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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 24, 2015)
AN OREGON COAST CHRISTMAS CAROL Story by MATT LOVE O On Thanksgiving Day, Old Marley was dead, dead as a clearcut. He’d suffered a heart attack while riding a sublime turquoise wave and washed up, entangled in kelp, a couple hundred yards from his beachfront home. A week later, Marley, an ageless legend in Ore- gon Coast surfi ng circles for 40 years, had his ashes spread upon the ocean at dawn by the largest fl otilla of surfers in the history of the sport. The wake raged for two days and the drum circle never stopped. Then, the anxious mystery commenced. Mar- ley’s clan openly wondered who would inherit his magnifi cent home, a cedarwood, A-frame structure titled Fort Tom McCall, a crude, hand-crafted palace that served as a Mecca, a hostel, a crash pad, a Zen station of the cross, a hospital, a repair shop, a sanc- tuary for fairies, a lawn gnome orphanage, a fl otsam and jetsam art gallery, a history museum and animal shelter for surfers, kite fl iers, paddle boarders, rock hounds, crippled birds, old sea lions, real estate nov- elists and limpet nuts. Marley never cared where a person came from; everyone was a local in his mind. He welcomed one and all and shared his passion for Oregon’s unique heritage of publicly owned beaches. That heritage imbued Marley’s spirituality and politics, and it was widely attested that he was the greatest unpaid activ- ist protecting that heritage the state had ever known. One postcard from him could put 200 surfers and their boards in a zoning meeting or bureaucrat’s windowless offi ce in three days. He’d never gone online in his life and did activism the old-school way. Marley had a standing invitation that anyone could access the beach via his property, 24/7. In fact, he erected neon signs that pointed the way. Luck- ily, he owned the two huge vacant lots adjacent to his property, prime real estate that non-dreamers dreamed of developing. On his property, he hosted an annual surf camp for kids, principals, seniors, cops, criminals, sinners, saints, dogs, veterans, transgenders, carnies, and every other demographic group under the sun. And then there was Marley’s epic Christmas Day salmon bake and bonfi re sculp- ture contest. He fed everyone and then judged the sculptures as they went up in fl ames. The winners received wooden fi gurines of androgynous mer- maids Marley carved himself with a tiny grandma chainsaw. Old Marley never charged anyone a cent for anything. He refused all donations. No one ever de- termined where his money came from, and no one ever asked. Yes, who would inherit the property? That was the big question. No one even knew if Marley had family. None had visited him. Most in Marley’s clan thought he would deed it to a conservation founda- tion or a surfer in a random drawing. A few believed Marley would call for razing the structure and giv- ing the property to the state to become a new park. They were all wrong, very wrong, and therefore shocked to learn in the newspaper a few days after the wake that Old Marley had gifted his entire estate to his only surviving relative, his nephew, a 33-year old man with the odd name of Ebenezer Scrooge. What shocked the clan even more was learning that Marley left no provision in the will about develop- ing or not developing the land. Upon hearing the name Scrooge, one of the Clan whipped out her smart phone and Googled him. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed, tearing at her wetsuit. “He’s a condo developer in San Diego and writes a blog about how much he hates slackers and surfers! He just posted that he inherited some beach- front property in Oregon and can’t wait to see it.” Back in Southern California, Ebenezer Scrooge could not believe his good fortune. He had inherited three spacious beachfront lots on the Oregon Coast from a communist uncle he’d never met. He could do anything he wanted with them because they were grandfathered in before Oregon enacted its vision- ary land use laws that forestalled terrible, foolhardy development shored up by ungodly riprap. After taking a cursory look at his dead uncle’s beachfront property via Google Earth, Scrooge was positively giddy at the prospect of developing it. The only problem was that Scrooge had to travel to Or- egon — in winter — to deal with Marley’s home, a ramshackle structure that offended Scrooge’s cook- ie-cutter architectural mentality. Scrooge asked his tan girlfriend if she wanted to accompany him, and she responded with an epithet followed by the word, “No!” Scrooge fl ew fi rst class into Portland on a rainy afternoon and was bewildered by the color: a con- gealed green and gray. How did these people live here? What motivated them? He rented a Humvee and sped west to the coast. It took Scrooge mere seconds after see- ing Marley’s home to decide a course of ac- tion: He hired an excava- tor to raze the place the next day, on Christmas Eve, and haul everything away to the dump. The demolition would cost Scrooge triple because of the holiday but so what? He could afford it and wanted the chore over immediately so he could fl y home on Christmas Eve. Scrooge briefl y con- sidered venturing inside the strange house to in- vestigate, but he was a totally incurious man outside of a curiosity about how to accumulate more money. He checked himself into a motel, and he’d meet the excavator in the morning, fi lm the destruction for his blog, and then hustle home to implement his gilded dream for the property: Mediterranean-themed con- dos with a razor-wire fence to repel the freeloaders. At 2 a.m., a loud knocking on the door roused Scrooge. He was afraid and called out, but no one answered. The