The Yachats Gazette, Issue 99, March 1, 2020

 For a printable version of Issue 99, click here

Interview with Mari Irvin, Jeannine Janson, Mary Crook, and Yvonne Erickson

The Yachats Gazette visited with the former owners of Mari's Books And..., Mari Irvin, Jeannine Janson, and Mary Wiltse (in absentia), along with the new owners (Yvonne Erickson and Mary Crook) of the bookstore, Books and More, that is opening March 1.

TYG: How did you gals come together?
Mari: Well. [big pause]
Jeannine: You mean, the four of us?

TYG: Yes.
Yvonne: When Mari and Jeannine and Mary had us over, all the business ladies, to announce their retirement, I was the second person to show up and say, "I need to buy the bookstore."

TYG-Graphic Design: Who was the first person?
Mary: I was the first person! Now, this event was on a Monday night. Tuesday morning I marched into the Presbyterian Church where Jeannine was working, and we met outside the building, and I said, "You know, I've been thinking about that bookstore. I am interested. But... I can't do it alone. So I just wanted to put it out to the universe that that was in my mind—I wanted to get that process going." And then the very next day, I guess, I get a call from Mari, and Mari says, "You know, I was approached by someone who's interested in the bookstore!" I said, "Oh! How great!" [laughter] And Mari asked permission to give my name to this person. And it was Yvonne! [laughter]
Yvonne: I woke up with such absolute certainty that this was something I needed to do, that I was actually kind of flabbergasted when I found out I wasn't the first person! I was like, "No! I have to do this! I have to!" [laughter] I think it's really important to the community for the continuity, and it's important that Mari and Jeannine—and Mary [Wiltse]—retire knowing that all their hard work wasn't for naught.
Mari: Mary had come out a couple of times in the summer and fall [of last year], and we talked about it being time, maybe. Mary's time was certainly over, because she left a year and a half earlier to go be with her grandson and his parents in South Dakota. My sons, and Jeannine, had been wondering, "How long do you want to do this?" And we had said, when we started this store, that we would do it one year and see how it went. And then we would do it only as long as it was fun. Well, it's still fun! But I think that if I were to do this much longer, it would begin to approximate work. So we decided that we would put it out there. And of course we didn't know if anybody would buy a used bookstore, because you don't make a lot of money here. In fact... you don't. So I had talked to our landlord before we announced it to the ladies Monday night, and I said "If we can find a buyer, would you be willing to talk to that person about renting to them for a bookstore?" And Jerry Clarke, who's the landlord, said "Absolutely. I want a bookstore here." So that cleared that. And then things just kind of moved along.
Jeannine: If I may... Mary—sister Mary—she moved a year and a half ago. However this fits before she left, Mari and Mary alternated weeks. After Mary left, Mari has been doing it essentially on her own. I took over doing Sundays, but Mari's been doing the bookstore a year and a half on her own, with Tuesday and Wednesday off because we're closed then, and Sunday, when I would work. So she's been keeping it going.
Mari: When I worked professionally, I learned by watching other people that it's a very good idea to leave your position before people say, "When is that person going to leave?" [laughter] And I think I've done that. [...] This is a dream come true, that Yvonne and Mary are doing this. It's just absolutely a dream come true.
Mary: It's a dream come true for me, too, because I have wanted to own a bookstore probably all of my adult life. When I left my former job in Portland, the staff knew my dream: they gave me a sweatshirt that said "Book Woman" on it. [laughter] Well, it was only 26 years later that my dream came true! All in divine order.
Jeannine: Well, so the day after we had the shop-keepers over, and Mari announced that she would be retiring, yes, Mary Crook walked right into the church. I saw her coming! For some reason I thought, "I think she's going to talk about the bookstore!" For some reason, we hadn't told anybody else yet. So she mentioned briefly that she'd dreamed of having a bookstore. Mary [Wiltse] was still here, so I said, "Why don't you come over tonight?" So she came over, and talked to the three of us, all about what her dream was. I mean, it's quite amazing! And—I always like to say this—then Yvonne—so within 72 hours of announcing retirement, we knew we had people who would love to do it. And if you don't think it wasn't hard to not [spill the beans about who was interested]...
Yvonne: Because everybody was speculating, and asking questions, and it would be like... couldn't say anything. Because we had to make sure all our ducks were in a row before we made it public that it was us who were going to be the owners. And we managed to keep it SO secret that when we had our little get-together to do the passing of the key, it was kind of like high school. Everybody screamed and jumped around and hugged because they had no clue. And these are people we see every day!
Jeannine: What we did was, we said, "Could you come over to the store after you close? We have an announcement!" This was after a couple of months or something. So we had some Prosecco here, and then as many people as could came, and ...

