4A • October 30, 2015 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com
SignalViewpoints
A literary journey along the coast at Beach Books
S EEN FROM S EASIDE
I
n case you don’t appreciate it
yet, Seaside is lucky to have
Beach Books, a thriving and
pulsing center of the literary arts.
They’re 10 years here in Novem-
ber and that is a milestone to be
celebrated.
On Saturday, Oct. 17, we
passed through the waist-high gate
(to keep the cat in) and stepped
upstairs to the balcony. There,
authors engaged in the timeless
art of hawking their books, one
which I have done once or twice
myself. Nothing could require
more nerve than to stand there
with your newest “child” in front
of you for the world to see. Some
authors are grateful if more than a
handful of browsers stop by their
table in an afternoon — it can feel
like the loneliest job in the world.
But at Beach Books, business
was buzzing, with authors and
the readers to match. It was a
testament to the literary connec-
tions of the store’s proprietress
Karen Emmerling, and to the au-
thors themselves who were able
to inspire weekend walkers and
bumper car enthusiasts over to the
Gilbert District.
The place was “lousy with
writers” to paraphrase Raymond
Chandler, and bringing to mind
those ¿ lm noir days were the
dashing Nestucca Spit Press au-
thors, Bill Hall and Matt Love.
Hall is the author of “McCal-
landia: A Utopian Novel,” and
also happens to be the chairman
of the Lincoln County Board of
Commissioners. Kind of makes
me want to check out what goes
on at those meetings.
The book was inspired by a
picture of Ronald Reagan and
Tom McCall. Hall’s friend, au-
thor and publisher Matt Love,
hypothesized what if it had been
McCall who was president, not
Reagan? I love this book, which
is ¿ lled with history and cultur-
al commentary, and so seamless
you sometimes don’t know which
is real history and what is Hall’s
creative vision.
Astoria’s Love showcased his
B Y
R.J.
MARX
newest work, “The Great Birth-
right: An Oregon Novel.”
Like much of his other work,
“Walking in Rain” or “A Nice
Piece of Astoria,” Love uses nar-
rative and collage to celebrate
those who fought for Oregon’s
famed Beach Bill — Oregonians’
“birthright.”
Love creates a diabolical en-
trepreneur who seeks to take that
birthright away, to “promote pri-
vate ownership and economic de-
velopment of America’s undevel-
oped coastal place”?
Love calls this “a work of pseu-
do-pulp historical environmental
detective socialist meta¿ ction.”
Take that, Batman!!!
Rocket man,
coastal poet
A solemn presence belies a
gentle man, Gregory E. Zschom-
ler. The Cannon Beach author
was displaying a table stacked
with his titles, including “Rock-
et Man: From the Trailer Park to
Insomnia and Beyond.” He culls
wit and wisdom from around the
spectrum sprinkled into an inspi-
rational memoir. The title comes
from his lifelong fascination with
outer space: “Something was out
there and I felt it,” he writes. “Was
that something calling to me? I
wanted to know. Maybe not just
then, but eventually (certainly by
the time I was six).”
Poet Nancy Slavin saw my
Cubs cap and immediately con-
R.J. MARX PHOTO/SEASIDE SIGNAL
Authors Bill Hall and Matt Love of
Nestucca Spit Press.
R.J. MARX PHOTO
Authors Honey Perkel and Gloria Stiger Linkey at Beach Books in Seaside.
fessed to Chicago origins. Her
¿ rst book “Moorings” explored
her experience as an Alaskan ¿ sh-
ing guide. Now living on the Ore-
gon Coast, her poetry hikes some
of the same inspiration guiding
Oregon’s literary laureates: the
sea, the beaches and the forest.
In “Ecotone,” she describes the
“natural zone between land and
sea, where life holds to rock while
waves work to wash life clean.”
Her pen is unawed by painful
truths: cold snaps, cold winds,
wintry damp and the displaced
poor. “When night falls and there
is no heat, will they know the taste
of death is bittersweet?” Slavin
writes in the poem “November
Flood.”
Seaside scribes
My favorite “new” author at
the Beach Books signing was
Gloria Stiger Linkey, Seaside’s
“historian” and resident since
1941. We had a fascinating talk in
which she shared the inner histo-
ry of Seaside’s riots — the ¿ rst in
the 1960s, in which spring break
kids erupted — and the second in
the 1990s, when a ¿ lm crew incit-
ed a crowd into violence.
