Tuesday, December 1, 2015

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 52, December 1 2015

 Click for the downloadable version of Issue 52 of the Yachats Gazette.


Interview with “Huck” Huckins and Claudia Price Of Just Good Cookin’

Just Good Cookin’s brochure and menu can be found by clicking here.



TYG: How did you meet each other?
Claudia:
Through the Yachats Ladies’ Club. We got to be friends, then I joined. Huck had been a member for...
Huck: ...About 14 years.

TYG: So you guys have lived in Yachats for a long time, then!
Claudia:
I’ve lived here for about 14 years.
Huck: I’ve lived here for the last five years, but I’ve lived here in the area, on and off, for the last 20.

TYG: We’ve lived here for eight years, ourselves. So how did you guys come to Yachats?Huck: This is where we retired. After we retired in Portland from the Air Force, my husband retired again and then we came out here.
Claudia: Yep, same here. We retired here; we loved the area and knew we’d always come back.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: How did you find it?
Claudia:
Well, my husband and I managed the KOA up in Waldport for a few years at the turn of the century, and fell in love with it then. We did some traveling on and off, but always managed to migrate back here, and Yachats was just our place to go to get away from the campground. We always liked it, and we just wanted to come back.

TYG: What was the Air Force like?
Huck:
Well, we traveled around for 23 years. We’re both from southeastern Montana, but we knew we wanted to retire on the Oregon coast or somewhere near Portland. So we were in Portland for about eight years, and we visited all the way from Lincoln City down to Gold Beach, and Yachats fit the bill.

TYG-EA: What was it that caught your eye?
Huck:
Just the quaintness of it, and the friendliness of all the people. My husband worked for the Nature Conservancy, so we were up at the site in Lincoln City, up Cascade Head, and different sites around—we just really liked the people here.
Claudia: There’s just a spirit about it.
Huck: I’ll say.

TYG-EA: What caught your eye about Yachats?
Claudia:
The scenery, mainly. From here down to Florence is the prettiest 25 miles of the coast. The scenery, and then when we got to know the people, of course—the spirit, and the magical nature of the town.

TYG: KOA?
Claudia:
Yes. Campgrounds of America—with a “K”. They do everything—if there are camping cabins, they do Kamping Kabins with a “K.”

TYG-EA: It’s kitschy.
Claudia:
Yeah, it’s a grabber.

TYG: I would imagine it’s just like a brand deal, or something—sounds like a nice place.
Claudia:
Yes, they’re a franchise situation. There used to be about 500 of them; I don’t know if there are still that many. We managed the one in St. Petersburg, Florida; and the one in Nashville, Kentucky; we’ve been all over.
Huck: The next time you’re driving north, just past the Waldport Bridge, it’s just right off to the left there.
Claudia: Yeah, those ten cabins that you see as you’re coming south, if you look over and see the campground—it’s right on the bay, right by the bridge—my husband and I built those.

TYG: Cool!
Claudia:
Back in our much younger days. [laughter]

TYG: So, how has business been going?
Huck:
It’s going very well! We have been very gratified, and surprised, and happy! It’s a pace we can keep up with, and steady; we love our customers, and we love doing the work.

TYG-EA: How’d you get started doing this?
Claudia:
Well, we had been kind of the main cooks for the Ladies’ Club for the last two or three years, and we get along so well, and we like the same kind of cooking. The sad point of that is that we’re both widows, but we didn’t want to lose our cooking skills. It took us 40 years to polish them! We just enjoy cooking for a crowd.
Huck: And we were cooking for one of the Ladies’ Club events, and we were just back there, talking, and working, and I said “What do you think about just doing this together, for a business?” and Huck said, “You know, I was just thinking that too!” And that was about how it got started. No formal business plan or thought went into it; it was just kind of “Hey, why don’t we do this!”

TYG: [laughs] Same thing for the Yachats Gazette! One day we were just walking down the driveway, and I said, “Maybe some day I’ll start a newspaper!” and Dad was like “Wait! That doesn’t have to wait 20 years—that could happen now!” [laughter] [...]

TYG-EA: So what are some of your favorite items that you make?
Huck:
Well, I’m a baker and a dessert creator, but one of the things we had done as a requested item for the Ladies’ Club was Swiss steak and mashed potatoes. So one of the first times we delivered to one of our customers, her comment about my mashed potatoes was that they were “knee-buckling” mashed potatoes. [laughter]

TYG: “Knee-buckling”? What does that mean?
Claudia:
They were so good, that...
TYG-EA: ...they made you weak with delight.
TYG: Ahhhh.


TYG-EA: Do you mostly find yourselves doing smaller groups, or larger ones?
Claudia: It’s a mix!

Huck: We have a couple of repeat customers who are just a one-day dinner, or a left-overs thing; but we’re getting ready to do a memorial for a hundred! Huck: We started out by saying we’d limit it to maybe 50-60 people, because it is just two of us, and we’re grandmas, and we’re old, and we can’t do a lot of stuff. So we didn’t want to get into situations we couldn’t manage. 

TYG: Like cooking for a whole village!
Claudia:
So we set our marketing limits at that. But you know, it’s hard to turn down jobs when they come! We have taken on a couple of larger ones, but we do prefer the small ones.

TYG: We learned about you guys because of one of our neighbors: we kept on seeing your truck there.
Huck:
It’s just spread by word of mouth, because our regular customers, the Ladies’ Club dinners, heard we were doing this, so they’d already had a taste of our wares. We officially started on the first of July, and we had four orders within the first week, which was amazing. We’re really filling a niche.
Claudia: Yes—we were delivering our first job while at the same time as we were baking our pies for the Ladies’ Club July Fourth pie social.

TYG-EA: Eek!
Claudia:
It was a bit of a challenge.

TYG-EA: Did either of you cook professionally in the past?
Claudia:
For a while, in my younger days... I was a salad chef at a Ramada Inn, and my husband and I catered. My husband was also an excellent, excellent chef. So we catered for a lot of the campgrounds that we worked for, if there was a group coming in. We did pig roasts, and catered chicken dinners and that kind of thing. I don’t know if you can call that professional. [laughs]

TYG: Well, if you make money on it, it’s professional... if you’re cooking for the Ladies’ Club, I don’t think that’s professional.
Huck:
Well, we cooked for 40 years, learning from our moms and grandmas—so I think that’s where our skills come from.
Claudia: It’s all home cooking. We don’t do any French cooking, or gourmet cooking, or any haute cuisine or that kind of thing.

TYG: I once tried cooking a French dish, and I was like, none of these ingredients make any sense at all.
Claudia: [laughter]
Some of them you don’t even recognize!

TYG: Yes, you’ve got some basic ones, even some exotic ones I know like watercress and rocket. But there was one cheese, something that’s just about impossible to get, it was like the key. I think it was some kind of rare goat cheese, and it was the key to the whole recipe. I was like, “Nope, not doing that one!” [laughter]
Claudia: We cook what we know. That’s why we named it that, “Just Good Cookin’”. We didn’t want to present ourselves as something we weren’t.

TYG-EA: Are you still taking orders for the holidays?
Huck: Yes, we were just finalizing one yesterday.
Claudia: We don’t turn down any work unless we’re booked and we can’t handle it.

TYG-EA: Do you guys have a website, or just phone?
Claudia:
We have not needed a website so far, so we have not invested the time and the money so far. We’ve had offers, friends of friends who have offered to help us do a website, but honest to goodness, we have not needed it.
Huck: We thought maybe we’d do a marketing thing for the holidays, for holiday baking; but there again, we have just not needed it.
Claudia: It’s a good thing we didn’t, because we wouldn’t have been able to do it!

TYG-EA: Where do you publicize?
Huck: We don’t.
Claudia: We just started cold-calling all the businesses in town when we got our brochures. We put brochures in the Visitors’ Center, and Leon has them at the Commons.
Huck: And the vacation rentals.
Claudia: And that’s really all we did! We did about four to five days of that. [...] So yeah, until we get a break or slow down, we’ll just keep going!
Huck: Right now, we’ve had a few days off, but we did three jobs last week. So four or five days off is a rest, because we have some big jobs coming up. The down time is a blessing!
Claudia: We’re not a money-driven organization.

TYG-EA: What does motivate you?
Claudia:
Just that we like to cook! And people like to eat it! [laughs]
Huck: There’s also the instant gratification of “Oh my goodness that’s good. Can I have some more?” [laughs]
Claudia: We love that positive reinforcement!

TYG: Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?
Huck:
Well, you could ask us about our favorite dishes. I don’t know that we have any favorite dishes!
Claudia: We have some signature dishes that get requested a lot.

TYG-EA: For example?
Claudia:
Our layered lettuce salad, that isn’t even in there [the brochure]. [laughs]
Huck: But it’s a recipe that my mother-in-law did years ago, and they used to do it for all church potlucks, or family gatherings and funerals. They used to do it in a long cake pan, a 9x13” cake pan, but we do it in a bowl, so that you see the layers.

TYG: In an upright glass bowl?
Huck:
Yes. You can see the layers of the lettuce, and it’s just quite attractive.
Claudia: Once we started doing that—it’s usually just topped with mayonnaise—but we dressed that up a little bit and made it a ranch dressing thing. So that’s become one of our more-requested items.
Huck: And lemon bars, and brownie bites.
Claudia: She makes the best lemon bars in the world. Home-made. Our fruit salad is another requested item.
Huck: And wraps.

TYG: What are wraps, anyway?
Claudia:
You start with a tortilla, and we do a salsa-cream cheese spread.
Huck: And if it’s a meat item, a choice of ham, turkey, or chicken, and a couple of vegetables. And we do it as a vegetarian option, and we’ve even done it gluten-free.
Claudia: We actually stumbled on that...

TYG: I didn’t even know there were any gluten-free tortillas!
Huck:
The corn tortilla can be gluten-free, and then there are [flour-like] gluten-free ones.
Claudia: We do accommodate our special needs customers. We get a lot of vegan requests.
Huck: We did a wedding reception up in Bayshore, and the lady who was organizing it let us borrow a gluten-free and a vegan cookbook.
Claudia: Yes, they had quite a few gluten-free and vegan people attending the wedding.
Huck: So, we cook here [at the Ladies’ Club], and we’re certified by the Health Department. And this is a certified kitchen. When we first got the idea, I had just had my kitchen remodeled at home. We thought we could do it at home, but they don’t certify home kitchens. This has to meet lots of county standards.

TYG: So this is where you cook for the business?
Claudia:
Yes, we rent this from the Ladies’ Club and pay them based on the number of hours we use it.

TYG-EA: I hope they give you a reasonable rate!
Claudia:
They do. It’s very fair.

TYG: Well thank you so much!
Huck and Claudia:
Thank you!

Interview with Richard and Rosalie Clinton

The Yachats Gazette was pleased to catch up with some Yachats “old-timers.”

TYG: So, how did you come to Yachats?
Richard:
Well, I just drove up and down the coast when I first got here, back in the mid-seventies, and this was the place that most attracted me. So genuine, and unspoiled, relatively speaking. I bought a little place over on 3rd Street and came, from then on, almost every weekend—from 1979 until now.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: What are some of the striking differences between then and now?
Richard:
Well, it has gotten a lot busier, it seems like, people coming and going. Except the fourth of July: that was always the big day here, with the fireworks and all.

TYG: Yes, we do have an amazing fireworks show, don’t we.
Richard:
Yes!

TYG-EA: What was your favorite place to hang out and drink coffee back then?
Richard:
Well, there wasn’t any. [laughs] I had to do it at home!

TYG: Interesting! So there wasn’t a coffee place back then!
Rosalie:
Well, there was when I came to town. Dick and I were married in 1986, and shortly after, Blythe started her coffee shop.
Richard: Oh, right! The place that’s the wine store is now. 
Rosalie: And everybody went there.
Richard: Yes, that was lovely.

TYG: Oh, interesting! So that means Blythe started there, then went up next to the video store, then came back down to 4th Street.
Richard:
With a hiatus there, in between. And now she has her Bread and Roses place. I was going to say, about the fireworks: there used to be a guy who lived up on King Street here who made fireworks for a hobby! And he put on the show, some years.
Rosalie: Do you remember that?

TYG-EA: Before our time...
Richard:
He actually had a magazine built up into the hill, behind the house. It had a big door on the front like a safe, almost. It’s where he kept his gunpowder.

TYG: That makes sense, because if anything happened to that storehouse, you’d definitely want it sealed tight.
Richard:
That’s right! [laughter] [...]

TYG-EA: So you got here in ‘79, and you two married in ‘86. And how did you two meet?
Richard:
We were in the third grade together. [laughter]
Rosalie: In Orlando.
Richard: And then every year thereafter until we graduated from grade school. Except for one year—they had a different school set up and we missed one year.
Rosalie: And when we graduated from high school, Orlando was about the same population as Corvallis is now. Probably less.
Richard: About 50,000.

TYG: Orlando is a huge city, now!
Rosalie:
Corvallis is our main home, and Yachats is where we go on weekends.

TYG-EA: How did you end up in Corvallis?
Richard:
Got a job offer there at Oregon State. So we came out from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

TYG-EA: That’s where my wife, Allen’s mom, went to grad school.
Richard:
Did she! I did too. I got my doctorate there.

TYG-EA: What’s your field?
Richard:
Political science, international relations.

TYG-EA: And you taught at Oregon State most of your career?
Richard:
At Chapel Hill for five years, and then here for forty.

TYG-EA: What are some of your special interests?
Richard:
Latin America was my main interest, and the relationship between population change and development were my research interests. Increasingly, I got into environmental stuff through the population things, and so I’ve been in environmental politics, too.

TYG-EA: My father, Allen’s grandfather, taught Spanish language and Latin American literature.
Richard:
Where?

TYG-EA: Michigan, where I was born; then we moved to Berkeley when I was two. Later, he got into university administration, and was the Dean of the Panama Center of Nova University in Panama for 16 years.
Richard: What was his name?

TYG-EA: Martin Taylor. Still is his name. 
TYG: He’s still up and running.
Richard:
Is he really!

TYG-EA: He actually just rewrote what was originally his dissertation, called “The Religious Sensibility of Gabriela Mistral,” whom he admired very much in the 50’s. She was the first female winner of the Nobel prize for literature.
Richard: Oh, she was wonderful—Chilean poet.

TYG-EA: He also just came out with a book on translation, specifically spoken interpretation.
Richard:
Does he ever come to visit? I’d sure like to meet him.

TYG: Yes, he comes out every couple of years.
Richard:
Oh, we have a lot to chat about. Spanish was my first love—that’s what got me into Latin American politics.

TYG-EA: Do you teach other areas besides Latin America?
Richard:
Yes! I taught International Relations, primarily, and American Foreign Policy. Since I’ve retired in 2004, I’ve been teaching in the Honors College, and I do a course called “Adapting to Global Interdependence,” which is kind of a hodge-podge of all the things I’ve been teaching over the years: population and environment, together with international relations and global interdependence.

TYG: What is the Honors College?
Richard:
That’s a section of the Undergraduate College at Oregon State. There is a separate application; you have to have a very high GPA and recommendations and so forth to get into the Honors section. And from then on you can be in smaller courses and colloquia. What I teach are colloquia—two-hour courses, two credits, maximum of twelve students. That’s really a fantastic situation, twelve students to one professor.

TYG: And this is for undergrads?
Richard:
Yes.

TYG: Admittedly, considering how many people are applying to college, twelve to one must be a real privilege—and a treat! Especially when you have the two-hour time, instead of one hour.
Richard:
It really is! They have a new building at OSU that has one big room with a circular amphitheater for six hundred students. The professor is down there in the middle kind of rotating around, and there are great big screens all the way around the periphery of the room, and there’s another one just like that for three hundred students.

TYG: That must be horrible for the professor, having to speak to six hundred students, and not being able to answer almost any questions!
Richard:
That’s right. Although for big courses like that, they usually break up into sections one time a week with a graduate student.
Rosalie: There was a class Dick taught and he really enjoyed; it was called “Visions and Bridges: What Kind of a World Would You Like to Live In?”

TYG: For me, it would be a world with clean steam power.
Richard:
Steam?

TYG: But clean! It would probably be based off of geothermal hot spots, and those would be producers for the world.
Richard:
But they aren’t everywhere.

TYG: Or perhaps solar. Because we already do that.
Richard:
Right. What are you expecting to major in when you go to college?

TYG: Engineering. Structural and Mechanical Engineering. And a minor in Roman Studies.
Richard:
Roman studies! Now that will be a unique combination.

TYG: Certainly that’s a dream of mine, to go around the world and visit the Byzantine and Roman ruins.
TYG-EA: And of course he plans to go to...
Richard: [chuckles]

TYG: ...OSU. It’s because the U of O don’t have an engineering [program]. They do have journalism, but they don’t have engineering.
Richard:
That’s because back during the Depression, when funds were so scarce, the two universities sort of specialized. So Oregon State was the land grant university, and already had agricultural interests and the engineering went naturally with that. The University of Oregon was more humanities and social sciences, and they each developed real strength in those fields. Then Oregon State eventually added forestry and oceanography, which are two of its really major programs now. The University of Oregon gradually expanded and got its forestry school. It even has some engineering, but I don’t know if it has a major in it or not. They’ve been better than Oregon State has been at filling in what they’d given up back in the thirties.
TYG: Well, they have physics and pure science, but they don’t have nearly as much applied [science].

TYG-EA: [to Rosalie] So what’s your story?
Rosalie:
My story... well, I was born and raised in Orlando. After high school I worked in insurance for six years. I married when I was almost twenty, and five years later had our daughter, Shannon. My husband worked for the original Minute Maid company, which was two or three hundred people; Orlando was its base. My husband was in the sales department and they moved us to Long Island in 1967, and we lived there for a year and a half. And one day he opened the New York Times, and “Oh no, oh no! Coca Cola has bought Minute Maid!” And they kept the main branch: Minute Maid, Hi-C, all the labels remained separate, but it became a division of Coca Cola. He continued working for them, but things changed greatly. We lived in Pennsylvania for four years, and then back to New York, and then back to Florida when my daughter was ready for her senior year. We were there for a few years, and my husband died at the age of 45 of a heart attack. So we had been married 26 years by that time.

I was widowed three years, and then I was helping with our thirtieth year high school reunion at Edgewater, and Dick—he’s an only child; his parents were still in Orlando—he came to visit his parents en route to Mexico to teach for the summer. He hadn’t planned to come to the reunion, but his friends persuaded him—and that was IT! [laughter]
Richard: Those thirty year reunions are really dangerous!
Rosalie: We were married in November of that year, and I came to Corvallis, and I’ve been a homemaker.

TYG: Thank you so much! It’s been a pleasure talking with you.
Richard:
Thank you!

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 51, November 1 2015

Interview with Jim Murphy and Diane Disse


The Yachats Gazette got a chance to interview the owners of the Ocean Creek Bed and Breakfast, just south of Yachats.

 
The Ocean Creek Bed and Breakfast

TYG-Editorial Assistant: Where are you from?
Diane:
I’m from Minnesota. I went to college in Minnesota, then I went to Spain for a year. Then I went to Denver, then Michigan, then California, then back to Minnesota, where I met Jim! And Jim’s actually from the east, mostly Ohio.
Jim:  Yes, mid-western. That, and met Diane at MSO, and then we got married and moved out here after. I was in the hotel business for about 25 years.
Diane: Yes, he went to Wooster, in Ohio, and got his degree in philosophy and economics. I always asked him what he really wanted to do, and we finally realized that he really likes the hotel and hospitality industry, so that’s good! [laughs] He’s good at it.

TYG: The sound carries perfectly in this house! Maybe you should add a music room...
Diane:
Well, there used to be a grand piano right there, in the original house. And the stairway to the second floor used to be on what is now the porch.

TYG: How come you changed that?
Diane:
Well, it wasn’t here when we got here. The original house was built in the 1930’s, and it was small—just a two bedroom house. In the 1990’s, they added the whole back part of it, so it became a very big house.

TYG: Where was the garage before?
Jim:
There wasn’t a garage.
Diane: That wasn’t rare, in the 30’s. Garages were not very common. Cars had just come around 1925—around here especially—because the roads were so bad.

TYG: Which reminds me—most of the cars back then you could just repair with a screwdriver.
Diane:
You had to!

TYG: Yes, but you also could, which is quite amazing. [...] So how did you guys end up getting this place?
Jim:
Well, I used to work at Salishan, for fifteen and a half years. And then before Salishan, we had a bed and breakfast in Lincoln City for six years. So when I left Salishan, I wanted to do this again.

TYG: What is Salishan?
Jim:
Salishan Lodge and Resort, in Gleneden Beach.

TYG: Oh, I know what you’re talking about now. [...]
Jim:
After that, we kind of looked around for something, and saw it on the internet. We got our realtor to take us out and look at it, and kind of knew it was going to be a good fit. A little bit of remodeling expense here and there, but it was going to work.
Diane: A lot of updating—it had been neglected for many years. This poor beautiful house had kind of been just sitting here for many years: it’s not set up very for a family home, because the spaces are so separate from each other, which makes it perfect for a bed and breakfast.

TYG: I like how you have the double glass doors here. What’s that room, anyway?
Diane:
That’s the kitchen. Actually, Jim installed these French doors

TYG: I love the color of the wood!
Diane:
See, we have votes on that. I’m not really crazy about, but a lot of people love it. It’s turquoise! [...]

TYG-EA: So, did you have to do wholesale remodeling in terms of where walls were, or...?
Jim:
No, we didn’t have to move any walls—just added that. We went through Alsea Granite for carpeting, and the quartz counter tops you saw upstairs, and they gave me the wood floor. I installed this myself.Diane: And the tile in the bathroom, as well.

TYG: What was on the floor?
Jim:
It was carpeted. And it wasn’t level. So I ripped up all the tiles in the bathroom—all the tile you see is new. Fixed some plumbing issues, did a lot of painting...
Diane: All the counter tops are new too.

TYG-EA: That sounds like thousands of hours of work!
Jim:
Yes. It’s been four and a half months.
Diane: Yes!

TYG: I like the open beam feel here!
Diane:
Yes, I do too! And there used to be a mural on this wall, and we had to take votes on whether to cover that up or not, too. I won, and it’s gone...

TYG-EA: Is this the entire electorate? [motions to Jim and Diane]
Diane: [laughter]
Well, friends and family get a vote, occasionally.

TYG-EA: So was it as much work than you imagined, or less or more?
Jim:
  I knew it was a lot of work; Diane thought it could maybe take a shorter amount of time. I’m a detail-oriented person; I want to get things done right. You know, sometimes when you work on a project, you go forward two steps, and one step back. Every project is a problem-solving [exercise].

TYG-EA: How did you level the floors?
Jim: 
I used Quikrete. Yep, used about eight or nine bags of Quikrete.
Diane: That took a long time.
Jim: Yes, a lot of time, and a lot of sweat. I discovered over the months what parts were new, old, and remodeled.

TYG-EA: Is there any pattern at all?
Jim: 
I haven’t figured it out yet. [laughter]

TYG-EA: Our last house was built in 1890, on the cheap—there was really not much rhyme or reason to how things were.
Jim: 
You think there’s going to be a stud; there’s not. [laughter]

TYG: Studs! We have had so many problems with studs! We recently tried to install one of those simple little hole board things. It was ridiculous trying to find the studs! The stud-finder just flat out didn’t work—we just couldn’t find any. Eventually we just settled for digging straight into the wall.
Jim:  [laughter]
Yes, just use the old hammer and nail trick to figure out where it is.
Diane: My father years ago invented a stud-finder! He was in the process of getting a patent when someone came out with it! [laughter]

TYG-EA: Oh no!
Diane:
He was a contractor—he built mostly custom homes and stuff. [...]

TYG-EA: I think you’ve got a fantastic spot!
Diane:
We’re happy. And the people in Yachats are just wonderful!

TYG: I know, right?
Diane:
Oh, they’re so friendly, and progressive—it’s just great. Our neighbor to the south is Joanne Kittel, who has been just wonderful.

TYG: That’s an awesome neighbor!
Diane:
She really is! She’s had two parties for us, to introduce us to people in the community, and then we went up there for the Fourth of July! What else did you want to know?

TYG: What kind of challenges did you face doing this place?
Diane:
Well, I guess, a lot of regulations that we had to go through.

TYG-EA: Are you technically in the city limits here?
Diane:
No, just outside. So we’re really under the jurisdiction of the county. But we do have city water, [though] we also have a septic system. I think we’re the last ones [south] to have city water—it’s nice.

TYG-EA: Do you allow kids [for overnight stays]?
Diane:
Well, we haven’t determined age yet. But probably no one under twelve.

TYG: Especially in a place where sound carries so well!
Diane:
Yes. We love children—I have four wonderful grandchildren in Otis, up by Lincoln City, but we won’t be having children here. Under twelve, anyhow. We also—even though we have our little lhasa apso—will not be able to accommodate pets.

TYG-EA: Have you taken the hike up to Perpetua yet?
Diane:
We’ve hiked at Perpetua, but we haven’t been to it. And we’ve taken the Amanda Trail, a good part of the way.

TYG-EA: It’s a bit of a hike, going up.
Diane:
It is, it is! Everything is up hill! [laughter] But it’s spectacular.

TYG-EA: Anything else you wanted to add?
Diane:
Do you want to chat about the breakfast, maybe?
Jim: Oh, we do a soufflé or frittatas—something simple, with muffins or fruit breads.
Diane: He makes wonderful fruit muffins!
Jim: Not a seven-course meal. We keep it big and simple and plentiful.
Diane: We have coffee down here by seven in the morning, and the breakfast is on the table.
Jim: Check-in time is four o’clock, although sometimes [guests] arrive earlier; check-out time is twelve.

TYG: Well, thank you so much!


Interview with Carilyn Ellis, Psy.D.


Dr. Ellis recently joined the staff of Samaritan Waldport Clinic.

TYG: So, how have you been settling in to your new role?
Carilyn:
I like it a lot. I’m very happy out here. It’s very interesting being a town psychologist. I’m used to working as part of a whole team—but that being said, I have the whole team at the Waldport Clinic, which is really quite fabulous. I like it very much. I’m very happy to be here.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: Would you care to describe your role there?
Carilyn:
I’m a primary care psychologist. My degree is in clinical psychology. What that means, is I serve kind of like a primary care physician in the world of mental health. So I meet with people much like physicians do for their everyday needs when they have cuts and bruises and need medication, but in terms of the everyday anxieties and things they’d like to change. My saying, in my field, is “Anything you want to do more or less is right up my alley.”

TYG: So like more or less severe?
Carilyn:
Oh, like if you want to sleep more, or drink less; if you want to take your medications more, or feel less stress—anything you want to do less or more, I can help with.

TYG: Although I guess that would include things like pain, but perhaps I’m getting a bit off topic.
Carilyn:
You’d be surprised, though! There are two sides to pain: there’s the physical insult of pain, but then there’s also the suffering that it causes, and how people end up saying things like “This isn’t me!” That’s something that I can really, actually help with.

TYG: I was referring to the physical pain. So—it’s clear that you’ve been well-received! I hope you have, anyway...
Carilyn:
I have! And I am very happy to be here, and I feel that I’ve been well-received by the community.

TYG: Awesome!
TYG-EA: I can confirm.
 

TYG: Where are you from?
Carilyn:
Well, that’s an interesting question! I was born in Berkeley, California. My mother is first-generation Irish, and they lived out of San Francisco. My father was born in Gloucester, England. My mom and he met at the University of London. So although I was born in California, my family lives internationally. My parents got married in England, lived in California for a while, and then we moved to Japan. So I grew up in Japan, lived there until I was eleven, and then we moved to New Jersey. So that was really kind of my first introduction to US culture, in New Jersey.

TYG-EA: What part of New Jersey?
Carilyn:
Sparta. It’s up north, north-western New Jersey. [...] So my re-introduction to US culture—because I had been born here—was big hair and leopard-print spandex. [laughter] But then we quickly moved to Switzerland, and went to the United Kingdom for a while.

TYG: Switzerland! Mom’s from Switzerland! She spent her growing-up there!
Carilyn: Oui, j’ai habité à Genève! Et à Grenoble, en France,
which was where my mother was. I have got some great stories about house-hunting in France if you ever want to ask about those. But then we did actually move back to New Jersey, which is where my father’s company was headquartered, before moving back to California and ending up living one mile away from the original house that my parents owned when I was born.

TYG: You’re serious!
Carilyn:
Yes, life really does turn full circle! And that was just in time to finish high school.

TYG-EA: That’s in Berkeley?
Carilyn:
It was actually in Walnut Creek. I was born at Alta Bates in Berkeley, but my parents lived in Walnut Creek.

TYG: So, what was Japan like?
Carilyn:
Oh, it was fabulous. So, it’s kind of hard, because when you’re a kid growing up in a foreign country, you hear all these stories about the US, and you feel like you’re missing out. But then, I lived in a country that really has days and events to celebrate children, and street fairs, and amazing food, and a place called Sega World.

TYG: Is that like Lego World?
Carilyn:
It’s like a four storey video game super-place, where each level has a different theme. You could go there for days and days in a row.

TYG: I assume they had like a Mario level, or something? Because Mario is Japanese.
Carilyn:
Mmmhmm. And they had like virtual reality, live action—it was really quite fabulous.

TYG-Graphic Design: And your parents let you go?
Carilyn:
Well, that’s another story. [laughter] Mom and Dad found out a lot of things later, but my brother and I would tell my mom we were going to play ping-pong, which we did on occasion, but sometimes we would end up going to these video arcades. Some of them were age sixteen and older in Japan, because Japan has very different rules and laws about pornography—they’re much more open to that.

TYG: I know, considering the anime level. Some of these animes are gory as anything!
Carilyn:
Yes. And they’re even worse in Japan. They’re edited quite heavily for US television.

TYG: And yet they’re still gory!
Carilyn:
Yep, exactly! So we used to go to these places, and sometimes my brother and I would walk in; he was ten, and I was eight. If you’ve ever been to a casino—[you know] the bosses, the pit bosses? So they had these pit bosses at the arcades that had some more adult themes, and they would come up to us and start speaking to us in broken English, trying to explain to us that we should leave. To which my brother and I would turn to each other and make up a language on the spot, and they would give up on us and let us continue to roam around. [laughter] So we had quite a bit of fun. But, it’s very interesting, because looking back as an adult, it was a fabulous, exciting, wonderful childhood that I would never want to give up. But there were times as a kid when I really felt that I was missing out on being in the US, and having traditional birthday parties, and the 4th of July, and that kind of stuff.

TYG: What kind of birthday parties did you have there?
Carilyn:
It was mostly family. We all lived very far away from each other. My father’s company paid for my brother and I to go to the American School in Japan, known as the ASIJ. But we lived in Tokyo, in a place called Den-en-chōfu, and my commute to school in the morning was two and a half hours, and my commute home was two and a half hours. So I was on the bus at six in the morning, got to school by eight-thirty. It was quite a grueling commute. 

TYG: Admittedly, I have many friends around here who go to the Waldport school, who have to get up at six.
Carilyn:
Yep. But the nice thing about it was that I slept in the morning, and did all my homework on the way home. So every time I got home, I never had to do any homework. 

TYG: That is very useful!
TYG-EA: Was this on dedicated school buses, or public transportation?
Carilyn:
It was a dedicated school bus. So at least it was a direct route.

TYG-GD: And you didn’t have to worry about strangers!
Carilyn:
Right!

TYG: That’s another thing I love about Japan—the beautiful trains! It’s amazing! In America, you have to struggle to get anywhere. In Japan, not so.
Carilyn:
Yes—you would choose to take public transit over driving, any day. Because driving is a nightmare compared to taking public transit.

TYG: I can imagine!
Carilyn:
They have real express trains—not just the Shinkansen, which is the bullet train, which is really cool.

TYG: Did you ever ride on one?
Carilyn:
I did ride on the Shinkansen. It’s very cool. If you look out the window of the Shinkansen, you see the world passing you by. And then you kind of look down below the midpoint, and it’s a blur, because you’re going up to 300 miles per hour, I think. And then there’s the magnetic train in China.

TYG: Ahhh, yes!
Carilyn:
I’ve also been on that.

TYG: Oh, I envy you!
Carilyn:
And then there’s the TGV, so I’ve actually been on the three fastest trains in the world.

TYG-EA: Wow!!!
Carilyn:
It’s very cool, just seeing the train sitting above the line—it’s so odd, watching a little hover-train! You understand it, but it looks like a hover-train. [...] So are you going to do a magnetic transport system out here? Because we could use it.

TYG: I wish I could!
Carilyn:
You just have to keep other things from sticking to it.

TYG-EA: He proposed high-speed rail to the Mayor when he was seven.
Carilyn:
That would be very helpful. [...]

TYG-EA: How old were you when you moved to Japan?
Carilyn:
When I moved to Japan I think I was six.

TYG-EA: So, English in the home, mostly?
Carilyn:
Oh yes. We learned Japanese as a second language, and I was very functional with Japanese. Even when we moved to New Jersey, we knew that France and Switzerland were on the horizon. We were technically stationed in France, but Collège du Léman was where the company was going to send my brother and I. We had to start studying French, because—as your mother will know—in France they have something called “le bac”—le baccalauréat—which is their exit exam for high school, and my brother and I were nowhere near where we needed to be to take that in French. They told us we would need to be prepared to take that in French. I started studying French, and lost a lot of my Japanese. And then we went there, it lasted all of six months because my dad’s company was originally going to pay for school, then said that Mom and Dad would have to pick up the bill in a year—and the Collège du Léman is incredibly expensive. And then my mother working in Grenoble, my father working at times in Paris, my brother and I being in Switzerland—it was not a good combo for the family. So Mom declared a mutiny, and said that we were returning home to the States, which is when my father got the order to go to Madrid. And my mom said “No. You forced the kids to learn French, you promised they could go to high school in the United States.” So my it was decided that my father would forego that particular position.

TYG-GD: So what does your dad do?
Carilyn:
He was an international sales manager for Becton-Dickinson. If you’ve ever seen the Vacutainer system, the sharps containers, all of the background medical supplies; if you’ve ever seen a B-dash-D with a little sun behind it, that was Dad’s company. He worked there for 29 years. It’s very rare, in this day and age. And then he worked for Pfizer for a few years, then Cooper Surgical, then retired.

TYG-EA: So your dad is a biochemist?
Carilyn:
Yep, his degree was biochemistry from the University of London.

TYG-GD: What about your mom?
Carilyn:
My mom... [laughs] My mother has degrees in English, anthropology, interior design, and ornithology. So the best we can see it, she can decorate articulately for birds and dead people. [laughter] Oh, and she just got her Oregon Master Naturalist from Oregon State University. She works for the Department of Fish and Wildlife right now, so actually US Fish and Game. She does some of their global trafficking campaigns. It was quite fun to come home to my mother having elephant tusks, and boots from taxidermied birds, and I’m walking out to the car helping her carry some of these things to one of these educational things she does on global trafficking—people trafficking animals—and I said, “Mom, we look like a family of drug dealers.” [laughs] Because here we are, ivory tusks, and all of this paraphernalia... confiscated from actual drug dealers! People are passing by, and I’m like “I swear the elephant tusk isn’t mine! I’m just holding it for a friend!” [laughter] Very interesting things, that my parents have been involved in. She’s done something with every one of her degrees.

TYG: So what will your position be in the new clinic [the Waldport clinic which is currently being built]?
Carilyn:
I am the clinical psychologist in the clinic. We have one of the most integrated clinics in the Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital, in that we have PA’s, physicians, nurses, a care coordinator, a psychologist, and a pediatrician. It’s a pretty cool setup.

TYG: I’m very happy that you guys will be moving up and out of that area, because if even a fairly large wave hits, downtown Waldport is gone.
Carilyn:
Yes. I feel kind of guilty, because this new building has been in the works for so long, and I show up, and a few months later, I move in and have one of the larger offices. [laughter] Which was decided prior to my taking the job!

TYG-EA: So you finished high school in the Bay area?
Carilyn:
Yes, I finished at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek.

TYG-EA: And then Alaska?
Carilyn:
Yep! Went to the University of Alaska for my undergrad in psychology. I had a grant from the state to work with Alaskan Natives, so that was very, very fun. We were studying the cycle of alcohol abuse and suicide, so we worked a lot with the Natives. I lived in Fairbanks, so I was in the interior. It was very, very cold—64°F below was the coldest I ever walked to school in. So I really earned the right to tell my children that I really did walk to school in the snow uphill. [laughter] And then I did my graduate training at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. I did my training mostly in the VA health care system.

TYG-EA: How did you pick that grad program?
Carilyn:
That was a very interesting selection process. I wanted to stay in Oregon, because all of my family is now housed in Oregon. It’s very convenient—Mom, Dad, my brother, sister-in-law, and my nephews are all in Oregon. The rest of our family are in the UK, so it’s easier to go for Oregon as a hub. But I looked at Pacific University, George Fox, and the University of Oregon, and I was actually offered positions at all three. But I believe very strongly in the holistic nature of psychology, being the physical, the social, and also spiritual concepts—whatever those are. It doesn’t have to be in a traditional Christian sense. [...] I wanted to go to a school that acknowledged all the parts of human experience, and George Fox is a Quaker school in its founding. We studied a lot of religious foundation, and that’s worked very well for me in my career, and helping people to attune to what is spiritually meaningful to them. [...]

TYG-EA: How the heck did you end up joining us in Waldport?
Carilyn:
You know, it’s funny that you say that. My girlfriend India and I were doing our residency together at the Boise VA, and she had found the job, and was applying for the job in Albany. And she said, “You know, they have one in Newport.” And I said, “Newport, Oregon? I love Newport, Oregon.” And she said, “You know, it’s a little remote.” And I was like, “I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska! They have a grocery store, OK? I’m good!” So I applied for that job, and then they asked me to interview. It was so funny, because I interviewed in Corvallis, Newport, Albany, and Waldport. I was offered all of the positions, which was incredibly lovely and sweet, and I chose Waldport. And they were like, “Are you sure? Of all the positions that we’ve offered you...” But there was something about the Waldport clinic. All of Samaritan was absolutely lovely, and I wouldn’t have a problem working at any of them—I so enjoyed the experience. But the Waldport clinic was special. They had good camaraderie, they had a clinic manager who had been there for eighteen years—which is very rare in the health care industry—and I just genuinely enjoyed the people when I interacted with them. They were the most down-to-earth and friendly, and I thought “That’s where I want to be.” And I have absolutely no regrets. I’ve loved every minute of it. Your dad can tell you. I’m very enthusiastic about my job.

TYG-EA: Your energy is fabulous. I think we’re extraordinarily fortunate.
Carilyn:
Everyone’s afraid that I’m going to burn out! And I’m like, “I’ve been like this for six years!” [laughter]

TYG-EA: But since you asked—why psychology?
Carilyn:
I’m a profound believer that every human being has the right to an advocate, someone completely on his or her side. I think there is a lot of shame, and guilt, that follows us around, that make us feel like we’re not enough, or that we’re disconnected from others. I wanted to be in a role, where I could remind people that I’m on their side, that they’re not alone, and that there’s nothing they could say to me that would scare me away or make me stop believing in their value as a human being. I actually considered law, and psychology, because I figured they’re both areas where you can be an advocate for someone no matter what. But then I thought to myself, well, what happens in law when you do your best to defend somebody, or prosecute somebody, and it comes out the other way? And then I thought, well, in psychology, it doesn’t matter what the outcome is! You always get to be the advocate! Even if the person goes to prison, I can still be their psychologist. So I thought that psychology was the way to go, but I’ve got to tell you, I still do love law, and I consider going back some days to do both.

TYG: Wow.
TYG-GD: That’s awesome!

TYG-EA: What do you do for fun?
Carilyn:
“What is this fun whereof you...” No, just kidding. [laughter] I love to read. It’s absolutely one of my favorite things in the world.

TYG: Me too!
Carilyn:
I read, anywhere from what I call the Doritos of literature, no nutritional value but they’re delicious, to non-fiction or historical, some memoirs and biographies... I kind of approach reading like I do music: I like what I like.

TYG: Well, thank you so much!
Carilyn:
Yes, thank you!

Thursday, October 1, 2015

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 50, October 1 2015

 Click here for a printable version of the Yachats Gazette, Issue 50

For its 50th issue, the Yachats Gazette is proud to touch base with some of our earliest advertisers. A great thanks to them, and to all of you—readers and advertisers—who support this community venture!

Interview with Valeria Tutrinoli of Toad Hall

TYG: How’ve you been doing?
Valeria: I’ve been doing quite well. As well as all of Yachats—it’s just been a fabulous summer for everyone.

TYG: I agree! I’ve gotten some new clientele as well.
Valeria: Yes, I’ve noticed that your paper has gotten larger, more pages...

TYG: And also, the readership online has really increased. Although adding the Yachats Gazette Facebook page definitely helped.
Valeria: How do you keep track of who is involved?

TYG: Well, I’m not sure, but we’ve gotten a lot of comments and a lot of “likes”!
Valeria: What’s not to like about the Yachats Gazette? Well, I find that I have gotten a lot of new business from the Yachats Gazette.

TYG: Ooh!
Valeria: A lot of people pick up the Yachats Gazette and see the ad while they are eating their breakfast and having their coffee. They’re intrigued by the ad, and they come in! So I thank you very much for having the Yachats Gazette, and allowing me to be one of your advertisers, because it’s been very successful for me. I hope it’s successful for your other advertisers as well!

TYG: Thank you for being one of my first customers!
Valeria: It was my honor! I enjoy the Yachats Gazette because I find out things about the community that I didn’t know. I’ve had this store for twenty-eight years now, and there are aspects of people’s lives that I had no idea about; but reading the Yachats Gazette, you get into a lot of personal things that people have accomplished, and that you may not know about. So somehow, you’ve managed to get people to open up and tell you things that they haven’t shared with others in town.

TYG: All you have to do is ask...
Valeria: Evidently you ask the correct questions—and you’re very engaging. [...]

TYG: So, what’s new since the burglary?
Valeria: [laughs] Since the break-in... Well, a lot of things are new since the break-in, since so much was taken that I had to re-stock, so I chose other things to replace them. For example, they took an entire display of socks. So this gave me a chance to try a new company, and these socks are advertised as “the world’s softest socks.” And they are, in fact—so they’ve done quite well. [...] This robbery turned out to be crisis as opportunity. It gave me the opportunity to get the new socks, get some new jewelry, and to replace what was taken. I got a beautiful new window, I have bulletproof glass in my front door, and I do have a new back door.

TYG: Oh, it’s pretty! I like it!
TYG-Editorial Assistant: Have you tested it yet?
Valeria: [laughs] I haven’t shot anything at it.

TYG: And what’s this? [motions towards the window]
Valeria: Well, we’ve put up grids on all the windows to make them less accessible. So, all is well. [...] 

TYG: It’s been good talking to you!
Valeria: A pleasure, always!

Interview with Mari Irvin of Mari’s Books and...

TYG: So, how have you been doing?
Mari: Really, really well. We’ve been here now about nine and a half years, and we’re still having fun, so we’re still here!

TYG: And I see you still have your first ever dollar bill—or is that a five?
Mari: A five, yes... that was a good start.

TYG: Where were you then?
Mari: We were in the building next door, where Just Local is.

TYG: Ah, so you were in the really, tiny one. The first bookstore!
Mari: Well, there was a bookstore in town here—a man named Don had it. But then he left it, and the store was vacant for about six months, I guess. And when we were up here once, we saw that it was vacant, and we said “Now’s the time!” And then my sister joined us, and moved out here from Minnesota. So that’s the three of us, Jeanine, Mary, and me!

TYG: Ah! I’m trying to figure out how small your selection was—it must have been tiny!
Mari: Well what was interesting was that when we first moved into this space from next door, we were amazed at how many books we had. It wasn’t as filled in as it is now, but when we spread the books around a little bit, it looked quite good! But we’ve added a lot more... and you can always find place for another book.

TYG: Absolutely. Especially on these shelves—there’s plenty of room left! But I’m pretty sure that when you started out, your selection must have been quite tiny.
Mari: Well, we started out with a lot of our own books—books that we didn’t think we’d ever want to read again. Some of them were pretty good books. And then a lot of our friends in San Francisco said “Oh good! Now we can get rid of these books we’ve been storing around for a while.” So we had boxes and boxes of books from friends. Later on, we began to buy most of our books—or many of our books—from our customers. They knew what we liked to have, and sometimes they would sell us back books that we sold them!

TYG: Nice!
Mari: Well, they’d read them and didn’t need them anymore.

TYG: Pretty cool store!
Mari: Thank you.

TYG: I’m trying to imagine the Yachats Video Store in this space. What a jumble!
TYG-Editorial Assistant: I’d forgotten that!
Mari: And before that, Paddy Kaits had a second store here. She had her store down there [at the north end of town, across from the Commons], and then she wanted a store in the center of town. It just got to be a little too much [work for her]. And after the video store there was another store, Rabbit & Gypsy. [...] Jerry Clark, who owned the complex here—in fact, still does now—he talked to us and he said “You guys need a bigger store.” And we said, “Jerry, we can’t afford a bigger store!” And he said, “You’ll be surprised how well you do.” And the next year, we increased our sales by twenty per cent. So he had a good idea, and we’re glad we took him up on it.

TYG-EA: Has anything else changed for you in four years, since the newspaper started?
Mari: Well, I think all three of us have come to really feel very much at home in Yachats. Mary, at some point, thought she might move back to Minnesota to live, and we’ve always thought we would go back to San Francisco, but that doesn’t get talked about quite so much. So I don’t think any of us are going to leave town soon! Really, it’s a good town. And there’s a group of people who stop in the store every day, or every other day, and it’s just a pleasant place to be!

TYG: Well thank you so much!
Mari: Well thank you, Allen, and before we end this, I’d like to congratulate you on your longevity—you’ve done this for more than half of your life at this point...

TYG: Well, no—more like a third, because I started when I was eight, and now I’m twelve.
Mari: My math isn’t quite so good. [laughs] But we get many, many compliments on your paper. In fact, there was a guy in yesterday who said “Is there no issue out yet?” and I said, “No, it’ll come out about the 1st of the month.” “Oh. [in a droopy, disappointed kind of voice] Okay. I’ll be back.” You’ve got quite a following.

TYG: [little laugh] Did you tell him about the online portion?
 Mari: Yes, I always do!

TYG: Thank you so much!

Interview with Valerie Odenthal of the Antique Virgin

TYG: So how have you been?
Valerie: Good, how have you been?

TYG: Good as well... I take it the store is doing well, based on the new expansions?
Valerie: Yes! We’ve had some growing pains, but it’s been going really great. People seem to like more room.

TYG: I bet! I like what you did with this two doorway effect.
Valerie: Thank you! It’s fun...

TYG: And also this picture right in the middle, the picture that changes. From one doorway it sort of looks like it’s normal, and from the other doorway it looks like it’s different.
Valerie: The Mona Lisa hologram. It’s kind of famous here. Everybody comes in and sees it, and they love it. It was one of Kay’s favorite pictures [Kay is the former owner of the Antique Virgin].

TYG: How do you make that, anyway?
Valerie: A hologram? Not really sure. Probably a picture within a picture. [...]

TYG: So, you’ve got a lot of new merchandise in. Where did those come from?
Valerie: The pictures? A couple of people I know, one of them my husband, another one a friend, have provided the pictures. They’re really great photographers, so they have them matted. And we sell quite a few of them.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: How have things changed for you in the last four years?
Valerie: Oh! I’ve made a lot of friends. The store is more fun, for me. I enjoy it—it’s become an extension of myself. It’s tested me and stretched me in ways I never thought.

TYG: Like what?
Valerie: Just the business end of it... I’ve been in business a long time, but having your own business is a totally different animal. Learning what works, what doesn’t; paying attention, paying attention to customers; it makes you be aware on a different level.

TYG: I’ve never been employed in a different business, but I can see how being a desk jockey in a big corporation would be different from doing something like this.
Valerie: Yes. Very different. Like two different worlds. And there’s not a lot of crossover.

TYG: Yes? But then you also have lateral movement in fields. Because in my business... well, running my business would probably be considerably easier than running yours.
Valerie: Not necessarily! But I think that a lot of people who want to get into business have the preconception that it’s going to be easy.

TYG: Hmm. That is absolutely not true, in my experience.
Valerie: Well, sometimes it is. But there’s always going to be challenging. There are always challenges in any endeavour.

TYG: And the other problem is that especially with a solo business like this, without a lot of employees, and no advisory board, you can’t get good advice from people.
Valerie: Oh, actually... no. I read a lot, I’m always looking up articles, I follow different businesses online to see their blogs, see how they’re doing... I’m over the criticism—if anybody has feedback, I definitely take it. You know, it humbles you, having your own business. 

TYG: Before I started the Yachats Gazette, I thought that running the business would be easy...
Valerie: It’s really fun—I enjoy it, I have not gotten bored or tired of it. But it’s lonely work, too. You’re essentially working for yourself.

TYG: Well, I’m sort of working for the community, in the sense that one of the main goals of this paper is to try and help the community.
Valerie: Yes! I think your paper has done that. On the strength of the articles that I know of, I actually had people coming in to meet Lucy [the dog].

TYG: [laughs] From the interview?
Valerie:
Lucy has friends, yes... They like to come in and meet her. [laughs]

TYG: You should have a drawing contest of Lucy! Put the pictures in the window.
Valerie:
That’s a great idea Allen—I like that! [...]

TYG: Well, it’s great to see you!
Valerie:
You too Allen—and thanks for that idea. I think it’ll be great for winter!

Lucy the Dog of the Antique Virgin
Lucy


Interview with Mary Crook of Planet Yachats 

Mary: Our owner, Tom Jones, and his wife, Chris, still have their contacts worldwide, and continue to buy from places like Brazil, and carvings from China, also carvings from Zimbabwe, and pieces from Madagascar, [and] fossils from Morocco.

TYG: The fossils are especially beautiful.
Mary:
They are.

TYG: Like especially that huge trilobite one.
Mary:
We have a lot of fossils here, right down to the fossilized shark teeth. The young people like those.

TYG: Yes, those are funny! 
Mary:
And so he has continued to supply us with materials, and we had a very good summer! The best summer in a number of years.

TYG: Everyone I’ve talked to has said they had an exceptional summer.
Mary:
Yes. I think a lot of it had to do with the heat that was going on in other parts of the state and the country, and the forest fires: our air was pure and clean, and people wanted to come here. So they did! And as I said, our owners are now on a many-month road trip, going to gem and mineral shows around the country. They’ll be at the Tucson show in February, as he is always, but we will be involved with the Agate Festival in January!

TYG: I will be advertising in it once again!
Mary:
Excellent!

TYG: I always have. Literally! I was in the first one, if you remember.
Mary:
Yes you were! [...] This will be the fifth one. It’s been very successful over the years, and we’ve had some interesting speakers, and we’ll have the same again.

TYG: How have things been here, over the last four years? What’s changed?
Mary:
Well, like I said, we’ve experienced some downturns in business like everybody has. But the last two summers have been pretty good, and this summer was very good. Life again.

TYG: Well, thank you so much!
Mary:
You’re very welcome—thanks for coming in! Nice to see you!

Interview with Gary Church at
Topper’s Ice Cream & Candy
  
TYG: So how have you been doing?
Gary:
I’ve been good.

TYG: Your business has certainly expanded... How has the Yachats Gazette helped you?
Gary:
I think that it’s helped for people to get a better sense of what’s happening at Topper’s, the kinds of things we offer—from when you interviewed me before. A clearer understanding, I guess. But people have a pretty good idea of what an ice cream and candy shop is. [laughs]

TYG: For example [motioning toward the Tillamook Mudslide ice cream container], I have never seen this flavor anywhere else. Not just the name, but the whole idea of having two chocolate flavors together.
Gary:
Well let me tell you—when Tillamook runs out... they completely ran out of this flavor for two weeks.

TYG: Why?
Gary:
Supplies. And when we ran out, we had... oh my gosh. Folks were so mad. I mean: mad. They would come in, and we didn’t have it? They would turn around and leave, I mean stomping out because we didn’t have Mudslide. Yeah.

TYG: Woah.
Gary:
Yeah. It’s pretty popular.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: You also have Almond Mocha Fudge, which is hard to find in stores.
Gary:
Is it? Yeah, that’s pretty popular. Did you pick up on this half [of the ice cream refrigerated unit] Umpqua, this half Tillamook?

TYG: Why is that?
Gary:
Why is that! We did that last year, right before summer started. We switched because Tillamook changed all of their recipes, and we ended up with a case of ice cream that was for the most part white.  Tillamook changed all their recipes, and they went to everything all natural: no artificial food coloring, no artificial flavors—which is great. I’m really happy with that. However, people eat with their eyes, and if it all looks white... it was really difficult. I’m not a really good salesperson, because I cannot sell white coffee ice cream. The Coffee Almond Fudge was white, with a strip of fudge going through it. The Mint Chip? White. They probably got a lot of pushback, and I don’t know what they’ve changed, but they got the Coffee Almond Fudge brown again. The Mint Chip is still white. The Cherry used to be darker, but it’s still decent, though. But oh my gosh, the Strawberry ice-cream? Gray. Whatever leaches out into the ice cream, under the fluorescent lights... yeah. The Chocolate Peanut Butter? They’ve darkened it up again—I’m assuming whatever they used in the Coffee Almond Fudge is what they’re using for the Chocolate Peanut Butter—but it was so pale. So at that time we went, “We can’t have a white freezer. Customers are not happy! Not good!” So we started carrying some Umpqua.

TYG: Personally, I’d be totally creeped out by that. This mint...
Gary:
People are used to green Mint.  

TYG: Bright green? I’d rather not eat an alien-looking ice cream.
Gary: [laughs]


TYG-EA: In any case, these are both Oregon Coast manufacturers. 
Gary:
We’re right in the middle of both!

TYG-EA: And if there were another shortage, you wouldn’t have all your eggs in one basket.
Gary:
It’s worked out really well.

TYG: Well, it’s been great to see you!
Gary:
You too!


Interview with Michelle Korgan of Ona Restaurant 
  
TYG: So how have things been going with you?
Michelle: [long pause, then laughs]
It’s been very busy. It’s been five years on October 8th. I’d say it’s been successful and fun! 

TYG: It seems bigger than when you started.
Michelle:
It’s about the same size, but I’ve utilized the space a little differently, I think.

TYG: How do you think the Gazette has helped you?
Michelle:
Well, it’s certainly entertainment!

TYG: Oh, I mean business-wise.
Michelle:
Business-wise? Well, I think advertising in it has benefits: people see it and they come in, and it reminds people we’re here. When you did the first article, I certainly had an overwhelming response from community members saying that they enjoyed reading it, that it was informative and they learned a lot.

TYG: Great!
Michelle:
I certainly get a lot of satisfaction reading about other members in the community!

TYG-Editorial Assistant: We were wondering what’s changed in the last few years?
Michelle:
We added a catering area.

TYG: I’ve never seen that!
Michelle:
I’d be happy to show it to you. We’ve catered a lot of events in the Yachats community, and we’ve never really had a space dedicated for that. We turned an apartment that was behind the restaurant and took out a wall out of the kitchen, and now we have another space for prepping and storage. It’s been very helpful! Also, it’s an extension of the garden, so we can do some gardening right off the back porch. That’s probably the biggest change in the last year.  

TYG: Would you mind if I took you up on your earlier offer?
Michelle:
Yes, let’s go! [Ensues a tour of the new space.] Come in! 

TYG: Oh wow, this is really cool!
Michelle:
That was the bathroom, of course—there’s a shower.

TYG: I was wondering what you used that for! [laughs] I’ve always wanted one of those sinks. We have a two [basin] sink, but a three one would be really useful. [...] This is an oven?
Michelle:
This is our new convection oven.

TYG-EA: What does it do that other ovens don’t?
Michelle:
Well, we needed another oven. But it works more efficiently than [a normal] oven. It moves the air around and maintains the temperature better. [...] And here we have some tomato starts, and some herbs. This was our old stove, and Anthony refurbished it as a very heavy, but efficient charcoal grill. The grates are the heaviest part—about seven to ten pounds apiece.

TYG-EA: What’s the device under the tarp?
Michelle:
This is a smoker! We smoke salmon and black cod and whatever you can fit in it. So, yeah!

TYG: It’s been great talking to you!
Michelle:
You too! Congratulations on fifty issues!


Interview with Barbara Shepherd of
the Village Bean and The Sea Perch RV Resort

Barbara: Truly, I commend you for your ability to keep [the Yachats Gazette] shining!

TYG: Thanks! I’m doing pretty well, actually.
Barbara:
You have a novel marketing plan.

TYG: The six dollars per month for a business card size ad?
Barbara:
Your age. [laughs] Who’s going to tell you no?

TYG: Well, still I think the business card rate is pretty good.
Barbara:
Years ago, [my magazines] offered listings, and those were $15 per issue. And they griped at that—that was almost 20 years ago! And we didn’t have anything on line—it was all hard copy, and it went to the printer. So there was a lot of overhead involved. And a lot of running around—we used to go from Brookings to Astoria. [...] So what’s the deal with you?

TYG: Well, it’s our 50th issue, so we’re doing little tidbits from our oldest advertisers.
Barbara:
Awesome!

TYG: How do you think the Yachats Gazette has helped you? As a business. Or both of your businesses, rather.
Barbara:
Well, I think it has helped me be a part of the whole community, because everybody else is in the Gazette as well.

TYG: Well, not everybody else. There are a lot of people who aren’t in there.
Barbara:
Well, I feel like it—all the business folk. We are all together, and we’re a team now. And that cameraderie that we all share—to support one another, and to support you—says a lot, from business to business to business.

TYG: I hope I support you as well from the Gazette, with the advertising.
Barbara:
You do. I just wish I had some to distribute.

TYG-Graphic Design: Well, did you know you can print from online? There’s a link to the .pdf with all the photos [from the website]. [...]

TYG: How has business been treating you these past four years?
Barbara:
Well, we’re holding our own. Because the Village Bean is 11 years old we have a really good customer base that allows us to survive all year long—and your mama, and you...

TYG: And my Dad! [we all laugh] [...]
Barbara:
The gas station closing really hurt us a lot.

TYG: I heard somebody wanted to buy that.
Barbara:
We’ve heard that several times. But we haven’t heard a thing in quite a while.

TYG: Well, we need a gas station back.
Barbara:
I would love for someone to fire up the place, just because it’s so difficult for us to keep that maintained as well. I just posted on the [Facebook] Community Page asking if somebody would be interested, and we’d give them a gift certificate to go and pick up trash. That was awesome—I didn’t have time to go and do that myself—that’s community for you! So it worked out really well.

TYG: People stop there all the time, though.
Barbara:
The frustration for us is that they get mad at us because the gas station’s not open.

TYG: How have things changed for you in the last four or five years, besides the gas station?
Barbara:
Well, my lovely self is not there very much anymore. I miss my customers a lot, and I miss making coffee, I miss the routine... However, my life has changed. I was so successful I just aced myself right out of a job! [laughs] Because we have so much going on, and I took this here [manager at the Sea Perch RV Resort], I can’t afford to work at the window anymore. But my girls are really, really fabulous employees. And I think all our baristas have a cameraderie amongst themselves, too! They’re really great, and I don’t take them for granted—they really work hard. But then, they’re promised a job all year long, because we don’t cut down hours [in the winter]—we just keep on truckin’! Whether we have a line out to the street or not, we’re open! So we’re ok... we’re going to be doing some new stuff, bringing in some new bakery items. But we’re about the coffee, we really are. And chocolate chip cookies! [...] 

TYG: I got cookies today! What are the new bakery items?
Barbara: [laughs]
We launched our own brownies! They’re awesome and amazing. We are getting ready to bake our own muffins, and we’re getting ready to make croissants [oohs and mmms from the audience]. I know! I have a fabulous recipe for croissants.

TYG-GD: Oh, those are so time consuming!
Barbara:
Well, not really. I’m just going to do tons of them and get them prepped, and then the girls will just cook them off.

TYG-GD: I’ve made them before... and the pastry—”How much butter did you want in that?” [laughs]
Barbara:
I know. That’s what happened to me the very first ones I made, as a tester last week here. Way too much butter! They were just dripping in butter, we were in hog heaven. But oh my gosh they were good! I did a couple different versions, and they were so amazing... and then, get this: I did a brown butter drizzle over the top. Ohhhh. Anyway, just a few twists on the bakery stuff. It’s not like we don’t have enough bakeries in town, but you know, we have to have our own little twist. People like to have a cup of coffee with a ... something.

TYG: This is an interesting recipe that I found in a book a long time back—oh gosh, it must have been ages back: It was raisin bread, with cooked apples, covered in sauce. It’s delicious. Well, I didn’t like it that much, but Mom loved it.
Barbara: I bet!

TYG-GD: He treated us to breakfast one morning!
Barbara:
Wow! Did you find that on Pinterest?

TYG: No, I mean, we actually have cookbooks!
Barbara: [The adults can’t stop laughing]
Well, go figure!

TYG: What?!
Barbara: [still chuckling]
You know, I have a collection of my ex-mother-in-law—who’s passed away, bless her heart. I have all of her cookbooks.

TYG-GD: I have a whole big cabinet full...
Barbara:
That is rare, with Pinterest! But I don’t care what is online, how many photos you can look at, there’s nothing like touching a book. Cookbooks are awesome.

TYG-GD: What about this place [the Sea Perch RV Resort]? How has that changed in four years?
Barbara:
Oh, we rock here! I’m not kidding. We’ve done really, really well here and we love it. It’s the perfect job for Tony and I, a living job—because we live here. And we can do the coffee shop as well. We manage all of that very, very well, and we enjoy it. When you get to be our age... his skills, my skills, combined... it’s just perfect for us. [...] There are so many travellers! We have been solid booked since June.

TYG-GD: It was a busy summer for the rest of the Yachats merchants, too.
Barbara:
Was it? Good! I don’t see them so much anymore, just on the [Facebook] group page... But there might be some cool things happening here too! Nothing that we’ve had handed down to us yet, but maybe...

TYG: Well, thank you so much for your time!
Barbara:
Just keep on trucking, you’re doing a very good job!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 49, September 01, 2015


The Yachats Gazette was pleased to be able to interview Janice Gerdemann shortly after her 90th birthday.

TYG: Where are you from, originally?
Janice: East St. Louis, Illinois. East St. Louis is the other side of the Mississippi River.

TYG: How did you meet Jim Gerdemann?
Janice: Well, after I graduated from college, I worked for Procter & Gamble market research for three years, and then I decided to come back to the University of Illinois and then work on a Master’s degree, provided I could get an assistantship to provide my living expenses. So I came back at homecoming time, though I wasn’t a big football fan. I talked to a couple of professors I’d known, in fact the same one who’d gotten me the job at Procter & Gamble and told him I’d like to come back if I could get an assistantship. And he said, “Well, I’d take you on!” [laughs] So I said “Fine!” I was even a little confused at that point—I was a liberal arts, not a business major, and he was in the College of Commerce, so I quickly got transferred to things that he had in mind. But that was fine—we had a good time. He was looking for somebody to help him make surveys for the Department of Commerce. The university liked to be of service—if they’re of service to the state, they’re more likely to get their funding when the budget is passed. [chuckles]

I’ll tell you one incident about working for Professor Converse:
He wanted us to go down to—not Cairo in Egypt, but Cairo [kay-ro] in Illinois—it’s a city on the banks of the Ohio River. We were going to do a survey for the Chamber of Commerce down in Cairo. They have an institute of aviation at the University of Illinois, and they’ll supply a pilot and three more seats on an airplane to take you wherever you want to go in service of the University. So the pilot flew Professor Converse, and one male graduate student, and me, down to Cairo. Professor Converse went around and talked to the Chamber of Commerce, and the other guy and I made our little survey around town. We had a sample of people to talk to—it was supposed to be done semi-scientifically but we just got enough diversity of people in town and we would ask them what they liked about the business there, and how far they’d go to shop elsewhere—that’s what they wanted to know. We got that done in a couple of hours or so and came back and met Professor Converse and the pilot. It was pretty muddy on the banks of the Ohio River down there, and it had be flooded recently. The four of us got on the plane and we couldn’t take off—it was too muddy! So somebody came out from the office, and he suggested that he and the graduate student could take hold of the edge of one of the plane wings, and they would run along and the pilot would start the engine and see if he could lift out of the mud! So they did that, and it came out of the mud. The graduate student jumped back into the plane, and we had enough space to take off!

So the first year I was there, starting to work on a Master’s degree, I met Jim. I’d rented a room in a house across from where he was living, and we both went to the Unitarian Church, and that’s where we met. He lived in the basement of the Unitarian Church, and had just come back from Berkeley, California—that’s where he got his Ph.D. degree in plant pathology.

TYG: What was life like for you as a young adult, after you met Jim Gerdemann?
Janice: Well, we hit it off quickly. He was not very fond of the plains of Illinois, though. The people at Berkeley had suggested this job to him, because it was next to Missouri, where he came from. Well, Illinois isn’t like Missouri at all! [laughs] Illinois is a flat plain down two thirds from Chicago—the glaciers flattened the land. But Missouri, where Jim grew up, had a lot of woods and creeks and rough land—not crop land, like the corn and soy beans in Illinois. But I think he did like his job—the people were nice, he found out after a while.

To make a long story short, after about six months he said, “Well, I have to go back to Oregon as soon as this term is over. I don’t have three months’ vacation like the people who are just teaching. I have a teaching job with research, and it’s considered a 12-month job with one month’s vacation. I’m going to go to Oregon. Would you like to go with me to Oregon? If you would, we’ll have to get married.” [laughs] Because that was the custom then—you had to get married before you went traveling together.

TYG: That’s a weird custom.
Janice: Yes, right! [laughs] So I said, “I’ll think about it for a little bit.” But not for long. I really wanted to go to Oregon with him—I really liked him from the beginning. Anyway, I said, “Well, we have to go meet each other’s parents first.” So we hurried up and did that, and we got married at my parents’ house in East St. Louis, then we went back [to the University of Illinois]. Then some advisor said that it would probably be better if we lived together for a couple of weeks before we went camping back to Oregon. We thought maybe that would be okay, and we’d rented an upstairs apartment in the home of another professor who was retired, so we had that. Then we took off camping and went to Oregon. Jim earned his whole way through college by working in the forests in Oregon. In those days we didn’t travel as readily across the country as we do now. [Janice and Jim stayed in Urbana, Illinois, for the rest of Jim’s career, and raised three sons there.]

TYG: Were you interested in botany before you met Jim?
Janice: Well, the most interest I had in botany was one day, my dad told me there was a city-wide contest in East St. Louis for children up to 12 to have a backyard garden. They’d have judges coming around and judging for first, second, and third prize, or something like that. The bottom third of the garden had been fenced off for a little playground, and he said “Well, you could plant a little garden around the playground, and I’ll fence it off for you if you like. So I said okay, and I’d buy some packages of seed from the hardware store. So they had a packet of nasturtium seed that was “Guaranteed to bloom!” [laughs] Nasturtiums are great bloomers here in Oregon, you know. [The story ends up being interrupted by somebody asking for directions.]

TYG: So how did you end up in Yachats?
Janice: Oh, we loved Yachats from the beginning.

TYG: How did you and Jim establish the [Gerdemann] Garden?
Janice: He was really going to retire. Sometimes he [would attend] a Western Regional Plant Pathology meeting, and by that time our son was going to Oregon State University. When the meeting was over, he picked up that son (Steve), and had a weekend before he came back to his job in Illinois, and he looked at possible places to retire. Brookings is the “banana belt” of Oregon, so that was the natural place for him to look first. But he was put off at Brookings by the grocery store, and other downtown buildings, not planting any exotic plants that they had the climate for and could have made use of for doing something interesting, and they only had privet bushes around there—privet can be grown anyplace in the US! [laughs] So he said that Brookings wasn’t a very imaginative place. So then he looked at Gold Beach, and I guess he met with some real estate agents and looked at some properties and different places. We had done a lot of camping, and knew a lot about Oregon, mostly southern Oregon. We were fond of the Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon, kind of adjacent to the mountains in California—Cascades-Siskiyou. But the plant, Kalmiopsis, that the wilderness down there is named for, was originally thought to be a rhododendron, but then they decided that it was a separate species, a little bit different from rhododendrons as such. It was found by a botanist named Mrs. [Lilla] Leach. She had a pharmacist husband, and they lived in Portland. They did a lot of hiking and botanizing, they called it, in the Cascades-Siskiyou National Forest. She also discovered something related to nitrogen-fixing plants. Kalmiopsis leachiana is the rhododendron relative, and there are even two forms of it now. Jim was already growing it, I think, or he did shortly after we came to Oregon. On our previous camping trips to Oregon we had visited nurseries that grew rhododendrons and taken some back to Illinois. It was funny—sometimes big nurseries, like Van Veen’s—a Dutch family that came over here. They would sometimes give us something to take back to Illinois on condition that we give them a report back on whether it survived, how hardy we would find it to be. Oregon is a huge nursery for the rest of the country: the nursery business in Oregon is the biggest crop they have. So it’s big business to them: they sell to the East out here. So [Jim] would get donations to take back and try. So... where were we in this conversation? I go astray...

Oh, so Jim looked at this piece of land that he liked in Oregon—the guy [selling it] was getting divorced. They needed to sell two-thirds of their property at the head of Forest Hill Street in order to split the money between them. He was going to stay on the land—in fact, he was in the business of buying and selling land working for somebody else. So Jim put a down-payment on this piece of land, because it was right next to the forest—that was more important than the view of the ocean. That was just on a business trip during a weekend, and he told me about it; when the [school] term was over we would go back out and look at it, and I could have a good look at it before we bought it for sure. So we camped on that piece of land and looked around.

We had some friends in Waldport, at Sandpiper—they came out after three days and said “You’ve been out here in the boonies by yourself long enough, you’d better come and sleep on a bed inside for a while. But for the first part of our stay we camped there and went down to the Adobe for Jim to shave and me to wash my face or whatever and we’d do breakfast down there, and cook dinner on our stove at the campsite, on that land which we ultimately bought. So I had a few reservations, but I gave my approval to the site anyway. Jim had an answer for all of them. There was sort of a rough dog out there—Jim was pretty sensitive to barking dogs at night, but he said, “Oh, I can make friends with that dog!” [laughs] You see, he was eager to do it! Somebody else was making illegal shingles from cedar trees; we suspected he hadn’t paid the Forest Service for going up there and helping himself to [the wood], but [Jim] said, “Well, that’s a very temporary thing.” [laughs] And he was right! So, we went back [to Illinois] and hunted for a house plan, and I made a cardboard model of it, and we came back and built it.

TYG: Cool! So, what are you doing these days?
Janice: Well, we spent 30 years collecting plants from our trips to South Africa and New Zealand that were related to Jim’s profession, really. So what am I doing now? Jim has died, and I live in assisted living, if you want to know. [...] I’d like to move back to Yachats, but there are difficulties in a town with not very many facilities if you don’t have a car. My friend Gerald, Gerald Stanley, collected bus schedules. He showed me how I could easily get [from Albany] over to Yachats on two buses. After I broke my leg they came over to see me—a number of people did. But I still have way more friends in Yachats than anyplace else. But I am going to a yoga class that is separate from the continuing care facility where I live now, and I walk there. And the people in their golf carts wave at me. Everybody knows me because I walk with my walker down the streets that are restricted to 25 mph. [...] But I always wonder if those could be used in Yachats—you should be able to cross 101. I come over to Newport sometimes, because I can come and go in one day, like for Milo [Graamans]’s play at the Visual Arts Center. I can do that in one day. Milo used to be my computer helper when he was in high school. He would come over once a week. We were friends, and I was always snagged on something on the computer and needed somebody to help me once a week, and he did. So I’m very fond of Milo and other people around here—many people. Although lately the turn-over seems pretty great. I go into the Green Salmon and I’m lucky if I see one or two people I know. [...] But thank goodness for friends and buddies!

TYG: Well, thank you so much for your time!
Janice: Thank you!
Ten Mile Mountain Jam


The Yachats Gazette was invited to attend an annual music festival that occurs in Yachats every summer. We spoke with three of the attendees. First, we spoke with Patrick and Searose.

TYG: How did you get involved with this?
Patrick:
You know Samantha? She said, “There’s this great party on the coast—come!” So I came! That was probably 15 years ago.

TYG: So, the second year?
Patrick:
Probably. There was still the blue tarp…. This was up on Ten Mile Creek.

TYG: I’ve heard that they moved—I forget which year it was, but I know that they moved up here.
Patrick:
Three years ago. Ah, but then they stopped for a while, because Searose’s dad, he died, so they didn’t do it that year, or the year after that.

TYG: So what do you do here? What’s your role here?
Patrick:
I did sound one year. I play guitar. I was playing all morning, with those other people. And I played last night.

TYG: Where do you live?
Patrick:
Eugene, mostly.

TYG: I’ve heard that a lot of people who come to this party come from Eugene.
Patrick: Yep. Well, Rich used to live in Eugene, so that’s probably why there’s a lot of Eugene people.
Searose:
And we used to own a restaurant, and a night club in Eugene, so we met a lot of musicians. But I guess we knew a lot of musicians before that, because we had at least five or six parties before that. It started out as my birthday party, but my birthday is at the end of May and it would rain every year, so we started pushing it farther and farther out into the summer. It was in July for a while, and for the last eight years or so it’s been in August. Which is now Rich and Liam’s birthday, because they share a birthday, my son and my husband. So we had it at our property up Ten Mile Creek, that’s where we live….

Patrick: Which was mostly powered on solar…
Searose: Yeah, we’re off grid. We had to run a generator, to run all the sound…

Patrick:
During the day it ran on the solar, and when that pooped out, we switched over to the generator for nighttime.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: Why the change in location?
Searose:
It outgrew our property. We only have an acre and a half where we live — we’re surrounded by national forest…. And our road is really dangerous—it’s an old logging road.
Patrick: But that made it kinda fun—cars parked on a dirt logging road for like a mile.

Later, we spoke with Samantha.

Samantha:
So the very first year that I came out here, I was invited by Rich, and we had a band called The River Chicken Redemption. [everybody laughs] Okay? We were a jug band. We were probably one of the most drinkin’est bands that you’ve ever met. We were all really young—I was in my early twenties, and everybody else was a little older than me. We did 80s pop, and punk rock, bluegrass jug band style.

TYG: That probably fit in pretty well together.
Samantha:
Right, we were singing, like, Madonna songs, and Billy Idol, and Sonics. We did mostly covers, and it was really fun. It was drinking music, essentially. This festival itself was founded on those basic ends. One, Jackass Willie, which was one of the first bands to come out and play, and they played “speedgrass” music—very, very fast bluegrass music. It was a lot of cursing, a lot of singing about drinking and partying. And that’s what we did when we were younger—we sang about drinking, and partying, and fighting, and cars. [laughs]

TYG:  Yeah, I’m okay with drinking and cars, it’s just the cussing thing….
Samantha:
And a lot of murder ballads, too. Those are my personal favorites. … In the beginning, when we first started out there on Ten Mile Creek Road, they built the stage out of a couple of pallets. They put a couple of boards on that. And they only did acoustic music. We didn’t have electricity up Ten Mile in the beginning. And then the next year they put up a structure with some poles, and they put a tarp over it, and then pretty soon they had a covered stage. Every year we added stuff to it, and we built a beautiful stage, a permanent structure that lives there all the time now. It has walls on three sides; it’s got Plexiglas windows in the back. Behind it is a bamboo forest, and it’s got a stained glass window. And it has beer taps onto the stage, so that the performers can, you know, pour themselves some beer when they’re sitting there performing.

TYG: That’s hilarious!
Samantha:
Because the festival has always been for the musicians. It’s like band camp. We’ve never charged anybody for anything, it’s always been free, and it’s always been around our core group of friends. In the beginning it was organized by our core group of friends, and we just asked our friends who had bands to come and play, and they would become part of the family. Normally people would charge to go to a place and play. We do it for free and we do it for each other. And everyone here is related back to the core group, which is me, and Rich, and Jason, and Steve, and SeaRose, and Patrick, and Tim, and there’s a bunch of us. Everyone who is here knows somebody in that core group, or somebody who knows people in that core group.

TYG: So it doesn’t go beyond the third generation?
Samantha:
Um, it could go as many as 17 generations. I believe this is actually the seventeenth year [since the first festival], but actually the fifteenth [festival]. So it’s well beyond three generations, if you think of it that way.

TYG: What I meant by three generations was that you had three generations of friends.
Samantha:
Right. It’s not really a public event. It’s a private party, by invite only. Most of the people have been coming for years and years. The first night is generally kind of mellow. And then the second night the music gets rowdy. And we get to be the pinnacle headliners tonight, which is like the sweet spot. And we do PUNK ROCK. We do rock ‘n’ roll, punk rock, garage rock, rock ‘n’ roll.

TYG: I always have liked garage rock. Just the way it usually sounds in a garage, with all kinds of stuff in it, it just sounds better, even though it’s not exactly acoustically tuned to perfection….
Samantha:
Well, garage rock is a frame of mind, as well as an actual band in a garage. It’s about keeping things simple, like we’re not using a lot of fancy gadgets, like if you think of it at its purest. I don’t use any, like, effects on my voice. We use a minimal amount of effects, like reverb on the instruments.

TYG-EA: There’s no laser show, there’s no choreography.
Samantha:
It’s just raw power. Some good examples of garage rock from the sixties are like, The Doors…

TYG: I’ve always thought Led Zeppelin’s kind of a garage rock band…
Samantha:
Although they grew to be, like, arena rock. A lot of arena rock started out as garage rock. So being that this is your first year out here, what do you think so far? Besides all the cursing.

TYG: This part of is quite nice. I like the music as well.
TYG-EA: So what do you do when you’re not doing this?
Samantha:
Well, I am a glass-maker, and I blow glass for a living. And I teach artists how to sell their artwork on line. And I play music with my band professionally. We play clubs all over Eugene and Portland.

TYG-EA: Who are your musical influences?
Samantha:
My greatest musical influence is The Doors. But I really, really love Dead Moon. They’re from Portland, and they’ve been around as long as the Rolling Stones. But they’re not popular music. They are considered garage rock, and they’re popular in alternative circle of music. I like a lot of sixties bands, and that’s where I get most my influence from. My band has a sixties flavor to it. My keyboard player plays a Farfisa, which was a popular piano in the sixties. It has a very sixties sound to it. If you listen to The Doors, you’ll hear this piano in there.