TYG-GD: You mean, as could fit?
Jeannine: [laughter] As many shop-keepers as could make it that night! I said a few words, Mari said a few words, and then we had a count-down, which was pre-arranged. And we said, "We will reveal the names of the new owners in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." And when we said their names, we had the pleasure of watching absolute joy and excitement. It was such a pleasure to see it. Folks—as you said—jumping up and down.
Yvonne: Yes!

TYG-GD: That's cool! [to Yvonne:] Did you have a dream of being a bookstore owner? Or what do you think precipitated your feeling that it just had to be?
Yvonne: I would say the very biggest percentage of it was [thinking that] we can't not have a bookstore. And I want to make sure that Mari, and Mary, and Jeannine can move on. That was the big thing. There was a little itty bit part of me that said, "And I do not want a gift store right next to me, so it had better stay a bookstore." [laughter] But that literally was just an afterthought. I thought, "No, I need to do this." ([to us:] I'm going to cry.) They have been so supportive and so inclusive of me when I came to the community that it was like, "I have to do this." And the fact that I read all the time doesn't hurt. You know? I can have all the books I could possibly read and not have to dust them every day.
Mary: I'll get that pleasure. [laughter]
Mari: I came over a few times to say, "You're sure? You're sure you want to do this?" [laughter]
Yvonne: Absolutely positive.

TYG-GD: Well, what's the plan for the future? In small increments—will you stay open? Or will you revamp? Or will there be painting? What's going to happen for the community?
Mary: Well, these ladies, Mari and Jeannine, and Mary Wiltse when she was in town, have done a wonderful job of completing the inventory.
Mari: First time in 14 years!

TYG: Wow!
Mary: So we know what's here. We want to keep it pretty much the way they're leaving it, because they have a little gold mine here. They have 14 years of successful business, and a nice, loyal local following.
Yvonne: I'm going to continue to manage Just Local [the business next door to the bookstore] and be the bookkeeper/that person...

TYG-GD: The responsible person?
TYG: Inventory artist? [laughter]
Yvonne: Well... Yeah, there you go. That's my thing. I'm just a numbers person. I just love that. So I'm really happy to take all those kinds of responsibilities on. Though I do love people and visiting. But Mary's going to hold down the fort. And we'll work with each other for vacation times, or if something comes up we'll make sure that there's coverage in both locations. And no, we are not putting a hole in the wall. [laughter] Just FYI.
Mari: That's the second question people ask.
Mary: Incidentally, the bookstore is going to be named "Books and More," and the sub-title is "Something Old, Something New, Something Local."
Mari: That's great.
Jeannine: First time I've heard that! I knew "Books and More;" I didn't know the sub-line.
Mary: "Something old, something new" came to me automatically because of my wedding services. "Something local" [is because] we're going to have local authors on display in here, and Yvonne may display something from her shop too.
Yvonne: Bigger art pieces on the wall type stuff. Just to make sure the walls are full.
Mari: One of the joys of having a store for the three of us—and I'm sure that you can appreciate it too—is that we have local people who stop in, almost every day, just to say, "Hi, how's it going?" and they buy books, too! But we have a lot of people who are traveling from basically all over the world to come here. But we have regulars from Washington, Idaho, California. And the last year or so, every time they come up they say, "You're still here!" and we say, "Yes, we are!" But lately I've been saying, "We're not going to be here, but it's going to be a bookstore, and you're going to love it."
Yvonne: And those that know it's Mary and I pop into the shop, and ask the questions: "Are you going to have the same stuff? Are we still going to be able to come in and get our books when we come on vacation?" and we say, "Yep."

