4A • April 20, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Views from the Rock
LADY GAGA
SLEPT HERE
Lady Gaga
canceled her
world tour
and came
to Cannon
Beach.
TWITTER.COM
I
’ve added “Cannon Beach” to my
list of news alert search terms,
delivering local, national and
international links to my email inbox.
Completely random, often barely
relevant, real news, fake or otherwise,
they nevertheless represent a mirror
on our world we may not immediately
recognize.
Lady
Gaga
and
friend as
posed on
Twitter.
TWITTER.COM
The bad and the beautiful
When eight members of the Hart
family were presumed dead after
an SUV hurtled off the side of the
mountain in California, a news tie to
Cannon Beach seemed far-fetched,
even unlikely. Both the Oregonian
and Bend Bulletin looped Cannon
Beach into their stories on the crash
— through Jessica Smith, the woman
who drowned her toddler in a Cannon
Beach hotel in 2015. “Family annihila-
tors,” they are called by criminologists.
Does this mean Cannon Beach will
be forever entwined with this clinical
subset of horrors?
Fortunately for the Chamber of
Commerce and local lodging enterpris-
es, the good outweighs the bad when
receiving updates from around the
country and around the world.
This headline from the L.A. Times
is resplendent: “Cannon Beach cap-
tures the best of the Oregon Coast.”
San Diego Magazine sent a reporter
to Cannon Beach in 2017, describing
it as “arguably the single most-Insta-
grammed location in Oregon.”
“With boulders rising out of the
waves, tree-covered, mountains and
jagged cliffs cascading right into the
ocean, this is the Northern Pacific at its
finest,” they enthuse.
No wonder so many Californians
want to move here.
Links pop up for listicles like this
one from Forbes touting “the world’s
50 best beaches.” Cannon Beach is
hanging in there by a thread at No. 50,
but nevertheless it’s on the list, just
behind No. 48, Ageeba Beach, Egypt,
and No. 49, Diani Beach, Kenya.
“The Pacific Northwest’s most
majestic creation is Cannon Beach, in
Oregon,” Forbes declared in Novem-
ber. “Majestic rocks soar far above
the picturesque coastline while the
watercolor sky paints the sea in vibrant
shades of blues and teals throughout
the day.”
The most beautiful beach in the
world? Whitehaven Beach, Whitsun-
day Islands, Australia, says Forbes.
The Thrillist, an online food and
lifestyle guide, selects Cannon Beach
as “the best small town to visit in
Oregon,” ahead of McMinnville and
Carlton. (Astoria comes in as No. 4).
One day my alerts reported Trip
Advisor’s “16th annual Traveler’s
Choice Awards for the best hotels in
the U.S. for 2018,” bringing our city
into some lofty company. I must say I
do feel some pride to know the Steph-
anie Inn is No. 5, sandwiched between
the Hotel Emma in San Antonio, Tex-
as, and the Santa Maria Suites in Key
West, Florida.
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
‘A WHOLE POPULATION
WHO HAVE NEVER
LIVED HERE CONSIDER
CANNON BEACH PART
OF THEIR LIFE STORY.’
Family memories
A whole population who have never
lived here consider Cannon Beach part
of their life story, impactful enough to
be included in an obituary or a wed-
ding announcement.
Consider John Butler Brassfield,
who died March 8, at the age of 95.
According to his memorial announce-
ment in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
he spent his early years in Oregon,
moving back to Seattle in 1939.
He served as president of the West
Seattle Monogram Club. He was a
golfing member at Meridian Valley
Golf and Country Club, where he shot
his age in his 80s. He and his wife Bar-
bara traveled around the world. And
they celebrated wedding anniversaries
at the Stephanie Inn at Cannon Beach.
Tammy Harris of Moscow, Idaho,
died Feb. 28 at age 55. A founding
member of her local Habitat For
Humanity, a certified nurse practitioner
whose family was “of utmost impor-
tance,” she and her husband married in
Cannon Beach in 2007.