Stiger Linkey is the author of
“Great Indian Women” and is
working on her seminal work,
“A Town Called Seaside,” sched-
uled for release in February. She
describes it as looking back from
Memorial Day 1941 to Memo-
rial Day 2015, “a compelling
story about survival and rebuild-
ing a small town, the war years,
recession, riots and a tsunami.
The spirit of the town is reÀ ected
by the spirit of the citizens who
would not let the town die. It was
the love and unlimited energy of
these people who turned the town
into one of the leading resort
towns on the Oregon coast.”
Finally, I have wanted to read
the work of Honey Perkel since
I arrived in Seaside, and picked
up her stunning memoir, “Just
Breathe,” her compelling, emo-
tional story about the loss of her
son. I read it in an afternoon.
For those of you who think
there are any easy solutions when
a loved one is suffering from
mental illness, Perkel’s transfor-
mational story leaves you with the
sense that the process is the path,
and redemption is only found
within our own courage to move
forward. I wish this book could
have had a happy ending.
Perkel’s newest book is a mys-
tery, “House of Sand,” and it takes
place in Seaside. Scary title!
If these types of speed-
ing-signing author-meets appeals
to you, I hope you were able to
get to Seaside Public Library this
week for “Crazy Eights Author
Tour,” presented by the Seaside
Library Foundation. And may I
recommend a visit to the Commu-
nity Room of the Seaside Public
Library Thursday, Nov. 7, when
Friends of the Seaside Library
welcome Bill Hall and you can
ask him all about Tom McCall.
Beach Books is located at 616
Broadway; 503-738-3500. Sea-
side Public Library is located at
1131 Broadway. For more infor-
mation call 503-738-6742.
Between the Covers ESTHER MOBERG
Seaside Public Library makes countywide outreach
Since 2010, the Seaside
Public Library has proudly
supported Reading Out-
reach in Clatsop County.
Back in 2009, this was
actually formed as a pro-
gram for all rural children
and teens by Reita Fack-
erell of the Seaside Public
Library, and Jane Tucker of
the Astoria Public Library.
Their goal was to form a
partnership with the school
districts in our county to
make sure every child in
Clatsop County had access
to books and reading.
If you think about Clat-
sop County, it’s like a big
square with the Seaside, As-
toria, and Warrenton librar-
ies around the northwest
corner. This leaves all the
kids in the rural areas of the
county far away from the
libraries. In fact, their clos-
est library is usually their
school library. For kids in
kindergarten through ¿ fth
grade especially, they typ-
ically are only allowed to
check out only one or two
books every seven to 14
days. That is not a lot, when
you consider the most cru-
cial time for brain growth is
during this time. In the ¿ rst
three years, a child’s brain
grows to 90 percent of its
adult weight, while also
creating all the correct pro-
cess and connections for
learning success. Building
vocabulary for kids is cru-
cial because brains make
the majority of the connec-
tors they need for the rest
of their lives (how to store,
retrieve, and make con-
nections between things to
learn and make judgments)
during ages 0-18.
In a study by Hart &
Risley in 1995, the num-
ber of words a child has
heard by age 3 in a lower
income home is 10 million.
That sounds like a lot until
you realize that a middle
income child has heard
double that amount. They
have had the opportunity
for far more interactions
with a parent or caregiver,
and they are typically read
to at night.
A high-income child has
even more opportunities
ESTHER MOBERG
and typically has heard 30
million words by the age
of three. I’m giving you
these statistics, not to de-
press you, but to say, we
are working to help change
the outcome for children in
our county. The more op-
portunities and access kids
have to books, reading, and
more vocabulary resources,
the more opportunities will
open up for a child later
in life. This is the premise
behind Libraries Reading
Outreach in Clatsop Coun-
ty program. We try to put
a library card in the hands
of every child in Clatsop
County that wants one and
have a countywide (not just
one or two cities) summer
reading program to further
that access and exposure.
We have great partnerships
with the school districts of
Astoria, Jewell, Knappa,
Seaside, and Warrenton,
the Warrenton Library is
the third public library that
is in partnership in the pro-
gram and Clatsop County
has supported the Librar-
ies ROCC program since
2014.
We have already estab-
lished three key areas of
success for the program
including summer reading
program, library cards for
kids, and courier services
between the schools and
public libraries and we will
continue to look for ways
to collaborate and grow.
Since 2010, over 700 chil-
dren have gotten library
cards through this program
and they have checked out
over 78,000 books and oth-
er materials! One challenge
we now face is that funding
for the program over the
last ¿ ve years was supplied
through several Library
and Services Technology
Act grants and now we are
in the process of working
toward being permanently
funded locally. In order to
reach that goal, Libraries
ROCC will be doing sever-
al fundraisers annually.