TYG-GD: So when is the transition happening officially? Do you know yet?
Mari: We're going to close President's Day weekend. Our insurance ends February 29, so we thought that was a good closing date, and we can clean the place up for them. And then after the 29th of February, whatever...
Yvonne: March 1st!

TYG: Wow! [to Mari and Jeannine:] Are you guys moving?
Mari: No, no—we're staying here. Jeannine's continuing to work at the church, and we'll stay here as long as it's good to stay here.

TYG: Awesome! I wanted to ask you guys: What have you learned, having a bookstore in this community?
Mari: Well first of all, I'd say it's an extremely literate community. I've learned more... In fact, I've got a notebook here, which I might pass on to you two [Yvonne and Mary]. When we opened the store, we had a notebook here and we asked people to write down authors that they liked. And they did! And now when I look at that notebook I think, "I don't think I knew any of these authors when we started." And it's not that they're that unusual, it's that I was not that well connected with current literature. And so I've learned a lot about books, and I've learned a lot about how to encourage people to buy books. Not just to buy a book, but to buy one that fits for them. The worst question I get is when somebody comes in and says, "Oh, I need a book—what do you recommend?" [laughter] And I go absolutely blank. But we'll wander around, and I'll get an idea of what they're looking for.
Jeannine: One of the things we learned early on: We thought seriously that we would only be in business as long as it took us to sell the supply of books that we opened with. We never dreamed we would have to buy more books. [laughter]
Mari: Unbelievable.

TYG-GD: So, how many books do you think you've bought?
Mari: Oh, thousands. When we left San Francisco, everybody we knew had a closet full of books. So we had several trips of the car being filled with books. So our cost factor the first year was quite low. Some people come in quite regularly to order certain kinds of books; some of them are books we probably wouldn't keep in the store. But my logic has been as long as it's on Amazon—and I use that sort of as my cultural guide—then it's something that I can order for you. Even if I don't order it from Amazon.

TYG: I was going to ask if you were going to keep the ordering service going.
Mary: Yes, definitely.
Yvonne: There isn't enough space to realistically keep everything that everybody would ever want.

TYG-GD: Even Powell's doesn't do that! [laughter]
Yvonne: Oh gosh... When I lived in Portland, that was my Saturday afternoon, treat myself like a queen thing, was to go to Powell's. I love that store.
Mary: Special orders are very important. Shortly after Mari's Books And... opened, I had been regularly watching or listening to "Book TV" on C-SPAN2. It's 48 hours of non-fiction book talk. I would see an author who particularly impressed me, and I'd write down the author's name and the title, and by Sunday night I kind of knew what I was interested in. Well, Monday morning, I would come into Mari's Books And... and order a book from "Book TV"!
Jeannine: I believe Mary Crook was the first person to order a book. You called, you gave the author, and the title, and the ISBN number! [laughter]
Mari: Our garage at the house has a dedicated room for the reserve and online books we sell.

TYG-GD: Wait, you guys sell online?
Mari: Yes, we have a little online store that we're going to keep, through Amazon. It's a handy way to do it; it's not the most profitable way. And we still have boxes of books in the garage that we've not opened yet! [to Mary and Yvonne:] So I might be down here selling books to you! [laughter]
Yvonne: I went through my collections, and I decided I'd better be organized, because you can't come down here willy-nilly with a bunch of stuff. I started boxing by author, because some, I have entire collections. And when I got down to the miscellany, it was by alphabet. And I have 19 boxes of books that are gone through. And I still keep finding books, "Oh! I forgot about those!" [claps hands] [laughter]... and those and those and those!
Mari: Just a little observation: I think you'll have to take a lot of the books off the shelf to get yours on there!
Yvonne: Well, that's just back-up stuff!
Mari: Well, I think a change in genre would be very nice!
Yvonne: Okay... And I see—I've been looking—you have some Mary Higgins Clark. I have a huge box of them, and with her just passing, I'm wondering if there's going to be a huge interest, or a resurgence.
Mari: Yes. There are certain authors that just sell, and Mary Higgins Clark is one of them. There are certain authors that we always have, because the book might have been written 20 years ago, but people still want it.