Larry and Kathy Morehouse of
Yakima celebrated their 50th wedding
anniversary this month in Cannon
Beach — a place they have been
visiting for 45 years, according to the
Yakima Herald-Republic.
News of the weird
On the coast, we’ve read of the
fishing boats washed ashore from
Japan subsequent to the 2011 tsunami.
One remains beached at an end of Hug
Point.
We received an alert in December
with a new story twist. “Although the
wreck clearly showed the signs of
wear and tear you’d expect, it was also
teeming with life, including gooseneck
barnacles, which can sell for £90 a
plate,” wrote The Mirror, Britain’s
“intelligent tabloid.” That would
be British pounds sterling or about
$128. I was left shaking my head at
the innovation of the writer, who had
discovered a completely new angle to
a five-year-old story. Who would ever
think of eating the 7-year-old barna-
cles off a boat that had quite possibly
been exposed to radiation after the
meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear
reactor?
Those Brits have their finger on
the pulse of Cannon Beach, for sure.
It took this alert from another Brit
tabloid, The Sun, to inform us that we
just missed a visit from Lady Gaga in
our own backyard.
“Lady Gaga is back in the recording
studio after health problems made her
axe her latest tour,” wrote The Sun
in early March. “She has teamed up
again with Born This Way and Artpop
producer DJ White Shadow in Cannon
Beach, Oregon — an area with ‘heal-
ing properties.’”
Lady Gaga cancelled her last tour
due to fibromyalgia, and the inference
is that Cannon Beach is the Lourdes of
the North Coast. “Back in Malibu after
having spent some time in Oregon,”
Gaga tweeted.
Links to her Instagram account con-
firm what appears to be the visit, with
pictures of the iconic sea stacks.
If her bassist Jonny Good hadn’t
shared the story with the tabloids, we
would have never known.
I continue to check my alerts, not
only for Cannon Beach and Seaside,
which I cover, but Saugatuck, Michi-
gan, where my dad lives, and Katonah,
New York, where I lived and worked
for a newspaper for 20-some years. It’s
almost like being there.
Don’t have a
toothache in
Cannon Beach
D
uring my high school years, my mother and I lived
in an apartment above a dentist office. The apartment
was the top floor of a small two-story house. The
dentist, who owned the building, used the first floor for his
practice. Our apartment had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a
living room, and an eat-in kitchen. The apartment had its
own entrance; there were two front doors to the house, one
leading to the apartment upstairs, the other to the dentist
office. These doors were a source of confusion to his patients.
It wasn’t unusual for me to come home from school to
discover a person or two reading magazines in our living
room, mistaking it for the dental reception area.
I often wonder what it would be like today for me to live
in an apartment over a commercial business. In Cannon
Beach it might be over a store, a restaurant, a gallery, or even
a medical office. It
appears there is no
dentist in Cannon
VIEW FROM
Beach. It couldn’t
THE PORCH
be an apartment
EVE MARX
over a pot shop
as that isn’t legal
according to some
ordinance. I remember
a brief conversation
months ago with one
of the gentlemen who
moved their home dé-
cor business in Cannon
Beach to Astoria when
the ground-floor retail
space became a mar-
ijuana shop. The men
lived above the store,
so not only were they
forced to relocate their
business, but they also
had to move house. That
seemed like a dumb
MPI
reason to force a tenant
out. That seemed like a Now these two really knew
dumb reason to force a how to live it up!
tenant out. I’m glad the
city remedied that last week by changing the ordinance and
allowing such arrangements.
Remember that old show, “The Mothers-In-Law” starring
Kay Ballard and Eve Arden? When Eve’s daughter married
Kay’s son, to save money, the young couple moved into
Kay — or maybe it was Eve’s — garage apartment. If it were
legal, a garage apartment in Cannon Beach I think would be
charming to live in, especially if it was close to the beach or
out of the tsunami zone. A modest two-car garage is approx-
imately 20 feet wide by 20 feet deep or approximately 400
square feet. I lived in apartments in Greenwich Village that
weren’t any bigger. Location, as they say, is everything.