Our very ¿ rst fundrais-
er, sponsored in part by
the Seaside Public Library
Foundation, is to have peo-
ple in the community create
Little Library stands (simi-
lar to Little Free Libraries
you can purchase from
littlefreelibrary.org) to be
donated and auctioned off
in February by Libraries
ROCC. The rules for the
contest and more details
can be picked up at the
Astoria, Seaside, or War-
renton Public Libraries.
We hope you will join us if
you are crafty or a builder
and be creative in making
these cute little “houses”.
All proceeds will directly
bene¿ t the Libraries ROCC
program. The little librar-
ies must be ¿ nished and
dropped off at the Seaside
Public Library by Decem-
ber 31st. If you like, please
place a weather proof plac-
ard on the little library stat-
ing who or what business
created it. I’ve seen some
very creative ideas for the
little libraries including
one that looked like a light-
house! The little libraries
will be on display in Janu-
ary at the Seaside Library
and auctioned off in Feb-
ruary. Money donations
are also accepted for the
Libraries ROCC program
and can be made out to the
¿ scal agent: The Friends
of the Seaside Library, in
care of the Seaside Public
Library, 1131 Broadway
Ave., Seaside, OR. You can
also give online at: www.
gofundme.com/Libraries-
ROCC.
As U.S. Education Sec-
retary Richard W. Riley has
said, “If every child were
read to daily from infancy,
it would revolutionize edu-
cation in this country!”
Scene and Heard CLAIRE LOVELL
He can sing, he can knit, now where’s the violin?
One of the best knit-
ters in our area is Randy
Brainerd of Indian Place
in Seaside. Randy began
to knit at the age of seven.
He was learning to play
the violin as well and his
hands had become stiff so
that it was hard to do the
¿ ngering in practice. His
mother taught him to knit
as a limbering up process.
Randy, also a soloist with
a beautiful voice, more
or less let the violin go
and something happened
to his instrument. Now if
someone would just gift
him with a Stradivarius,
HA — or even an unused
violin in a closet some-
where, we could all have
the advantage of three tal-
ents and get Randy back in
business. While said more
or less in jest, it is a pos-
service dog named Ginger,
an apricot standard poodle
who loves music and sur-
veys the audience before
everything begins. She is
so curious about everyone
and appears so intelligent
— aware of everything,
yet unobtrusive and doing
her job. She’s a wonderful
addition to our congrega-
tion. Arf!
CLAIRE LOVELL
sibility. Randy has knit a
lovely pumpkin-colored
sweater for our Christmas
bazaar.
Church welcomes
musical duo
We have a new organ-
ist-pianist at our church —
Mrs. Jean Olney. She has a
As the DUI accidents
increase, is it ever
possible to put the
toothpaste back in the
tube, the genie back in
the bottle or the lid back
on Pandora’s box?
We don’t need
more temptaion
I don’t know what our
standing is today, yet at
one time Clatsop Coun-
ty held the record for the
number of people who
abused alcohol in Oregon.
We seem to have replaced
that distinction with being
known now as a produc-
er of ¿ ne beers and a go-
along. Get-along sponsor
of another mind-altering
“recreational” drug, mar-
ijuana. In the beer ads,
there’s a big typo on page
12 of the special micro-
brew guide. Maybe there
is a red (rouge) ale, for all
I know.
I guess progress is in
the eye of the beholder.
And isn’t there supposed
to be in present Mary Jane
a more powerful kick than
in the “medicine” of old?
As the DUI accidents in-
crease, is it ever possible
to put the toothpaste back
in the tube, the genie back
in the bottle or the lid back
on Pandora’s box? Pick
your own clichés. And I do
know that fairly recently,
two downtown stores have
added enough wine to their
inventories to sink, if not a
battleship, at least a small
¿ shing boat. Who needs
that much temptation?
Celebrating
Columbus Day
I put my À ag out Oct.
12, then went to the bank
and looked in my mailbox.
It was the special day for
Christopher
Columbus.
It’s always been his day,
and I believe it should stay
that way.
Laugh line:
I heard about a man who
went to his doctor and said
he was having trouble with
his sex life. The doctor, a
great believer in exercise,
said “Walk 10 miles a day
for seven days and then
call me.” The patient fol-
lowed the doctor’s orders
and when he phoned him
later, the doctor asked,
“How is your sex life?”
“How the heck can
I know?” answered the
man. “I’m 70 miles from
home!” Referenced from
the book “Older But Wild-
er” by Ef¿ e L. Wilder.
Query:
When did star¿ sh be-
come “sea stars?”
