High School Reunion Part 1: The Northern Coast

The trip was interesting. I didn’t want to leave home, but had to in order to attend this once-in-a-lifetime event, my fifty year high school reunion. I made arrangements, and I went, in a mixed mood with lots of doubts. Driving down the Willamette Valley I was thinking, I hate driving. I don’t want to do this. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what life has to offer a 67-year-old widow with a bad attitude.

That last thought occurred in a McDonald’s in Eugene. That was the bottom of the barrel for me. But I got back in the car and took the highway that headed out to the coast, still thinking how much I do not enjoy driving anymore, and then I thought I’d sing a song. So I did.

“My life flows on, in endless song, above earth’s lamentations …”*
I cheered right up. Singing is great that way. I do not wish to diminish the depths from which singing pulled me back – I was seriously bummed out - but singing helped.

Eventually got through Port Orford. When you come to the south end of Port Orford you are looking at miles and miles and miles of ocean, mountains coming down to the ocean, huge rocks out in the ocean, and breakers running in the ocean up onto the miles and miles and miles of beaches.

Oh yeah, I thought, this is why I like to drive this way.

Made it to Bandon that night after striking out on finding a room in Coos Bay. Texted a few friends and family of my progress. My cousin Charlotte texted back, “Don’t you just love abandon?” After I figured out that she said it on purpose I replied, “Not for years now, dear.”

The next morning I set off bright and early. I stopped to eat some breakfast at a beach overlook. I discovered that I had used my traveling bowl to give the dog water a while back, and hadn’t cleaned it since. Oh well. Wiped it out as thoroughly as I could with a towel, declared it clean, and had a little bowl of granola. Stop going, “Eew.” Any bacteria in that bowl packed up and moved out months ago.

Still hungry when I got to Brookings, I went into the McDonalds and asked if they had breakfast. The young woman behind the counter, who had the speaking voice of a precious cartoon mouse, squeaked that it was 10:40, and she didn’t know if they had anything left. I ended up taking all they had left: a biscuit, several wads of egg white, and a sausage patty, with cheese, more or less. Plus coffee. While I waited for my meal, another woman came in and asked for breakfast. Mousy pointed at me and piped, “She got the last one!”

When she brought me my tray of food, she said, “They get mad at me.”

“Not your fault,” I said. I took the meal, coffee, and my computer to a side table with gratitude. A few more people came in asking for breakfast, and every time I heard her plaintive cry: “She got the last one!” I knew she was pointing at me. I kept my back to the counter and my head down. She could blame me. I liked her. She was like a character in a Saturday Night Live skit, almost too good to be true, with her high voice and willingness to deflect customer displeasure on me. This, I thought, is a character I could use. All you writers and actors know what I’m talking about.

Moving on from there, I stopped at Smith River to stare at the water and wonder once more why my grandmother loved the place so. It was a beautiful sunny day. I could almost understand my grandmother’s attachment to the place in that weather, but that is not usual weather there on the coast. Usually it’s foggy gray.

I heard later that there was a tiny tsunami on the northern coast from an earthquake in Chile that day, and it may have happened about the time I was staring at the mouth of the Smith River. If it did, and I was, I have to say it was nothing to write home about, even though I’m sitting here writing about it.

After drinking sufficiently deeply from the cup of family nostalgia, I put the car in gear and kept heading south.
Next time: Redwoods, and high school revisited.

*”How Can I Keep from Singing?” Music by Robert Lowry, 1826-1899; lyrics vary from version to version. Women, Women & Song used to sing it.