TYG: I'm surprised Neal Stephenson isn't one of them.
Mari: Yes! The problem with Stephenson's books is that they're so thick, and so costly, and it's usually in hardback. We tend not to buy too many hardback books, except as used books, because hardback books have begun to be quite expensive. $30-$40 is very, very common. But we special order them.
Jeannine: I'm not certain when we started doing this, because we opened next door, in the small space. We were there first, in March 2006, and moved over here in 2010, after the video store.
Mari: And then there was a collectible shop, and they had trouble. And then it was vacant for a while; Jerry Clarke came over and said, "You've got to move. You've got to get out of that small space." And I think I said to Jerry, "We can't afford to move, Jerry. Your rent will be too high." He said, "I have every confidence that you will do far better if you move." So we did, in March of 2010. And our sales went up 40 per cent that year—which was a good reason to move.
Jeannine: I don't know whether it was after we moved here that we started best-sellers. Because [the store] is primarily used [books], but we do carry fiction and non-fiction best-sellers, the New York Times best-sellers. And I don't think we had local authors in the tiny shop.
Mari: We didn't have many, if we did.
Jeannine: We were approached by quite a few people. And they're all featured over there [by the front door].
Mary: The small space of their former location was very special to me, and I'll tell you why: I used to work there part-time, on an occasional basis. And I love working in a bookstore. Well, as you know, I'm also a wedding minister. Some young couple came in to see me in the small space, and they said they were going to have a big, formal wedding, but they really needed to get the documents done immediately, and [asked if] I could marry them. And I said, "Well, I'll be working here at ten tomorrow morning! You could come in at ten minutes before ten. But I'll need two witnesses." "We'll bring our parents." So we actually had a wedding in that tiny space, with a couple and two sets of parents. It was cramped. [laughter]

TYG-GD: So, as new owners, what are you most looking forward to?
Mary: I am just looking forward to being in this space and talking to the happy people who come in. That's what I enjoy the most, is talking to people and talking books.
Yvonne: This sounds so strange, but it's not really changing my day-to-day a lot. But I just feel so blessed to be connected with such wonderful people, and this is the vehicle that it happens with.

TYG: Is there anything else you guys wanted to say?
Mari: I was going to say that I think I can speak for all three of us, but certainly Jeannine can speak for herself, although Mary will have to be quiet. [laughter] It's been just a joy—and I mean that seriously—just a joy to have this store. It's brought vitality to me, kind of an eager sense of getting up in the morning and going down to the store. And at night I sometimes just go home and have dinner and go to bed, so it's just been an absolute, joyous pleasure to have this store. It's something I had wanted to have for probably 40 years. But I knew I couldn't afford it until I retired.
Jeannine: As I already said, I only started working in the bookstore on Sundays when Mary moved. Prior to that I was the behind-the-scenes paper partner and compliance officer. While I did not work here regularly, in the sense only that Mari and Mary did, I still connected to the store. And had we not been connected to the store, we would not know the shop-keepers. Knowing them, and interacting with everybody over this 14 year period of time, that is why it was important to us to tell the shop-keepers first, before anybody else, that Mari would retire and the store was closing. These relationships, for me, have been wonderful. And they would not have occurred, I don't think—we wouldn't have had the same relationship with these folks, and Valeria [of Toad Hall] and Valerie [of Antique Virgin] if we had not had this business.
Mari: And we don't see each other all that much—there might be months before I see Valerie. We see Judith [of Judith's Kitchen Tools] every day, and we see you two [Yvonne and Mary] usually every day, but it's not like we all get together and have coffee first thing in the morning. We just kind of come in, and check on each other. If somebody's late to work, we'll follow up and call. But it's brought energy to my life that I have needed and have highly valued. And when I'm done cleaning the garage, I'll probably come down and visit the store.
Yvonne: Realistically-speaking, for me—and I don't mean to sound like I'm patting myself on the back—it's strictly altruistic. I just have to keep the community—as much for the community, as for me. And the fact that I get to share it with Mary is really exciting.

TYG: Well, thank you so much for everything.

