen, printed recipes and a Catalan cooking reference list The $219 per person fee includes all o f the above, tax and gratuities The registration deadline is April 29. A 50% deposit will hold your spot, and a two-week cancellation notice is required I was up on my high horse recently, riding around the electronic universe moaning about the sorry state of affairs regarding salmon, electricity, hot water and how dumb we’ve all been, when I had a conversation with my friend Ed. Ed has seen way more of the world than I have, and although he claims he’s more pessimistic, I notice he always makes me feel better and a bit more hopeful. As Ed metaphorically helped me down from my high horse, he noted there was a soap box for me to land on, and from that relatively lowly perch (compared with my high horse of at least 22 hands) I might inject a little humor and romance into my diatribe. Indeed, there truly is opportunity for both in our situation. We can do something good for us, good for our pocketbook, good for fish, and maybe even good for our love life, all at the same time. Here's the situation: You've undoubtedly noticed the wonderfully mild winter we've had - half our normal rainfall, and virtually no snow pack in the Cascades. As a result, the Bonneville Power Administration believes there won't be enough water behind its 29 dams to spill water for young salmon heading to the sea and at the same time generate all the electricity we humans typically like to use. So they're saying, let the salmon get ground up in the turbines like usual, don't spill any extra water for them, otherwise BPA will have to buy very expensive electricity from some moguls down in Texas (those are the guys who have been buying up California power plants at a rapid clip the last few years) and maybe go broke in the process (a terrible idea for a federal agency), or, and here's the big threat, we will have black-outs in the Pacific Northwest. This is the word from an agency that stopped all its energy conservation programs about eight years ago. Of all those choices the one I like best is blackouts, but that's because I like to see the stars at night and I'd like someone younger than me to catch a few salmon 30 or 40 years from now. But I don't think BPA has exhausted their options. They're just too chicken to suggest some of the alternatives. They 're probably afraid of a backlash because one alternative could lead to a dirtier, sexier, hip, cool and groovier population. It all springs from the fact that hot water consumes 25% of a household's energy budget. If you're paying $100 a month for electricity, $25 is going just to heat water. If you cut your hot water use in half, you'll immediately save 12% of your electricity. That's more than is generated by all four dams on the Lower Snake. So, shower with a friend, as they used to say, or with one of your kids, or even your dog. Yes, 1 used to shower with my dog; there was no tub, and I think he sort of enjoyed it. Even dogs are intrigued by nude women. If you're a parent, think o f how much less conflict there will be when the struggle getting a seven year old to bathe happens only two or three times a week instead of daily. Yes, the child may start to look like an urchin from Dickens, but so will all the other kids in town so you won't have to worry about what the neighbors think. You have no friends to shower with? Too modest? Then cut your showers in half. If you shower every day, try every other day. Take three minutes, not ten. If you're a Finn, go to the old system: Sauna on Saturday and sponge bathe the rest of the week. Insulate your water heater and put a $40 timer on it so it only heats up a few hours when you need it: on at 5:00AM and off at nine when you go to work. Wash your clothes in cold water. When you leave town, turn off the water heater at the breaker. Besides cutting your hot water use, turn off all that stuff you're not using, like your computer with those fish swimming across the screen, and the lights. Now there's an idea. We're moving into spring; pretty soon it'll be light until nine. After showering with your sweetie, a romantic dinner will be just the ticket. In Ilwaco, a town built on salmon, are we better off with salmon or electricity? I figure you can't eat electricity, so I'll take salmon by candlelight. Victoria Stoppiello writes from Ilwaco, at the tower left corner o f Washington siale. JOHN PULLIAM CONSTRUCTION "No Job Too Small” P le ase C a ll 436-0956