knocking accelerated. Scrooge fran- tically searched for his phone but couldn’t fi nd it. A minute passed, and fi nally Scrooge rose and opened the door. He be- held three elderly, bare- footed men with fl ow- ing white hair, dressed in dark suits. They each held staffs hewn from driftwood and wore necklaces of hairy tri- tons, the state shell. “Who are you?” said Scrooge. “What is the meaning of this?” “We are the ghosts of Oregon beaches past, present and future,” said the tallest one. “I’m Gov. Tom McCall, this is Gov. Oswald West and Gov. Bob Straub. And you sir, are an interloper, a grasp- ing wastrel of the land, a hungry hussy for profi t.” “Let us depart; we haven’t much time,” said ‘There is such thing as a grand public good, Scrooge. Something monumentally larger and richer than anything you could ever imagine. It’s called community. In Oregon, our free beaches create a recreational and spiritual community found nowhere else in the world. You apparently could use some of that yourself.’ West. “By the way, Mr. Scrooge, no selfi sh interest, through politics or otherwise, shall be permitted to impair or destroy our great birthright.” “What great birthright?” “Oregon’s publicly owned beaches!” the ghosts thundered in unison. They held their staffs aloft, sparks exploded, and away everyone fl ew. Their fi rst stop was 1912, and they watched West ride his horse over Neahkahnie Mountain, a feat that inspired him to draft a 66-word bill that later became law. It declared the wet sand portions of the ocean beaches a public highway and thus in the public trust forever. “This started it all,” said West. “The peo- ple’s coast began here.” Cannon Beach circa 1966 was their next destina- tion. They watched a beachfront motel owner assert a private property claim into the dry sands area, a heretofore unthinkable act that ignited an epic leg- islative battle, culminating with the passage of the Beach Bill in 1967. By signing it into law, McCall had protected the Oregon public’s right to the “free and uninterrupted” use of their ocean beaches…for- ever. “It’s on to Nestucca Spit now!” boomed Straub, and soon they observed how in 1968, as State Trea- surer, Straub singlehandedly slew the Department of Transportation’s insane plan to relocate U.S. High- way 101 down a pristine stretch of beach in Pacifi c City. “This was the greatest achievement of my po- litical life,” Straub told Scrooge. “I simply refused to give up when everyone was in favor of the highway. They called it ‘progress.’ I did it for my grandchil- dren, the future of Oregon.” “There is such thing as a grand public good, Scrooge,” said West, “Something monumental- ly larger and richer than anything you could ever imagine. It’s called community. In Oregon, our free beaches create a recreational and spiritual communi- ty found nowhere else in the world. You apparently could use some of that yourself.” Scrooge didn’t know how to respond. He’d nev- er heard such stirring words. What was this ridicu- lous place called Oregon? He marveled how they’d done it differently here. “We have one last place to visit, Scrooge, and then you are free to go,” said McCall. Moments later, they were standing behind a group of surfers sitting around a small beach bon- fi re. They were talking about Scrooge and how they turned up to protest the razing of Marley’s house. “Can you believe he died on top of the bulldozer like that, a heart attack like his uncle?” A few surfers laughed. “I felt sorry for him,” said a man. “Sorry?” said the woman. “He looked like the most vacant, soulless man I’ve ever seen and that was from a hundred feet away.” “No! No!” Scrooge screamed. He went to his knees and wept. “Spirits, I don’t want to die! I have good in me yet! Please! I can show you!” “Show your community,” said Straub. “That’s all that matters in the world.” The spirits then van- ished, and Scrooge heard nothing but the old sound of the ocean. He heard it for the fi rst time in his life. The tide came in and swept over his loafers. He took them off and fl ung them into the sea. All his clothes followed. Scrooge woke up at the crack of dawn and quickly packed his things. He jumped in the Humvee and raced to his uncle’s house where a crew had gathered. Several bulldozers were idling, and someone had decorated dumpsters with garland. Scrooge found the boss and called the whole thing off. He paid them for their time, and they left. Next, Scrooge drove to the surf shop. It was open. He walked up to long-haired proprietor and said, “I’m Ebenezer Scrooge, and I need a surf board, a wetsuit and a big favor from you.” That afternoon, approximately 300 surfers and two dozen dogs gathered at Marley’s home for the inaugural Old Marley Christmas Float. Scrooge had a bonfi re raging when they arrived and ev- eryone brought loaves, fi shes and beer. The kids pitched in to decorate a shaggy shore pine with strands of kelp. Scrooge delivered a brief speech vowing to uphold the spirit of his uncle and said all he wanted for Christmas was to hear stories about Marley. Then Scrooge called his girlfriend. Naturally he got her voicemail. “I’m not coming back. You can have everything, the condo, the cars, the rugs. Sell it. Keep it. Give it away. I don’t care.” He shut off the phone and cast it wordlessly into the fi re. The crowd went wild. Scrooge faced them and said to no one in par- ticular, “Hey, is someone going to teach me how to surf? And where can I get a dog? I’m going to name it Tiny Tim.” Matt Love is the author/editor of 14 books about Oregon, including “The Great Birthright.” His books are available through coastal bookstores or nestuccaspitpress.com Illustration by Sally Lackaff 10 | December 24, 2015 | coastweekend.com December 24, 2015 | coastweekend.com | 11
