Enthusiasm for "Here on the Edge" by Steve McQuiddy

"... there’s something about talking with the kids, something that resonates beyond sharing a great story. Something vital, that lightens the weight of time. I guess you could call it optimism...."
 /http://hereontheedge.com/2014/05/09/another-great-talk-with-the-next-generation/

One marvelous thing leads to another...

March 27, 2014

    I have the habit of looking at photos of people and reading the names underneath, thinking maybe there will be someone I know. And I sometimes find that there is. This time, it was a relative.
    Accidentally discovered, because there was an interesting article in Oregon Quarterly, Winter 2013, about Gordon Gilkey, the man behind the movie “Monuments Men” about saving art work from the Nazis during WWII. And this topic greatly interests me.
    In this issue also was an excerpt from a book about the conscientious objectors in World War II, and there was a photo, and under the photo were names. One of them was Dick Brown. I knew that Mom’s cousin Dick had been a C.O. so I emailed the photo to Mom and she said, “Yes, that’s him.” The book is Here on the Edge by Steve McQuiddy.

    Today I went to Tsunami Bookstore to see if they had a copy of the book, so I could give it to Mom for her birthday. She will be 89 tomorrow. I was carrying my copy of the Oregon Quarterly and when I walked in the door, the girl at the front desk was busy with a guy who looked like he was selling or consigning some books. So I decided to go to the restroom first. When I came out, she was free, so I showed her the article and asked her, “Do you have this book?” She said, “Oh, I was just talking to that guy.” I said, “What guy?” She said the author of the book; he had just dropped off a box of books for them to sell. I said, “Really??? Seriously? That was the guy you were just talking to when I came in?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Where is he?” She said he was gone; he had just gotten into his car and driven away on his way to the beach for a presentation. I showed her Dick Brown’s picture on the cover, and told her that he was my mom’s cousin. It seemed odd to me, how calm she was, like this was the most common thing in the world to have happen. But I was astonished.
    Maybe that’s why things like this happen to me - because I am continually astonished by them. Yes, I do enjoy the astonishing life.
    She told me that Steve McQuiddy was planning to do a presentation at City Club of Eugene tomorrow, so I bought the book. I guess I’ll go tomorrow, and ask him to sign the copy for Mom.
    So when I got home, I went to Steve McQuiddy’s website and looked around... he is a historian, and he has also written about Opal Whitely. He has fascinating links to fascinating history archival websites. I can get lost in that.


http://hereontheedge.com/

OWP & Columbus Day Storm

I'm trying to find my very first blog, created during the Oregon Writing Project in 2005. I think it's gone. But here's something I wrote on another site about my memories of the Columbus Day Storm. Click on the title to see the original website and learn more about the infamous Columbus Day Storm!

I was ten years old; it was the beginning of my 5th grade year, and I was walking home from Lieser School, in Vancouver, Washington. I noticed that the air was very odd. The sky looked yellow and everything was still and silent. Heavy. It was very odd. I stood at the corner of Lieser Road and MacArthur Blvd., where my street, St. Helens Ave., intersected, and I remember looking in all directions, noticing and wondering about the strange weather, and walking on home.

Fast forward a few hours and I was finishing up my ballet class in downtown Vancouver. My parents picked me up and we were going out to dinner. We went to a Chinese Restaurant not far from the dance studio. I remember that I was very very hungry and I couldn't wait for the chow mien. My stomach was growling. It was getting dark outside.

We ordered, but it seemed like it was taking forever for the food to arrive. There was a group in another booth, but they left before getting their food and my parents said they must have been worried about getting home in the storm. But we decided to stick it out. Suddenly the lights went out -- everything in the restaurant was pitch black. We wondered if we were going to get our food. But food had been prepared, so we got to eat. It may have been something different from what we ordered, but we didn't mind. We couldn't really see the food anyway; it was too dark. They brought out candles and we hastily ate our chow mien. Our family -- my dad, mom and younger sister and I -- were the only customers. At that point, with food finally going into my belly, it all seemed like an interesting adventure.

It was windy when we went in, but storms and power outages weren't all that uncommon. I was just a child, but I don't believe my parents or the other adults in the community had any idea of what was coming.

By the time we left, it was getting very very windy. We ran to the car (1951 Ford) and as we drove out of town, store front windows were "popping" left and right. "Look, that window just popped!" "Look! there's another one!" We drove home in blackness; there was no electricity anywhere in the city. Our headlights illuminated flying leaves, branches, and black snake-like power lines, freed from their poles, that whipped across our path and slapped at the car. We were stopped at one point by a huge Douglas fir that had fallen across the main boulevard; we had to drive around it and take another route home.

I don't remember the sounds. It must have been crashing all around us. I think my parents must have had the car radio on, too, trying to get the news.

Our single story home on St. Helens Avenue had been brand new when my parents bought it in 1954. It was one of those 3-bedroom track homes build to accommodate the growing ranks of post-war baby boom families. Behind it rolled an empty field and our dining room had a panorama view of the city of Portland across the Columbia River. We didn't have a basement. The four of us huddled in the darkness, together in my parents' bedroom. I don't remember being frightened, but I think my 9-year old sister was. My parents must have been scared, too, but I didn't know it.

The next morning we awoke to crystal clear blue skies and sunshine. It was such a beautiful day, and we toured the neighborhood, surveying the damage. We were lucky. The only thing we lost was a young tree my dad had planted the year before. Some people lost entire roofs off their houses. Many lost shingles and huge trees that blocked roads and crushed homes and cars. We were warned to stay away from downed power lines, and we thought of all the potential live wires we had come in contact with the night before.

Back at school stories were exchanged. The one I remember most vividly was about the family a few blocks from us, gathered for dinner when a tree fell through the roof, right across the middle of their dining room table, and no one was hurt!

It is interesting to read what other people have to say about their experiences that day. So few seem to remember, or even know that it happened at all. But around here it used to be said that everyone remembers where they were when President Kennedy was shot, and on the day of the Columbus Day storm.

Terry Benge
October 14, 2007

Thinking about Opal

Here’s a link to a beautiful website about Opal Whitely:
http://www.efn.org/~caruso/fairyland/
If you click on the right links, it will take you to her diary, which she wrote when she was seven. I absolutely love it. Opal became famous as a naturalist in her 20’s and then fell into “mental illness” and her diaries were questioned as to their authenticity. She wrote a book called “The Fairyland Around Us” which is very rare now.
When my daughter was little I found a copy in the children’s book section of a used book store here in Eugene. I thought it was going to be about fairies, and when I leafed through it I saw that it wasn’t; it was about nature. It had a price of $5.95 and I decided it was too expensive, so I put it back on the shelf! I was looking for cheap kid’s books for Heather at the time.
Later I found out who Opal Whitely was, read her diary, and realized that it was her book I had held in my hand! I think she was born around the same time as my grandfather (1901), so the descriptions of her growing up in the woods around Cottage Grove remind me in some ways of Grandpa’s youth in the logging camps of Washington State.
Opal died in a mental hospital in England, and one of my book group members got to meet her. Her mother had done extensive history and biographical work about her, and had corresponded with her. So Elizabeth traveled with her mother to England and was able to meet with Opal before she died.