Before moving to the Pacific Northwest, my husband
and I lived in a New York suburb where accessory hous-
ing was a hot potato issue. As taxes skyrocketed, people
on fixed or lesser incomes scrambled to make ends meet.
Some of them applied to the town planning board, re-
questing permission to turn portions of their home into
accessory housing. Depending on available parking and
ceiling height, some, but not many, requests were granted.
The homeowners always argued they needed the income,
and also that they were helping to grow the tiny but much
needed affordable housing market.
I checked real estate websites today for available
apartments for rent in Cannon Beach. Only one came up, a
740-square-foot one bedroom one bath unit fully furnished
for $1,250 a month. The market, as you might imagine, is
very tight. There were no apartments available whatsoever
above any commercial business.
It was decades ago, but I still remember loving living over
the dentist’s office. It was never boring and we had a key so
that in the evenings and on Sundays we could adjust the heat.
(The thermostat for the entire house was located in his of-
fice.) Sometimes when my mother was in a bad mood, which
happened often, I’d slip downstairs and prowl around reading
dental files. The eerie room where the dentist did plaster
work to make his dental molds was like a weird art studio.
Not everybody gets to live above a dentist’s office but I’m
glad I did. Meanwhile finding affordable long-term rental
housing in Cannon Beach remains increasingly elusive.
Music of the season: Singing ‘plurri, kiwi, plurri, kiwi’
Y
ou probably know more bird
sounds than you think you do!
One doesn’t need to be a
nature lover to hear birds. There is
no need to hike miles and miles into
the woods or along the beaches to
encounter birds and hear their melo-
dies. In Cannon Beach, it’s as easy as
being outside or stepping behind the
library or pausing as you head into
the community center.
Now that spring has sprung, this
renewing season of the year, it’s easy
to find birds because they are singing
and trying to locate each other for
breeding. (Bonus for spring are the
fancy feathers they are wearing!)
Have you heard the American
robins singing with their plurri, kiwi,
plurri, kiwi, repeated over and over?
I find it hard to miss the song of the
white-crowned sparrow because
he sings it from the treetops and
the sound can really travel! And,
Publisher
Kari Borgen
Editor
R.J. Marx
Circulation
Manager
Jeremy Feldman
Production
Manager
John D. Bruijn
BIRD NOTES
SUSAN PETERSON
of course, there is the red-winged
blackbird with it’s tail pumping
chuck-chuck and melodious trill kon-
ka reeeeee song you can hear from
Pompey Marsh almost anywhere in
downtown Cannon Beach.
When I took up birding as a
passion, six years ago, it seemed to
me the most efficient way to start
identifying birds was by their unique
songs. I sat at home roaming through
my field ID books, listening to CDs
and viewing various websites finding
the most common birds in the area
and what they had to say! Then I
was to go into the field and apply my
newfound knowledge.
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SUSAN PETERSON
Red-wing blackbird singing its song.
Well, that was a total bust for me.
I was unable to remember any of the
specific songs to each bird. Luckily I
have found what works for me. Hear-
ing and seeing a bird at the same
time is the way my brain stores this
CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
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information. Although slower then
my original “plan,” I am able to add
five to 10 bird songs to my repertoire
each year.
Whether I know the bird that be-
longs to the singing or not, I enjoy the
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Beach Gazette, P.O. Box 210,
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music, one of the many soundtracks
of nature and my life. I hope you will
get out and enjoy the soundtrack of
Cannon Beach too!
Remember that a small group of
people gather for the First Sunday
Cannon Beach Bird Walk. The next
one will be on May 6. Join the group
at 9 o’clock at the Lagoon Trail on
Second Street. Bring binoculars if
you have them (we often have extras
if you don’t) and wear appropriate
clothing. Everyone is welcome!
Susan has spent her life enjoying
the great outdoors from the lakes
and woods of northern Minnesota,
to Mount Adams in Washington and
now the Oregon coast. After spending
many pleasurable hours driving her
avid birder parents around, she has
taken up birding as a passion. Susan
resides on Neawanna Creek in Sea-
side where her backyard is a birder’s
paradise.
THE NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING