The Yachats Gazette, Issue 91, May 1 2019

For a printable version of Issue 91, please click here

Interview with the Beach Street Kitchen

The Yachats Gazette spoke with Daniel Cooper, Brian Hoberg, and Thomas Arndt, who have just opened up their new restaurant, the Beach Street Kitchen, located across from the Post Office at 84 Beach Street.

TYG: So, what brought you guys to Yachats?
Dan: Mainly this place, I would say.
Brian: Yes—we've been working in restaurants in Newport, most recently [and] other places before then. Finally, over the last year, we decided to really go 100% into doing our own restaurant. It's kind of an idea that we've thrown around over the years.
Tom: Yes, for the most part there's not a whole lot of business real estate or restaurant-specific, capable buildings on the coast.

TYG: There just aren't that many buildings... Especially around here. [general agreement]
Tom: If they're available, they're run-down or really old—or they're really expensive. So yeah, we were kind of in the market for a place, just generally looking. This place popped onto our radar, and it was kind of too good an opportunity to pass up.

TYG: Certainly a beautiful spot with a long history.
Tom: A beautiful location, awesome little town.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: This place has been well-loved.
Brian: We were overjoyed. Heidi is terrific.

TYG: There was a restaurant here before Heidi's, right?
TYG-EA: When we first moved here 12 years ago, it was a restaurant called Grand Occasions. It was Heidi and a partner who later left that partnership. At the time it was mostly a lunch place. And it evolved into essentially a dinner place. 
TYG: Yes, after two separate fires! 
Brian: There was definitely at least one.

TYG: Yes, I know there was a big one that was threatening to catch the neighboring businesses on fire. And destroyed this one, pretty much. Probably useful for you guys, because you got a relatively new frame.
Tom: Yes, all the drywall.
Dan: And the electronics—the electrical, the wiring...so it was updated.
Tom: It gives us a bit more leeway to try out new things.

TYG-EA: Do you guys jointly own the business?
Dan: Yes, we're partners in the business, but we rent the space.
Brian: John May is the landlord, and he's just another one of the several, really good signs that this is going to maybe work out kind of thing.

TYG: Yes, we had one of those stories. After talking to a whole bunch of other people, it feels like Yachats is one of those places where things tend to line up. 
TYG-EA: Serendipities. 
Brian: That's interesting!
Dan: We were looking at another space, and it was a restaurant, it could have worked for us but we would have had to buy the building. It wasn't in any sort of good condition, and we were getting closer and closer to really pour on it, and then we found out from the City Planner that due to parking, there was no way that that building could be a restaurant.
Tom: Yeah, they had changed the zoning after the restaurant was established.
Dan: So while the restaurant was running, they had a non-conforming use permit, but when we checked with the City Planner, he said they'd lost their non-conforming use permit, so you'd have to add X amount of parking per square foot.
Tom: And there was not enough room on the property. So then we'd have to buy the next property.
Dan: Which is owned by the state. So yes, there's no way you're getting any of that property. It was the new parking lot at Agate Beach, the Lucky Gap Trail head parking lot right by the lighthouse. So they had just built that huge parking lot that fits 100 cars, and then they were telling us that we'd have to add 7-10 parking spots in addition to that. And it just ended up being a deal-breaker. There was no way we could afford it.
Tom: And basically, the next day, a realtor that we had talked to was like, "Hey, this place came up, I know it's a little far away, but it seems kind of right up your alley. Small place, easy to get into, and... location."

TYG: It's certainly got the view!
Brian: Oh, yes, my gosh... Just watching the ocean, even if it's the worst day, it's still amazing.
Tom: Never dull.
Brian: This is really a good size for us, too.

TYG: For three people, it's about right: admin, then one or two kitchen people.
Brian: Yup. I'm definitely admin. [laughter]
Tom: Yes, it's a good first step into ownership. It's not too overwhelming of a size, but it's not too underwhelming either.

TYG-EA: So where do you guys hail from?
Tom & Dan: We're both from Colorado.
Brian: I'm from Modesto, California. But we've all lived in Oregon for a number of years now.

TYG: How did you guys all meet?
Brian: [to Dan & Tom] You guys met a long time ago, and then came out here at separate times to Newport, but you weren't too far off...
Dan: A year apart, or a little less.
Brian: And then I was playing music with Daniel's brother Sam, in Portland.
Dan: You would come out to the coast and gig, and then crash at the house.
Brian: And then my wife happened to get a job in Toledo—she's a teacher at Toledo Elementary School. And then we were like, "Well, do you want to move out to the coast? You've got a job right now, so that's a good thing!" [laughs]
Dan: Especially as a teacher.
Brian: Exactly, especially as a teacher! At that time, everything was just kind of shifting—now, it's a lot easier to find teaching job, I think. [...] She was waiting for a long time kind of for the baby boomer retiring phase to create a vacuum of teaching jobs. Now it's seems like that's happening. But at that time it was really tough. So I started working at Cafe Mundo, mainly because Dan and Tom were already there. So we started working together, and then also just hanging out and stuff. They do cool stuff, and I like being around people who do cool stuff. They're very industrious.
Tom: [laughs] Yes, like music, shooting bows and arrows at each other...

TYG: [laughs] Hopefully Nerf arrows!
Tom: Yeah, foam tips. They're 30-pound bows, so they're real, but they're on the low end.
Dan: And we wear masks, also, to protect our eyes.

TYG: That sounds fun. 
Brian: But, we haven't done that in a while. I don't know why, we've been too busy... [laughter]

TYG-EA: So, how long was the process of pulling this together, once you identified the spot?
Tom: Oh, it was a month and a half of crunching the numbers, making the offer on it, and that was in January. So it was a four-month process of turning it from what it was into this.
Dan: We got the keys on the 7th of January.
Tom: I don't think we ended up doing much here until February, because the first three weeks were hand-planing these things [motions to the matching live-edge wooden table-tops].

TYG-EA: So did you guys do all the wood-work yourselves?
Tom: We did, yes.
TYG: I could learn a few things from you guys!

TYG-EA: Who's got all the tools?
Brian: Mostly Tom.
Dan: I have a little bit, but mostly Tom. I brought a sander, and a circular saw.

TYG-EA: [to Tom] So, are you a pretty serious wood-worker?
Tom: I wouldn't say "serious," but I enjoy it. I love working with wood, because it's soft. I like working with metal, too, but every time I work with metal I end up with cuts all over my hands, and burns... it's black and dirty and sooty. I mean, it's fun to play with molten metal and high amounts of electricity, but it's much more relaxing to work with wood.

TYG-EA: Is there an awesome story about harvesting all the wood, or did you just have to buy it?
Dan: The slabs is pretty cool...
Tom: Yeah—we were looking for slabs, and we found—on the internet—this guy Mark. He has Saelwood Coastal Milling. He was having a sale, just one Monday, and we went to see his warehouse. We really liked what we saw, and he said he had another warehouse with more items. So we went with him really quickly to the other warehouse, which just happened to be 500 feet from our wood shop. [general laughter] 
Brian: It's all in Aquarium Village.
Tom: We carried them by hand! We picked through the stack and said, "These are definitely the ones we want!"
Dan: I think he ended up selling the rest not long after. So all four slabs are from one tree, a Sitka Spruce from Otter Crest.
Brian: Yes, just north of Newport. We were so happy. Mark really cares about the process—it was so nice.
Tom: These three tables all line up, as you can see, and those four over there.

TYG: So all the tables are from one tree?
Dan: All the tables, and then the two counters.

TYG: Was it finished at all when you got it?
Dan: No, it was chain-saw rough.
Brian: They just held onto it for years...

TYG: Oh, perfect! So it was all perfectly seasoned...
Brian: Yes.
Tom: We also found from them a round of black walnut that is a couple of years in the drying—6 inches thick, and hasn't cracked yet. So that's going to be a table at some point.
Dan: That's the fun part about working with wood—it just gets more and more beautiful every day.
Tom: Every step of the way, it just gets more refined. These guys poured all the epoxy onto it, then we had a friend finish them up. He does surfboards, so he has lots of experience with epoxy.
Brian: Yeah, about a week from our target opening, we were like, "We're going to have to call a friend in!" [laughter] Yes, we really respect people who work with epoxy, because it's hard! You just get one shot...
Tom: You have to start from scratch, and getting back to scratch takes a long time!
Brian: You pour it, you mix it, and you have 35 minutes before you can't do anything else to it. Anyway, we learned a lot. [laughs]
Tom: We made some mistakes... [laughter]

TYG: Yes, don't do a whole slab at once!
Tom: Or three slabs at once! That was the first mistake we made... [laughter] Because you do a seal coat at first, to make sure the wood's not going to absorb too much. So we thought, "It's going to be just like painting!"

TYG: I feel like even with painting, if you have three huge slabs...
Tom: Well... like we said, it was a huge learning curve.
Brian: [miming] Running around like aaaaagh... [laughter]
Tom: We did have rollers, and we had squeegees.
Dan: We got close, but we did not get all of the surfaces on the first pass.
Brian: We learned some things.
Tom: Every problem...
Brian: [laughing] is just an opportunity for growth!
Dan: Right! So then we thought we'd just ask a friend to do the last touches. He was able to do a better job in less time.
Brian: We were very lucky. That's another kind of [serendipity]: that we had so many friends able to help us and be part of this business too. The mugs are done by a friend; she has a shop just across from our in the Aquarium Village.
Tom: She threw all of the mugs within 50 feet of our wood shop. Ellie Workman: she does the Saturday and Farmer's Markets [workmanpottery.com].
Brian: She's fantastic and really worked with us...
Dan: She totally customized exactly what we wanted.
Tom: She had this great idea of just stamping our logo into it; she quickly whipped up a stamp for us in three different sizes.
Dan: "Quickly whipped up" by designing on a computer and then 3D printing.

TYG: Oh, you have printing?
Dan: Tom's into 3D printing.

TYG: Is it as good as it all sounds?
Tom: It's pretty awesome. I mean, I just got a $200 3D printer, and it was exactly what I needed to begin with. Any more, and it would have been too much, too many capabilities. I would have been totally lost.

TYG-EA: So, you say, you 3D printed a stamp?
Tom: Yes, the logo where it's embossed. The clay is kind of like a leather hardness, and she goes in and just presses it into the clay.

TYG-EA: So it's like a chop?
Tom: Yes, exactly. Eventually I want to make a little sterling silver chop, to like seal gift cards with sealing wax. It's just the little touches.
Dan: [laughing] Every credit card slip needs... our seal of approval!
Brian: "One moment, folks..." [general laughter]

TYG-EA: Sounds like you guys are pretty happy with how things have been going.
Brian: Yes. [general agreement]
Dan: It's been pretty fortuitous. It's like the path of least resistance has been pretty much what we wanted.
Brian: Still a great undertaking.
Tom: An incredible amount of work!

TYG-EA: So how long have you guys been thinking about doing something like this?
Brian: Well, I think it's been years—anybody who works in restaurants has ideas about "Well, if I had my own place, this is how I'd do it!"

TYG-EA: Do you guys want to talk about how you developed the menu items and figured out what to serve?
Tom: It's gone through so many iterations and revisions. It's expanded and contracted... The original idea was breakfast and lunch, then it started moving toward lunch and dinner, then back to breakfast and lunch. As we were getting closer, we came up with this extensive menu, and then we realized that we really just needed to pare it back to something that we could do without falling on our face.
Dan: Just build our foundation.
Tom: Yes. I think a lot of the intent has been offering something for all different dietary preferences. A lot of the things we do are vegetarian as they are, but very easy to add things to.
Dan: Or even vegan.

TYG: Yes, you can just add a piece of bacon if someone wants meat.
Tom: Or go the other way, and just go vegan. It's very personal.

TYG: Modular things are very useful. 
Tom: Exactly.
Brian: And on the coast, you see a lot of the same types of food around, so we knew we didn't want to do a fish and chips kind of thing. So we asked: What are we missing? So that's a lot of the stuff we're exploring. Every time I say "we" in the food sense, it's mostly Tom, because he's definitely the main, master chef, and master of so many other things in this business as well. He could do much better without us. [talking to Dan] What could we do? We could have like a broken bagel shop or something... [laughter] Maybe espresso.

TYG-EA: So what do you guys [Brian and Dan] bring to it?
Brian: [small silence] Nothing? [laughter] Social butterfly...

TYG-EA: Designated extrovert?
Brian: Well, we all like to talk to people and take turns. I just got to know some people in town from when I was a manager at Cafe Mundo—that helped. But yes, what do we bring? Daniel likes a lot of fun stuff. He likes to surf, work with wood... and espresso! [to Daniel] 
Dan: Yes, coffee, tea...
Brian: Daniel's the reason we have a killer espresso machine.
Dan: Which was actually the reason that I wanted to own a restaurant. For the espresso machine. [laughter] It makes incredible coffee, and we have these beautiful mugs.
Brian: They're really good drinks.
Dan: And we also get our coffee from our friend in Newport who roasts it, Brendan from Surf Town. So it's like everything coming together. Fair trade, women's coop, shade-grown coffee. He supports really good farmers, then he does a great job roasting it. And he's just an extremely positive, cheery person, and a pleasure to work with.
Tom: Yeah, the roast we use is "Stay Positive." It just makes for a beautiful experience.
Dan: Even the espresso machine is US built, and local (out of Washington).
Tom: We're trying to keep as much as we can local and sustainable wherever possible.
Brian: That was another thing: we didn't know we could do all of those things together, and the fact that it was some of our friends was just amazing.
Tom: When we can, they're either Oregon, or Northwest, or West Coast. I think the furthest away is that we get a couple of things from southern California. But as far as the produce, it's through an organically-grown company that sources a lot from the Northwest: apples are from Washington, greens are from the Willamette Valley. We have Tillamook cheese. We're starting to have conversations with some of the local farmers just up river here to get a lot of the produce: carrots, broccoli, all sorts of interesting things.
Dan: We just got a source today for local mushrooms, too, for foraged mushrooms.
TYG: Oh yes! We're good at mushrooms here. 
Brian: Yes, we need to take advantage of that here.
Tom: The goal is to shift as much as possible over to entirely local. The more conversations we have with locals and people around here, the more we find out that, "Oh, we can talk to them for mushrooms, for greens, for eggs." Like we can get our eggs and our chicken from Emerald Hills Farms up in Logsden.
Brian: It's just trying to find it as we are able to source it. So what we've been saying since the beginning of the food thing is: Okay, we're setting up some of these contingency plans, so we can get things from a little further than we'd like, but then, ideally, we know there are a lot of wonderful farms and we've met a lot of people already, and we're really excited; we definitely want to be as local as possible. There are products that might be organic, but if they're from so far away, well that doesn't really help anything.
Tom: There's a balance between local and organic, so that even if it's organic, but it's being shipped halfway across the country, it kind of defeats the purpose. So we can try going local but maybe not organic—so trying to find this balance of what is most sustainable.
Brian: So we want to do the best that we can do for the people and the planet, and always hunting for better ways, and not giving up.
Tom: Yes, I think that's the same with the menu, too—as we find new ingredients, new sources for things, we're able to modify the menu to reflect some of these new, exciting, or local things. What's in season, what's not in season—it's just constantly in flux.

TYG: So how's business been going so far?
Dan: Great! It's been exactly what we wanted.
Tom: It's been really perfect. On the first day, we just took down the closed sign, that was the only indicator we were open. We didn't do anything beyond that. We didn't advertise, no open sign, and we had total strangers coming in the door. It was just enough to realized that we had forgotten to program a big section of the computer... [laughter]

TYG: Oh! That's why it's good to do a beta test...
Dan: Yeah, so we're doing a very soft, prolonged opening...
Tom: It's building steam. We're able to move along with it, and just gain the practice that we need to keep up with the pace.
Dan: And provide a consistent, high-quality experience. We really want to have a consistent experience here so people know what they're getting themselves into.

TYG-EA: So, at the present, is there a separate breakfast menu and a lunch menu? 
Tom: Our goal is that if it's on the menu, then it's available. There are a number of things that we get frustrated by when going to restaurants, and one of those things is cut-offs for the menu, because I'll arrive at a breakfast place at 11:30, wanting breakfast, [and find out they stopped serving five minutes ago]. So we wanted to avoid situations that are frustrating like that, so we're just trying to make it very simple and say if it's on the menu, it's available.
Brian: We've all spent a number of years being servers and stuff, so we've dealt with a lot of those questions or frustrations on both sides—as customers and as employees.
Dan: As a server, it's always like, I don't see why we can't do breakfast all day... but the kitchen is saying no. So we just wanted to avoid any of those frustrating or disappointed circumstances. [...]

TYG-EA: Anything else you wanted to say at the moment?
Tom: We're extremely excited to be here. This is just a dream come true: the location and the community. Everything about this is feeling great. We're happy to be here.
Brian: It's so nice that our views are appreciated and shared by a lot of people; again, in hunting for everything, we're trying to find things that have less packaging, or less plastic. I hold on to the idea that if we are looking for it, eventually there will be some option for it.

TYG: And in Yachats, that tends to be the case.
Brian: But everyone has been excited about things we're excited about, like reusable containers or things.
Dan: We're very appreciative of all the support and interest, and good will.
Brian: Everybody has been very supportive; the residents, but also the other restaurants.
Tom: We've felt very welcomed.

TYG: Thank you guys so much!

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 86, October 26 2018 (November Issue)

Click here for a printable copy of Issue 86. Because we had a very specific format in order to present the mayoral candidates side-by-side, we've decided to upload images of each page to the blog. However, that may be kind of hard to read depending on what kind of device you've chosen; please download and print, or as usual, you can find hard copies at the Post Office, Green Salmon, or Mari's Books and... . You should just be able to click on the first image to get a larger size, then scroll through the images as you read, though. Do vote!

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 70, July 1 2017

Click here for a printable version of Issue 70

Interview with
Jamie & Jesse Jager of Wrackline

Wrackline Curiosity Shop, Yachats, OR

Wrackline, a curiosity shop, is located on the corner of Forest Hill Rd and Hwy 101, just north of Yachats. Wrackline is open Thursday through Sunday.

TYG: How did you come to Yachats?
Jamie: Oh man! So, we grew up in Philomath. Both of us actually went to school together, but we weren’t really friends or anything. I was one year above him. So I graduated, left; he was in Philomath still. We eventually got together, about five years ago now, we just lived 30 miles from each other at this point. We started dating and everything... what I’m leading to, is we decided one day to go on a cross-country, hitch-hiking kind of road trip to try and figure out “Where could we see ourselves for a good chunk of our lives? Where would we want to place down some roots?”

TYG: That’s always an important decision.
Jamie: [laughs] Yes! So we went all around the country. We went the south route down through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas...

TYG: We did that!
Jamie: Yeah! We did that, then moved back up the East Coast, and then back around to Oregon. There were places we fell in love with, but wouldn’t you know it, the whole time, we got back to Oregon and we were like, “So... Yachats?” [laughter] Right where we started. We started at the south end of town and just stuck our thumbs out, and we came back, and we’re like... let’s move here! [laughter] So we started looking for properties and stuff–we didn’t really know what we were doing; we just wanted to be here. And we found a house–a cheap, little, cute house–just right up the road. And so we’re there, and we were kind of trying to figure out a business opportunity, you know, what can we do? There aren’t a lot of jobs around here. What can help us survive? And we both were struggling with wanting to feel more part of the community. [We wanted to] get to meet and really know the people around here. And help out! And spur on new ideas, and get people excited about other things, and connect with these people. That’s why we love Yachats! So that’s what I think we’re kind of doing here. That’s how we landed in Yachats.

TYG: I certainly think this shop is amazing. I love the 50s feel of it.
Jamie: Thanks!

TYG: I’m guessing you were going for 50s?
Jamie: Well, not necessarily a certain decade, but an old era, but timeless at the same time–just a little bit of everything. [laughs] Organized chaos. Curiosities. We like to call it a curiosity shop. It just sparks interest, creativity in here.

TYG: So what got you the idea for this shop?
Jesse: Well, I think her! We lived in Bend right after our cross-country trip–we got a job there and created a house.
Jamie: It was quick–less than a year.
Jesse: And we created a feel within the house.
Jamie: And that was the first time that we really discovered this way of decorating, and realizing what we can do with older things that we find. We both love collecting older stuff–in a way, we like to save it from getting thrown away, because you’re never going to find anything of this quality, or sometimes of this character anymore. So we both–just separately, even before we got together–we both kind of naturally did that in our own lives. And when we moved to Bend, that was the first time we really lived together, and we both quickly realized, “Dude, with our minds together, we come up with some really funky ways of decorating.” And we’d put up a picture on Facebook or something, and people would be like, “How did you even think of doing that? That’s amazing!” So that’s kind of what happened here.
Jesse: And we both like the era, or vintage, basically.

TYG: And of course everything here has a character, a story behind it, just as the nature of being old things.
Jamie: Exactly. And sometimes you know it, and sometimes you don’t... The other day, we were making up stories for certain things, like a bowling pin. We had this huge, extravagant story that never happened.
Jesse: Because it’s burned. So we were wondering, how was it burned? [laughter] But to tie it back in to why we did this shop: stories and people. We love the story behind items. The significance of an item isn’t always seen right away. You have to get to know who owned it, or where it came from–all those things. I think the reason behind all this is because we love people. We love connecting to people and learning from people, and being creative with people. And [...] we talk so many people who have stores like this, and we’re just blown away by their passion, and their creativity, and their stories.
Jamie: Their stories! It always seems to go back to that every time. And it becomes almost like an addiction: “I want to meet new people! I want to go out and find something I’ve never seen before.” It gets in your blood!
Jesse: A new mystery! Even if you don’t have all the information on a new item, you can research it. You know there’s a story behind it.

TYG: That’s part of the charm–just knowing that something has a story, even if you don’t know what it is.
Jamie: The mystery of it, yes. Another aspect of this shop that was a personal thing for me was, growing up as a kid, I was a really weird kid. [laughs] I used to collect weird stuff and hide it in my room so they wouldn’t find it, because I found it so fascinating. Like–I hesitate saying this because it was so illegal, but it was innocent! It was complete innocence at this point. I was probably eight or so, and we came down here and there was a beached whale. At this point in my life I know to not touch it! But as an eight-year old, I was fascinated. So I ran up to it, and I plucked a barnacle off of it, and it came with a piece of blubber, and I hid it in my bag and I went home. Three weeks later, the whole house smelled like rotting, dead body. [laughter] And my parents are like, “What on Earth is in here?” I went to school, and my Mom combed my whole room and she found a ziplock bag that had a dead barnacle and whale skin in it, just rotting. And it was putrid, just terrible! But that was the first thing. [laughs] And ever since then, I just love going out and finding things. Obviously, I know the rules now! Curiosity shops played a big role in my life, like the one in Seattle, “The Old Curiosity Shop.” It just mystified me.
Jesse: So with all that, I got to know Jamie...
Jamie: You just fanned it!
Jesse: Yes–I wanted to give her a chance to blossom in all those areas. So I did that, but then I got into it.
Jamie: He started exploding as well, in creativity.
Jesse: I’m passionate about the picking and the people, and I just want to keep going. Hopefully, I want to keep inspiring and just connecting. I think connecting is the main thing.
Jamie: Especially these days. I feel like you don’t have a lot of connections anymore.

TYG: You’d expect more, with Facebook and that sort of thing. I don’t know why, but you feel a sort of distance.
Jamie: Right? We’re more connected than we’ve ever been, but I feel, at times, that I’m more alone. [To a customer] It’s a porcupine quill!

TYG: That’s amazingly long!
Jamie: Isn’t it, though? They’re super-sharp.

TYG: Okay, I had no idea they could grow that big.
Jamie: They get bigger! Those are small ones.

TYG: What? How far down do they go into the skin?
Jamie: I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think super-far.

TYG: It must have to do with the white [part].
Jamie: They’re all different colors, kind of mottled. They’re cool. They’re not a local species, though.
Jesse: And they have little barbs on them.
Jamie: Yes! Just like stingray barbs. I used to train stingrays.
Jesse: She was a marine biologist in Newport.
Jamie: I actually went to the marine science program down here in Newport, through Hatfield. I jumped all over the country and worked in all these really neat places. I met Jesse, and that’s when we decided to come back here.

TYG: So cool! So, how do you get in contact [with people] and get these items? Or do people come to you?
Jamie: People come to us, or a lot of the time, we’ll just travel. We love traveling around; we love going to little general stores. A lot of the time what happens is [that] we’ll go to a little town. One town that jumps out in my mind that we went to last year is called “Looking Glass.” I’m not really good at directions, but it’s kind of out past Eugene, more southern Oregon. Looking Glass, Oregon–they have the oldest general store in the state. I think it’s the original business in the state–I might be mistaken.

TYG: So it’s actually passed down, family to family?
Jamie: Yes! And it’s still there, and it’s the most gorgeous building. It’s just incredible–it’s so neat. Someone put so much time and energy into that–it’s not a quick build, like we do now. I love it. So, we went to Looking Glass, and it’s places like that that we go to check out. And you’ll go into a little general store, and you’ll talk to someone, and they’ll be like, “Oh, I know someone down the road that has stuff that you might like–I know they’re getting rid of things. And so you just meet people that way.

TYG: Garage sales are gold mines!
Jamie: Garage sales! Estate sales–those are awesome too. We try to hit those as much as possible as well. But then people come in and talk to us too! “I have a collection that my kids don’t want anymore. I’m getting older, I want to make sure it doesn’t get thrown away. Are you guys interested in buying it?” So... a lot of stuff like that. [She goes off with a customer.]

TYG: This store is wonderful–so amazing!
Jesse: Thank you–that just means so much to us. We just do it one day at a time... [There ensues some conversation about an oversized pack of cards, and several versions of Sorry games.]

TYG: You know, one of the most incredible board games I’ve ever seen, as just a work of art, is at the Overleaf. They have a penguin chess game. It’s chess, but all the pieces are exquisitely crafted and painted, and I’m guessing they’re made of wood. Penguins. It’s amazing.
Jesse: I want to go there and check it out!

TYG: I don’t know if they still have it out, but it used to be that you could just walk in there and start playing.
Jesse: We should have a Sorry game here pretty soon! We were thinking of having a game night.

TYG: Yes, this is a perfect space for a game night! [...] Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?
Jesse: Well, one thing we haven’t talked about is our vision.
Jamie: Yes, the future plans for this place! Because this [gestures around] is like maybe a quarter of what we want to do with this place. This front area is always pretty much going to be our shop, the retail space. That back hallway-ish looking room, we want to turn it into the local history and oddities museum. There’s a big blank wall where we have all those scientific posters up.

TYG: Have you been to the Little Log Church Museum?
Jamie: Yes, I love that place! [...] So we want to turn that wall with all the scientific stuff into a feature wall to showcase local artists. So every few months, depending on the theme–like June is Gay Pride month, so have a theme back there with maybe a local artist who’s part of the LGBTQ community, and Creature Features as well, like animals that practice homosexuality and weird things; odd, crazy things that you don’t even think of happening. And then there’s a big room back here that we want to turn into a classroom, where we’ll have resident artists come in and do classes, marine ID classes, Jesse has some ideas for like an outdoors exercise program–everything. There’s a geologist that wants to come in...

TYG-Editorial Assistant: I’d like to ask a question... What’s the story behind the posters and photographs of the lunar soil samples and micro-crater studies?
Jamie: Awesome question, because it’s something that we just recently acquired and it excites us beyond reason. There was an estate sale that was south of Florence actually, of a geo-physicist who passed away, and it was his life-long collection. He was the highest-paid geophysicist in America during his career. He worked a lot during the Apollo 10 mission. And so we have those posters back there depicting some of the scientists that were working on that, some of the lunar dust they found that they blew up...

TYG: Yes, the zap craters!
Jamie: Yes! And then we also have some of his sifting trays, different meshes to sift the lunar rocks and stardust and stuff like that. He’s a really cool man–we have a little pamphlet on him, [Gerald J. Wasserburg].

TYG: So, anything else?
Jesse: On the 4th of July we’ll have this outdoor area open, and I hope to have ready by the 4th a kind of seating area, and then we’re going to have an herb garden on the side. And also we’re going to be expanding on the inside to have more retail room just for the summer.

TYG: Well thank you so much!
Jamie: Thank you Allen! It’s been a joy!
Jesse: Thank you so much!

Interview with Morgen Brodie

TYG: So, how did you come to Yachats?
Morgen: My daughter [Star] and granddaughter [Pi] had moved here, and they started campaigning pretty early on. I thought, “Yeah, you know, I’m not really ready to move yet, but I’ll think about it–I’ve always loved it here.” Then my daughter sent me a drive-by photo of a house with a teeny little hand-lettered “For Sale” sign in it, that had gone up the day before. I called the owner in California and looked at the YouTube. About a minute in, I knew it was my house! I call these situations the milagros: The people who get here despite all logic, despite all money, depite everything... and that’s how it happened to me!

TYG: I know a few of those as well.
Morgen: Yes! It totally came together.

TYG: It happened for us, as well! We were in Washington, Kalama, [my parents] had dreamed [of coming] out here! [They had] been here before, and thought how cool it would be to work out here. And then it opened up!
Morgen: See? How long ago was that?

TYG: 10 years–wow!
Morgen: Isn’t it odd? I remember, I only came here four years ago, and you were a kid! And now I look at the pictures, and I think “Oh my god! Who is that young man?”

TYG: So, you’re a social worker! How did you get into that?
Morgen: Quite by accident. I majored in medieval drama and philosophy and theology, so [makes a raspberry sound] job prospects, not so much! And I just kind of fell into it, over and over. I worked for a bunch of different non-profits, and ended up working for the state for a long time.

TYG: So what exactly did you do as a social worker? I’ve always been kind of fuzzy on what it is.
Morgen: Well, I’m not a trained social worker academically. So my philosophy of it–and I became a trainer and a policy-setter, so I got to spread that around, is that you are able to come into a juncture of people’s lives when they’re having trouble. [It’s] maybe their own trouble, or somebody else is having trouble about their choices. You earn some trust with them, and you try to figure out what’s going on from their perspective, and what their options are. You offer them whatever choices you’re aware of, and listen to their own choices and why they make them, and just try to be helpful. A lot of it was crisis-oriented. I’ve worked in domestic violence, and elder abuse.

TYG: Always a hard place to work.
Morgen: Very hard! But people have the right to make their own choices, and as they understand what they’re doing, and as they understand what their options are, it doesn’t always please other people, but I don’t think that was my job.

TYG: It’s always hard, especially in abuse cases. It’s like, why would you ever do this?
Morgen: Yes, it’s pretty complex. And, why would you stay the first time somebody hurt you? But that’s pretty complex too. I think that being respectful to people and trying to help them see what the options are is the main thing.

TYG: Absolutely–that’s a worthy cause. So I hear you’re a local artist as well!
Morgen: [laughs] I make things, yeah. I like to think of myself as a craftswoman–it’s less pressure. I’ve dabbled in a lot of media, and I’m partner in a gallery.

TYG: So what kind of stuff do you make?
Morgen: Right now I’m mostly working in fabric, and I’m starting to play with ceramics. I have a friend who has a kiln, so we get together once a week and just make things.

TYG: That’s really cool! So you make pots and pans and stuff?
Morgen: I do different whimsical things. I work with wool, so I knit and felt, and do wall hangings.

TYG: Wool is a beautiful material.
Morgen: Yes, I love it. I have a shower stall–not my main shower stall!–full of raw wool that has to be processed. It’s so cool to just follow all the way from the sheep to the finished product.

TYG: So do you spin the wool yourself?
Morgen: I do!

TYG: Wow!
Morgen: Well, I’m lazy about it, so I can, and sometimes I do, but I have a friend who’s a good spinner who keeps me supplied, too.

TYG: That sounds amazing!
Morgen: It’s very meditative, and I just like taking raw materials and seeing what can happen with them, what they want to be more than what I want them to be.

TYG: Because once you get into the status where you’re slowly knitting something, even though your hands are moving, your mind is free.
Morgen: That is absolutely true, Allen. It helps me focus. I usually am knitting constantly, like if I go to a meeting or a talk. I have friends who went to medical school in Germany, and they said that it’s very common for people to be knitting during the lectures. If I’m not doing something with my hands, I’m not paying attention.

TYG: Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?
Morgen: I really love being here; I find it’s a place to be really contemplative, which is what I’m about at this time in my life.

TYG: Trying to understand yourself? One has to understand oneself before one can understand anyone else, really.
Morgen: Well, I think that’s true, Allen. And the work that I’m doing now is consciously trying to step outside of myself and look at the world from other perspectives, particularly with regard to racism, which is work that I’m doing right now. You know, you have this concept of the world that was given to you, and you operate as though it’s true, and you don’t recognize the harm that it does to other people and to yourself.

TYG: Sometimes you don’t recognize its inadequacies as well, where it doesn’t explain anything.
Morgen: Absolutely! Or you think it explains everything, and you embrace it so tightly, and then you find out that there’s nothing there. It’s like the Wizard of Oz.

TYG: I still love that the whole thing behind that movie was a brilliant con artist. [...] Well, thank you so much!
Morgen: Thank you Allen, it was an honor to speak with you!

Morgen Brodie is part of  River Gallery, at www.rivergalleryart.com or 503-838-6171, located at 184 South Main Street in Independence. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11-5. Our August show is Eclipsing Color: Adventures in Black and White. We’ve invited all our artists to submit black and white work only for that month. We’ll be having a party starting at 9 am for the eclipse and have special eclipse T shirts for sale.

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 69, June 1 2017

 Click here for a printable version of Issue 69

Interview with Katrina Wynne

 The Yachats Gazette enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation with Ms. Wynne, who wears many hats: “Forester, gardener, Soulful Counselor/psychotherapist, mediator, minister, officiant, Death Doula, Natural Health Educator, landlord, political activist, community organizer, Tarot & oracle expert and international teacher/writer/lecturer, professional radio broadcaster, podcaster, budding videographer, journalist, photographer, graphic artist, motorcyclist, bicyclist, hermit and aging Super Woman.”

TYG: So how did you come to Yachats?
Katrina: That’s my favorite question. I think everybody in Yachats has some incredible story about how they landed here.

TYG: Seems like it!
Katrina: I think it does seem like it. Okay, so... I was at a process work conference in Waldport, with the Mindells...

TYG: Process work?
Katrina: Yes! Do you know Arnie and Amy Mindell? They’re delightful people, wise people—they teach all over the world. I’ve been studying with them since 1988. I was at one of their workshops in Waldport, while I was in graduate school up in Seattle. I came down on my motorcycle. And then I thought “Oh, I’ll go down to Yachats for lunch and find a nice, little place to eat.” But keep in mind, this was back in 1991. And when I came down here, there was no place to eat. Nothing that was really open for lunch that I would eat at. At that point Blythe had a cute little restaurant—I can’t recall what it was called—but that’s where I really wanted to eat, but it was closed. So right across the street there was this real estate agent, and with motorcycles you have to have a very wide radius for turning. So I thought: “Okay, I’ll just turn into that parking lot.” And then I thought, “Well, you know what, why don’t I just go in and see if there’s some property!” Because I’d been looking for some property for a couple of years, and I had very specific qualities for that property that I was guided by the trees to look for. I talked to the real estate agent, and he goes, “Well, we have either time to look at one property down in Yachats, or two down in Beaver Creek.” And I said, “Well, I’ll look at the one in Yachats.” And we drove through, we drove out, and I said, “I’ll take it.” And so like the Fool, I jumped in. And like the Fool, I ended up making Yachats my home, because the trees were calling to me, because the land had just been clear-cut. I didn’t even look at the house; I looked at the land. Trees speak to me, and they were crying, and saying, “Look, we need somebody to help us heal.” And so I made a commitment to live here, and to help those trees heal. And now they have a good 27 years of growth on them. They’re looking pretty good.

TYG: I think I know what you mean by the trees talking to you. I’m going to ask you if this is what you mean, but sometimes it almost seems like you can feel their radiant pain.
Katrina: Yes, I agree with you. Sometimes you can feel pain of different aspects of nature and people.

TYG: It just looks wrong, sometimes.
Katrina: Definitely; it’s a shocker. I know the first time I saw a clear-cut, I was absolutely shocked. And that was back in 1972 or 73.

TYG: It’s a bad practice, I think. I don’t have a problem using wood, but I think you should do it in an eco-friendly way, which to me means using a high tech solution that’s something like a multi-level farm, where you let them grow five years and then have a harvest.
Katrina: Well, let’s just say that trees are a natural entity, and they have their own, natural way of growing, and the less we interfere with their natural way of growing, the happier they are. If you think of trees as the USDA does, as an agricultural product to be harvested. A lot of things in this world have been turned into property and turned into resources and ignored their own, natural calling—their natural way of keeping the balance. So of course, in my work—no matter what level of work I’m doing—balance, like it sounds like it is for you, is very important. Everything has its own sense of how much water, and sunshine, and air, and space it needs. And you know, people are that way too! And I like to work with people.

TYG: I absolutely agree with that. I think that treating these amazing natural forests as property is wrong. I think that if they have been specifically set up to be agricultural, I don’t think it’s so bad. Again, like one of those tile tree farms, where the trees are manipulated to make the maximum out of wood, and the least possible devastation to natural forests. I think there’s something special that the natural forests have.
Katrina: Hmm. Well you probably like the idea of the bamboo commercial forests, because they do have a very quick growth period and are easily harvested.

TYG: I haven’t heard of it, but it does sound interesting.
Katrina: Yes, a lot of products are made out of bamboo. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of glues and resins and toxic things that are used to put those products together, such as flooring, so it’s kind of like a mixed bag. [...] But anyway, I totally agree with you: the more natural, the better. And I’m the kind of person where I start asking questions like, “Well where did this come from?” and “Who grew it?” and “How were the people treated?” and “How was the land treated?” and “How were the animals treated?” and “Did they use fertilizers?” and “Did they use pesticides?” I probably ask more questions than the average person, which can be very irritating for some people! [laughs] 

TYG: I don’t have a problem with that. I think if you want to know more, more power to you.
Katrina: Right on, brother! [high fives]

TYG: Also, there are very different kinds of fertilizers. Some fertilizers are these artificially made stuffs that are only designed for growth speed—there’s no balance implied. But if you’re utilizing natural fertilizers like manure, I’m okay with that. And even if you could somehow design a [fertilizer] that has balance in mind, that helps growth speed but also keeps the plant healthy, then I probably wouldn’t have a problem with that.
Katrina: Let’s use an example since we’re talking about this. Let’s say you’re using chicken manure for fertilizer. Chicken manure itself can be an excellent fertilizer for certain applications. But then you would get, “What have the chickens been eating?” “Where did their food come from—is it organic or were they eating GMO grain?” So basically that’s being passed on from one level of digestion to the next. I’m very careful about those things as well. [...] I put myself through college the first few years by working at a natural foods store, and then when I graduated, I actually owned my own store for about five years. It was called Community Foods. One of the things we did was not only provide the healthiest food that was available, but we worked personally and distributed food from local growers that we knew were growing things in a certain way. We actually were very instrumental in supporting [an organization which was] at that time called CCOF, which was Certified California Organic Farmers. Later on, this influenced Oregon Tilth. They had a very, very high standard of what was considered organic growing. What’s interesting about that politically is that the USDA did not want to grant them their certification, because they were concerned that it would bring questions up for the general public about, “Well, if this is organic, what is everything else?” So that’s when the USDA decided to come up with their own label for organic, which is a sub-standard quality. They allow chemicals and things that, say, the CCOF would never allow. So as a store, we were actually purchasing food from those farmers who were CCOF-certified, distributing them to the other stores in town, and also visiting the farmland. This was in Santa Cruz, so down in Watsonville, there’s a lot of farmland down there. This is very political these days, but there are a lot of undocumented workers, and I got to witness first-hand how they lived, how they were treated, how they had these little bitty huts with no bathrooms, no running water, in the middle of a field where planes were flying over them and spraying them with chemicals. And I have to admit, that’s why I’m voting yes on 21-177, which is a measure that [came up] about aerial spraying right here in Lincoln County. I’m not in favor of spraying aerially, because I’ve seen it affect friends of mine; it would affect me where I live, it affects our water, the land, nature, everything. 

TYG: Very, very bad idea. It’s just too imprecise!
Katrina: Yes. And there’s not enough of a policing—I’ll put it that way. It has no teeth. There’s no follow-through.

TYG: And there’s no good way to do it, either. Even if you had all the policing you wanted, there’s no real way that I can think of to truly identify the range of aerial spraying, because the planes move too slowly, and there’s too much spreading time, too much variability in the wind.
Katrina: So you have the problem with drift, and not a lot of accountability. And then you have to know who to sue, and what people don’t know is that you can’t really sue the land-owner who hired the plane or the helicopter; you actually have to sue the driver, the pilot. Because they’re the ones responsible, ultimately, for any kind of drift.
 
TYG: Wow! That doesn’t work. That doesn’t make sense at all!
Katrina: I can’t give legal advice, but this is just something I learned from a friend of mine who went through this and went to court and had a very, very difficult time of that. [...] Think of it this way: If you hire someone to do a job and they do a faulty job, are you responsible for the faulty job? Are you responsible for hiring those people? Anyway... So I’ve lived here since before you were born, and I plopped in here back in 1991, bought this clear-cut property, and it’s funny, because I’d just finished graduate school in Seattle, and I had my Master’s degree in counseling psychology.

TYG: So that’s how you made your living, trying to help nature.
Katrina: It’s kind of like my primary job was helping the land, helping nature; but my day job was helping people deal with their own out-of-balanceness in life, and helping them find their own balance through counseling.

TYG: Two very interconnected fields.
Katrina: They are for me, because both of them have to do with honoring peoples’ nature, and helping them find balance and find their own way of being, in a world that’s very out of balance.

TYG: Absolutely. There’s too much need for profit, and too much reliance on old ways, ways that would have worked fine before people understood. In terms of drilling oil, I can’t blame the first pioneers all that much. They had no idea! They had no idea what would happen to the environment. [...] So what kind of counseling do you do?
Katrina: First off, I would say I’m rather eclectic. Also, in my 26 years here in Yachats, and practicing in Oregon, the laws have been changed. Currently I practice what I call “Soulful Counseling,” which means I’m a minister who also does spiritual counseling. My background and training, of course, is my Master’s degree in counseling psychology, as well as my background and training in process work as well as psychotherapy. Another thing that I bring into my counseling knowledge, but don’t necessarily bring into a session, is my background and training in metaphysics, and understanding people and life from a whole different point of view. That actually ends up being more of the work I’m doing these days. I’m doing less on the individuals/couples/family counseling, and also mediation (meaning personal mediation, not legal) and life-coaching—even though I’m still doing those things—and more in this other area, that is another funny story about moving to Yachats. For 20 years, before moving here, I was what one would call a solitary practitioner of metaphysics, tarot, I Ching. So I’ve studied tarot cards, metaphysics, oracles—many, many other things, and only practiced them privately for 20 years. And the ironic thing is that I moved to little, bitty, old Yachats...

TYG: ...and there’s a demand for it!
Katrina: People are asking me to teach classes, to do private sessions, and I end up starting a little psychic fair here. And then I handed it over to Violet, and Violet turned it into a big, huge, wonderful event which is called Pathways to Transformation, which has been going on... this will be the 21st year. I actually teach all over the world. I’m invited to teach in China; I’ve taught in New Zealand, I’ve taught in Europe. I just came back from teaching in New York City at a tarot and psychology conference. I have a few books out on tarot. So that’s actually where a lot of my passion is, and it does tie in with the counseling skills, because what I’m doing in the tarot world is teaching [card] readers how to really raise the bar on their skills and their ethics, and how to turn tarot lessons from the stereotype of predictions and fortune-telling, and more into how it can be therapeutic and supportive for people in their life. So that’s a great passion of mine.

TYG: So could you explain to me and the readers what tarot is? I haven’t actually ever heard of it.
Katrina: Certainly! So tarot cards typically are a deck of 78 cards. A playing card deck tends to have 52 cards in it, and what you call four suits. The four suits go from the ace to the ten, and then you’ve got what we call your three people cards, or court cards. So tarot cards are an interesting combination, going back some four or five hundred years, basically to northern Italy, where someone decided to combine playing cards, but they added another card for each suit because they wanted to add a woman, which is the queen. So you have your page, your knight, your queen and your king, which are the four people cards, then you have your ten and what we call the pips, one through ten, or the ace through ten. And you’ve got the four suits. But what they added to that, or combined with it, which makes it unique to tarot, is what we call the 22 cards of the major arcana. And the 22 cards of the major arcana, going back to deep, deep, metaphysical knowledge, represent what I think of as a visual book of wisdom, just like when somebody looks at the Bible or the Quran, or many, many other books of wisdom. There’s a great deal of wisdom, but they’re pictures. As they say, you know, a picture speaks a thousand words, so each one of those cards has a million stories in it. And when you combine the cards, it really expands the story in a very, very unique way. 

TYG: So it’s a very interpretive venture.
Katrina: Ah, that’s a great question. For some people it’s very interpretive. For the way I work with the cards, with my background in psychology and especially in process work with the Mindells, I actually don’t try to interpret the cards, I try to bring in the experience the cards and my client’s intuition, and my intuition, and really bringing the lessons and the energy of the cards to life. So, remember earlier when we were talking about listening to the trees? And feeling the trees? That’s what we do with the cards. We listen to them, we feel them, and they speak to us in a unique language, so it’s not one interpretation fits all. That would be sort of like the old card-science way of working with them.

TYG: So, just explaining to the readers here: I feel like often this kind of stuff can sound like “whoo hoo,” but I know what you’re talking about. There is some sort of weird thing out there that science hasn’t quite uncovered yet. I don’t know what it is, and it may be people putting interpretations on things, but I choose to believe that there is something there.
Katrina: Well, actually, quantum physics has tried to describe this, and one term that kind of that kind of fits with this picture—and I learned this from Arnie Mindell, who himself is an MIT physicist in his past—is this thing, called an entanglement. An entanglement means, there’s something going on way over there...

TYG: Two atoms that are directly paired.
Katrina: Yes, right. So two things are happening. It doesn’t appear that they’re connected, but they actually are connected. So let me put it this way: So, do you dream? Do you have dreams at night when you sleep?

TYG: Yes, absolutely.
Katrina: Alright. And is it your belief that when you have a dream, there’s maybe a message for you there sometimes? Or it’s telling you something about your day? Or are they ever prophetic—that means, are they telling you about something that’s going to happen in the future?

TYG: I have never experienced a prophetic dream, but I would not be surprised if it happened. Just because, again, there are odds. And I have a very wild imagination. That’s just something I am. I choose to believe in the polycosmos, because it just makes sense. I’ve seen several very good book interpretations; they’re fictional books, but they are written by very strong scientific authors. One of my favorite authors is a person called Neal Stephenson, who writes amazing stuff. You want to learn more about a very good and intuitive, working interpretation of the polycosm, then his book called Anathem is very good for it.
Katrina: Thank you. And along that same idea: Imagine that there are these different levels and different dimensions within our current dimension. And we, as human beings, are kind of limited, when you look at the spectrum for instance.

TYG: The spectrum of light.
Katrina: Well, there’s the spectrum of light, but then there are other vibrations that our eyes do not detect, right? We can see the rainbow, but we don’t see the X-rays, we don’t see microwaves. [...] So imagine that everything is vibration, and there are certain images that vibrate in your dream realm, and other images that vibrate in your waking, day-to-day life. Now imagine that there’s a dimension beyond your dreams that’s trying to communicate with you, but it can’t communicate in everyday language. It has to reach you through what I call a sort of intermediary language. It can be the language of your dreams. To me, that’s the way the tarot cards work: They’re an intermediary language between your everyday, conscious, linear thinking, and something that’s beyond that. So to me, each card is like a snapshot of a dream. [...] So the fun thing is, I’ve combined both of my worlds, and I call myself a “forest mystic.” [laughs] Because I live out in the woods, and I’m connected to the trees, and I feel very protective of the forest, and at the same time I totally vibrate with the metaphysical world, and all this cosmic consciousness, and caring about the Earth, and the people, and the universe, and understanding how to vibrate with it all. And it’s not something many people can talk about, and I appreciate that you kind of speak this language a bit.

TYG: To be honest, for me, part of it grows out of thinking further about the free will versus predestination debate. My final conclusion, you could call it, of one line of my inquiry, is that if there is no free will, there is no polycosm. Because if there is no free will, everything will happen one way. And that scares the he** out of me, to be honest.
Katrina: How about this? You were born with your genetics, right? You have the gift of your mother and your father to make who you are. And that’s kind of like your potential in this lifetime, among other things. But guess what: You get to decide what you do with it, and that’s the free will. So you can’t change at this point who your parents were. Right? That’s the fated part in this sense. But what you do is completely within your hands. So there’s this beautiful dance between the two, I think.

TYG: Absolutely. Seeing what you are allowed to do, and what you can do. For me, what’s has been allowed to do, is to be a human being. I choose to believe that as long as you have a few basic genetic parts, you can do just about anything that’s physically possible. And the way I interpret that is that I plan to become a scientist and an engineer, and I choose to believe in the beauty of cyclical motion—cycles are cool, but I also love literal cyclical motions.
Katrina: Spirals?

TYG: Spirals I like, but I’m thinking more about wheels, and gears. I’m fascinated by the scientific, and the hard.
Katrina: Well see, that’s the cool thing about metaphysics. Because meta-physics means people, intuitive, having visions, who prophesied, or had a way of knowing other than linear thought. And it’s taken science a while to catch up with them.

TYG: That’s an interesting way of putting it. I think that yes, sometimes that happens, but also it’s logical outgrowth. Because I feel that outgrowth, in terms of what can happen, goes a lot faster than physical experimentation. The mind works a lot faster than the body.
Katrina: It does! In fact, some people say that the mind works faster than the speed of light. I’ve been doing a little research in that area and I still have more to learn, but it’s a fascinating area for me.

TYG: I find that sometimes I [have to wonder] “How does this work?” then other times, Blam! It all comes to me.
Katrina: Have you heard the word “synchronicity”?

TYG: I think so. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by it in this context.
Katrina: Well, meaningful coincidence.

TYG: Yes, inspiring coincidence.
Katrina: Yes! It’s like you were thinking about somebody, and the next moment, they call you.

TYG: I know what you mean about that—and it’s weird when it happens!
Katrina: So you might actually find the work of Carl Jung interesting. That’s what my presentation was in New York, just a couple of weeks ago. I’ll give you the title: “Life Is But a Dream: Jung, Process Work in the Dreamtime, and Tarot.” What I was exploring, and what I was educating people about, were the actual theories behind Jung’s work, his actual ways of describing them. He was very interested in science, and being able to have repeatable patterns, but he drew a lot of inspiration from metaphysics, and from myths, fairy tales, and stories from around the world, because he started noticing, as Joseph Campbell did, these patterns that would keep repeating. And that’s why he came up with the idea of the collective unconscious. He’s saying, well, there must be some kind of connection going on between us that we can’t see. He used the image—or many people have used the image—of an iceberg. So what we know is that little piece of the iceberg above the water’s surface, but below is our personal conscious and the collective unconscious.

TYG: 95%. I think that the collective unconscious could be—I don’t know this for sure, because our science hasn’t progressed far enough—it could be built into genetics.
Katrina: Oh, now you’re getting into the work of Carl Calleman! Carl Calleman worked for the World Health Organization. He was a Swedish cellular biologist, but he was also fascinated with metaphysics, and he studied the Mayan calendar. By studying the Mayan calendar, for him, it clicked, and it coincided with evolutionary leaps in biology. From there, he went on to come up with an amazing idea, which he calls the purposeful universe. Which is again this whole idea about how much is fated and intentioned, versus how much is free will. So if you ever get a chance to read the Purposeful Universe—I don’t want to give too much away, but he basically, ultimately says that in our own cells there are unknown aspects of our DNA, which themselves—and this is my interpretation—are like an antenna, that picks up these signals from the center of the universe. It’s fascinating.

TYG: The center of the universe, hmm.
Katrina: The center of the universe, yes.

TYG: I wonder where that would be, because we think that’s somewhere within the light-radius of our universe, but of course we have no way of knowing that. It could be quadrillions of light years, far beyond what’s actually happened so far. Because we’re only in year 14 billion, or something like that, 15 billion. If it’s quadrillions away—because we’re pretty sure that the universe expands faster than light, or that’s what we think—so I’m wondering... I mean, we know that there are processes that operate faster than light—we know that for certain now. We have measured this, because we’ve seen things coming out of a black hole! [...] I feel like perhaps there may be two levels of logic. There’s the logic that we know of so far, that we can measure, which is the logic of conscious thought. And then I’m wondering if there is some sort of logic that we will eventually uncover, that is a much deeper logic, that is tied perhaps directly into our cells, or our genetics, or perhaps it’s some deep physical property of the universe. This is again completely speculative, but I would be surprised if that were the case.
Katrina: That’s what I love about process work in psychology. It’s one of the few modalities in psychology that honors the Earth, and the universe, and all these unknown things, and realizes that there are ways that they are trying to communicate to us, and through us, and with us. And that kind of goes back to the Dreamtime, and the indigenous peoples such as the aboriginal Australians, who have a sense of the Earth dreaming us up. And so then you have to ask the question, “Are we the dreamer? Or are we the one being dreamed up?”

TYG: This is a question I’ve always had. [...]
Katrina: So you can imagine, with all these fantastic thoughts that we’re talking about, these conversations... I don’t know about you, but I don’t get to have these conversations every day with people.

TYG: Huh.
Katrina: There are only a few people that have the same fascinations. So that’s why I spend a lot of time out by myself in the woods. [laughs] [...] And so, back to the question of why I came to Yachats: it was a leap of faith, but also, I think Yachats was dreaming me up to be here. So, I just really appreciate that you reached out to me—I was surprised, and interested that you did it on my birthday, the same day I was doing the presentation in New York.

TYG: Oh, I had no idea!
Katrina: I totally got that it was all kind of lined up. So that in itself was very intuitive of you.
 
TYG: Again, I had no idea!
Katrina: Well that’s the fun part for me! I have students from all over the world, because I also teach online, and I have my podcast, so I have people listening to that all over the world. It’s just amazing with the new technology how we can really reach out and connect with so many people. Our sense of community truly expands. I’m very excited about that. And thank you for letting me be in the little old Yachats Gazette!

TYG: Thank you so much!

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 67, April 1 2017

Click here for a printable version of Issue 67.

Interview with Bert Harley

Bert Harley is a long-time resident of Yachats, and the Gazette caught up with him to hear some of his fascinating stories.

TYG: So, you were born here, is that correct?
Bert: No, no, I was born in Sheridan, Wyoming. In the northern part. And when I was eight years old, I came out to Oregon. We lived out in Portland for a while, in 1933. There weren’t any jobs around.

TYG: Yes, right in the middle of the Depression.
Bert: Depression era, yes... So Dad and Mom, they picked up and went down to California for a couple of years, and my younger brother and sister were born there. Then we got malaria down there.

TYG-Editorial Assistant: You got malaria in California?!
Bert: Yes. I took lots of quinine! Went back to Colorado for another couple of years, then came back out here. We lived down in Scappoose when the war started, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor—I was 16 at the time. Then I worked in the shipyards for a while, in Portland—Swan Island. I worked there for about eight months and got pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week or so. Recuperating, I went down and joined the Navy! 

TYG: So you volunteered?
Bert: Oh yes. You volunteered in the Navy; you got drafted in the Army. You didn’t want to be in the Army, you volunteered! [laughs]

TYG: Huh, that’s interesting! [...] I never knew that.
Bert: Well, you know, with that war everybody was involved. Men, women, and children. Anyway, I went down and joined the Navy, and then it was a couple-three months before they called me up. So then went to Farragut, Idaho—that’s where I went to boot camp, Lake Pend Oreille. Graduated out of boot camp there, went down to Norfolk, Virginia, and went to torpedo school.

TYG: I’m presuming that’s for shooting torpedoes? Loading them?
Bert: You know, keeping them ready to tube shoot. Then I went up to New London, Connecticut—went to submarine school up there. Then they shipped us down to California. There were 52 of us that got on a little aircraft carrier down in San Francisco and went to Brisbane, Australia. Then we got on a train, and went straight across Australia on a train, to Fremantle. They put me in a relief crew, which was repairing the boats after they’d come back in off of patrol. Then when the USS Rasher [submarine] came back in, I got on that. We went into the South China Sea and sunk some ships. The boat was getting ready to have some repairs, and get rebuilt, so we came back to Mare Island, California and got off at Hunters Point; we got a major overhaul there. They rebuilt our conning tower, and fixed her engines.

TYG: Submarine?
Bert: Yes. Submarines operated out of Brisbane, Australia, and Fremantle, Australia. When we got our overhaul, we left San Francisco December 20th, 1944. We went back out, went to Honolulu a couple of times, and Pearl Harbor a couple of times. We stopped to get stores, and new torpedoes, and whatnot.

TYG-EA: What was it like seeing Pearl Harbor after 1941?
Bert: Well, there were some ships sunk there, but they didn’t bother the submarine base at all—they never did. Anyway, we went out to Pearl Harbor, then Midway Island and did our trial runs, and got ready to go back out. Went out and did a patrol out there in the East China Sea, which was a pretty miserable place. Then we came back into Guam, it was. They got one of our tenders out there. Anyway, after they’d secure an island, they’d move one of our tenders up, so we didn’t have to run so far.

TYG-EA: What does a tender carry for you?
Bert: Everything it takes to keep a submarine running. Machine shops, and fuel, and stores.

TYG-EA: Is that a surface ship, a tender?
Bert: Oh yes. Pretty good-size boats they are. They had several of them out there. I was mostly involved there in Fremantle, on the Orion, a big tender there. There were two or three of them at all times. Then when they got to securing the islands north, then we started moving up. Then the latter part of the war, we did life-guard duty, mostly. You know, up off of Japan. We never picked anybody up. We saw the planes going over and coming back, you know, on bombing runs.

TYG: So your job was to pick up American pilots?
Bert: Yes. Submarines sank so many of their ships that they weren’t sending any boats out. They built the Shinano, I don’t know if you’ve heard of that—big [aircraft carrier] ship. Anyway, the Japanese built it, hadn’t even gotten it ready to go, and the USS Archer-Fish sank it! [chuckles]

TYG: Still in port?
Bert: No, maybe just coming out, I don’t remember. Anyway, we had, on our fifth patrol, we sank more tonnage than any other boat in the Pacific. But when they sank the Shinano, it was 59,000 tons, and it was bigger than all the ships we’d sunk! [laughs]

TYG-EA: What’s the mood like on a submarine in war time? How do people feel in that environment?
Bert: Oh... you had to be somewhere, I guess. I stood lots of look-outs, you know. In those days, the submarines ran mostly on the surface anyways.

TYG: Before the good batteries...
Bert: No, you just ran out of air after you were down about 18 hours. Why, you just couldn’t even light a cigarette! Anyway, during the war, my folks bought a place down here in Yachats, and when I got out of the Navy, my 21st birthday was down here. I got out of the Navy before I was 21. Lots of young people in the town in those days, much younger.

TYG: That’s sort of coming back now!
Bert: Yes... lots of work in the woods, too. Young guys getting out of the service, and lots of work down here in the woods. After the first year, you got so you knew everybody around—somebody drove down the highway, you’d step out to see who it was and wave at them. I worked in the woods down there for several years, cutting ties—railroad ties. That was some of the nicest timber you’d ever seen.

TYG: Oh! I didn’t know you were in logging industry—I have a question for you! Recently, on the beach, there’s been this wood coming up like blood red.
Bert: Not redwood?

TYG-EA: No... It almost looked like it had a kind of “birch-y” bark.
TYG: It had this beautiful sort of greyish-green bark, with this beautiful, red inside. Beautiful contrast.
Bert: Now alder turns red... You take the bark off of an alder, and it’ll turn red.

TYG: Okay... Well, it’s beautiful wood. I’d love to make some stuff out of that, it’s stunning wood.
Bert: It’s the only one I can think of that we’ve got around here. Well, years ago, my father-in-law—they made a living picking up stuff off the beach.

TYG-EA: What brought your parents up here?
Bert: Well, during the war they lived in Portland. They were wanting to get out of there, so they came down here and drove down the coast. They went clear down to Coos Bay, I believe, looking for a place, and then they came back up here. Those strips of land where they lived—you know, Sea Aire and all of those—they were one hundred-foot strips, from the highway clear back to a section line somewhere, sixteen hundred to seventeen hundred feet long. And they were a hundred feet wide, and they ran from the highway to the ocean. Those were selling for $900.

TYG-EA: I’ll take two!
Bert: I know, I should have bought ten! [laughs] It didn’t take long before they got to twelve hundred, and then two thousand. You know, things escalated. The trouble is, our planning, nowadays, is that you have to have a fifty-foot street. So what do you do with a hundred-foot piece of land? Your lots have to be eighty-five-foot deep. So a hundred-foot strip of land is just not the way they plan it nowadays. Because you can’t put up a street between them. So they eventually got cut off. People own them in the back end now. In fact, our cemetery from the highway to the back line is fourteen acres. We’ve used up almost all of the lower part though. We may have to go up there on the top part. Which may be hard to get—we have to get enough money to do it.

TYG: You could probably make a good bit of money by selling the wood, though.
Bert: Well, it’s spruce. There’s quite a bit up there, but I don’t know if there’s enough to... Like the last time we took some trees off of there, why by the time we got them all down and ready to go, the price dropped. But that’s way up on the hill though, 600, 700 feet.

TYG-EA: Don’t know if you want to bury people on land that steep!
Bert: It’s not steep up on top!

TYG: There’s sort of a big plateau area.
Bert: Yeah, we might have four to five acres up on top—three or four, anyway, that we could use. Anyway, I finally got tired of working in the woods. The last job I had was up on top of Cape Perpetua, where the wind blew all that stuff down there in 1960—1952 is when it blew it down. December 2, 1952 is when it tore this country up blowing trees down, you know, big trees. Of course then the next big storm was in ‘62, which took a lot more down.

TYG: The next one was in ‘72?
Bert: No, no... we haven’t had one since then like it. You know, all the storms that we have, they try to compare with the one in 1962, because it was a big one, also in the Valley. Fact, it was even blowing over in eastern Oregon. Anyway, I got tired of working in the woods, and I went to work driving a Cat, a loader—heavy equipment. Worked for Fodge and Collins—they were a construction operator. In 1956, I moved a Cat and a scraper on a project over there at the paper mill. We were supposed to have about a month of excavation to do over there, and ended up over there a year and a half! [laughs]

TYG: Just very different soil composition than you expected, or...?
Bert: Well yeah, that was the biggest part of it. They dredged the material out of the river. They had a dike along the river, and they went across, and the road was over here. They pumped all of this stuff over into it—it was a cat-tail swamp, is all it was. That heavy sand shoved the silt all into a pocket. So when you got into one of those pockets, you were stuck! Anyway, worked there, and then we built a lot of streets in Toledo, then Newport. I had my own back-hoe and truck, and for a while I put in septic tanks and that kind of work. For about eight or nine years. Then my back was bothering me from the equipment and driving the truck, so I went to work for the county surveyor. Worked there until I retired. 

TYG: So when did you meet Elaine?
Bert: Oh, I worked in the woods with her dad some. He was a timber faller, but he was working up there. [pause] I don’t know—a long time ago. I think she was in grade school down here in Yachats.

TYG: I’m guessing this was the 50’s and 60’s? I find it amusing that then we had a grade school, and now we don’t.
Bert: Yeah, my brothers and sisters went to school down there. My younger brothers. My brother Jack, he got in the Army right after the war ended.

TYG: Vietnam, or World War II?
Bert: World War II, in ‘46. I got out in ‘46.

TYG: And he joined that same year?
Bert: Yes. When the war ended, we were down in the Gulf of Siam. If the war had lasted another seven days, we would have been done. We’d have gone to Perth, Australia, and had a good time. By the time we got back to the States, all the shouting and fun was over, you know. We went back into the Philippines and cleaned our boat up a little bit, and then headed back to the States. The tender Gilmore, and eighteen submarines left the Philippines there and headed for the States. Six boats in a line, and the tender out ahead of us. Everybody with their lights on. We’d never had lights on before, you know.

TYG-EA: I bet that was a great home-coming!
Bert: Oh yes. We came back through the Panama Canal and went up to New York City.

TYG: So what kind of boat was the Rasher? I mean, I know it was a submarine.
Bert: Well, it was a Gato-type submarine—it was what they called a fleet submarine, in those days. We had four 1,600 horse-power engines. But if you look it up on the internet, you can find out all about it.

TYG-EA: I wanted to ask what it was like raising a family here.
Bert: Well, Elaine already had two kids when [we] got married. It was... challenging. [chuckles] We had a lot of fun. Kristie graduated in ‘75, and Steve in ‘79, I guess it was. Kristie went to college at Lewis and Clark, but then she got sick after a while. Steve, he’s doing real well. He went to work for the city up there, just out of high school. He worked for the city for 13 years, then he worked for the Port of Portland. He worked at the airport, at PDX, for about a year, then he got a job as a maintenance man in Hillsboro at the Port of Portland. He retired there after about 35 years, and sat around for a while, and then they called him back to be an inspector on their construction jobs. So he’s doing that right now.

TYG-EA: What’s the most surprising, or what strikes you most about the changes in town over the years?
Bert: Well, it’s been kind of a steady change, everything getting more expensive real fast. It’s been doing it, seems like, just leaving me kind of behind. Seems like I could never get hold of the right stick that made the money, you know. I told my son a long time ago that, sooner or later, if it keeps on going like this, a family car is going to cost you a hundred thousand dollars. What in the world good is that? We bought a car when I was making three dollars an hour! You know, paid rent and all that stuff...

TYG-EA: Well you sure have a nice place here! How long have you been here?
Bert: In this spot? Seventeen years. We lived thirty in that one [just down the hill].

TYG: Anything else you’d like to talk about?
Bert: Well, I don’t necessarily like what’s going on in Yachats now, all those curbs and everything. They say they’ve made 44 new parking spaces, but I don’t know how you can do that when you take some away—where are they going to be? Down at the Park? Down on the streets there? [...] It’s a small town! And we don’t have the planning I suppose. In the early days it seemed to me like it was planned fairly well. They drew the plans for the town back in the 1800’s. There were a lot of towns here—towns that were never really made, but were drawn up in different places.

TYG: How interesting!. Well, thank you so much!
 

Rainspout  Music  Festival 

 

Acoustic Music Festival, April 28-30

Tickets have gone on sale for the  Rainspout  Music  Festival  at the Yachats Commons April 28-30.

Rainspout  2017 offers a diverse, eclectic collection of musical acts, workshops, dining, dancing, jam sessions, plus a children’s show, a sing-along, and a hootenanny.

Rainspout is sponsored by Polly Plumb Productions and The City of Yachats. The music festival is a musical celebration of spring evolving into summer.  Rainspout  offers something for everyone, introducing new and exciting musical experiences, alongside some good old-fashioned musical fun.

Friday night step out to a jazzed up night of music, dinner, and dancing. Savor a fabulous meal prepared by The Drift Inn Café, while enjoying the The Barbara Dzuro Jazz Quartet and The Biondi-Russel Band,  featuring a tribute to Etta James starring Joanne Broh on vocals. Jazz, swing and blues, bring your appetite and dancing shoes!

Saturday’s daytime line-up includes performances,  workshops, a sing-along, and all-day jam session. Saturday daytime presenters and  performers are: Mike & Carleen McCornack, The New Folksters, Terry Trenholm, Barb Turrill and Morgan Spiess.

Saturday night showcases the indescribably entrancing sounds of Betty and The Boy, and the charming finesse of The East West International Project. Sunday features a morning jam session, a workshop and a performance and hoedown with the Fiddlin Big Sue Band.

Beer, wine, food, beverages, and a variety of refreshments will be available during the festival.

Tickets are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2900737

Visit rainspout.org or Rainspout Music Festival on Facebook for more information.
email: events@yachats.org, tel: 541-968-6089

Polly Plumb Productions (PPP) is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization that supports and promotes music and dance performances and art exhibitions in the Yachats area.  PPP programs include the Yachats Celtic Music Festival (http://yachatscelticmusicfestival.org/) and the Yachats Pride Celebration June 3-4, 2017, featuring Chris Williamson in concert. Tickets now on sale at www.brownpapertickets.com More info at http://yachatspride.org/