The Yachats Gazette was able to contact Mary Wiltse via e-mail, and this is what she had to add:

When Mari and Jeannine first started thinking that this was a venture they wanted to start in late 2005, I was in Iowa City, maintaining vigil, so to speak, with a dear friend who was spending her last days in the hospital. So when Mari asked me to be a part of the bookstore, I just couldn’t even think about it. A while later, after Lavonne had passed, I called Mari and said that I would like to be a co-owner and I traveled to Oregon from my home in St. Paul MN, to help us get ready. We dragged together our personal collection of books, started putting prices on them, organizing into categories and placing them on the shelves…the books we opened the store with were primarily from our own personal libraries. I had a good friend in Minnesota ask me, “What are you going to do when you have sold all of your own books?” The three of us (Mari, Jeannine and I looked at each other, shrugged and smiled…we really had no clue!!) Well, we discovered garage sales, estate sales, library sales, St. Vincent de Paul, etc. Because I was living in a large metropolitan area…St. Paul MN…I was constantly buying, pricing and shipping books to the store…I was the mid-west partner and the primary book buyer.

In 2008, I bought my Yachats house and started living part-time in Yachats. How I love the Oregon coast…that powerful, beautiful ocean. My involvement with the staffing of the store increased. In 2010, I became a full-time resident. At that point Mari and I shared the staffing of the store while Jeannine handled the financial responsibilities. Mari and I, being 8 years difference in ages, never spent much time together. And, we lived most of our lives half way 'cross the country. Gradually, we found that we could work together well, each finding our ‘niche’ in sharing responsibilities. At the same time, we truly became sisters and our affection and respect for each other deepened immensely. And, Jeannine, oh what a blessing to get to know Jeannine better and the love we have for each other is wonderful…she truly is a real sister to me.

What a gift to have a shop in the center of the village. Locals coming in, sitting on a stool by the desk to visit. Meeting people from all over Oregon and around the world…so many visiting the store over and over…not just buyers or acquaintances...but becoming friends. I loved being a part of the Yachats business community…discovering how many of the successful business owners are women…many ‘older’ women…and as women shop-keepers we have a strong bond and friendships that remain strong over time and geographic space.

And now…for the store to be owned by two great friends, Mary Crook and Yvonne Erickson. Never, did I imagine something as wonderful as this would transpire. The heart of the store will be even stronger!

After my hemorrhagic stroke a few years ago, my children asked if I could move back to the Midwest so that we could be closer. Why SD (where my son lives) and not MN (where my daughter lives)? I have a wonderful grandson…my only grandchild in SD. It is such a delight to be a very present part of his life and share his interests and talents. I love being close to both daughter Kari (Minneapolis) and son David (here in Brookings). 

When people asked 'why, in heaven’s name did you choose to move to SD', or even more bluntly saying, ‘you are moving to SD on purpose???’ I just smile. Brookings is a wonderful community with SDSU, where my son and daughter-in-law are professors. It does not have an ocean…but I have developed great friendships. And…I am playing Mah Jongg again!

The Yachats Gazette, December 31, 2012

INTERVIEW WITH DR. STACEY HARPER, PART 2

(This is the second part of the interview with Dr. Stacey Harper, Assistant Professor at Oregon State University of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology. We now move into the Harper Nanotoxicology Laboratory in Weniger Hall, and are joined by Bryan Harper, Dr. Harper’s husband, who is the research coordinator of the laboratory.)

Bryan Harper: So, what is it about nanotechnology that interests you the most?

TYG: I just like the whole thing, generally, the new flavor of it. [laughter]
BH: It’s a wide field, as you’re probably aware. There are lots of different applications for it and we look at a lot of different applications even within what we do here in our lab. One of the things that we look at, that I think you heard Stacey talk about, is that we look at how toxic [nanomaterials] are, how dangerous they are to people and animals.

TYG: Toxicology. 
BH:  Toxicology, exactly. One of the things we use is zebrafish to do that, zebrafish embryos. So we’re looking, for one, when it’s normal and hasn’t been exposed to anything, and then as we expose it to different amounts of nanomaterials, we get more and more malformations in there. [Points to a chart showing zebrafish embryos subsequent to various degrees of exposure to silver nanoparticles]

We work with a wide range of different particles here. Metals, silver and gold, we’ve done a lot of work with; but we also work with polymers, dendrimers, carbon-based—pretty much anything that’s out there, because the other side of our lab is about green chemistry and building safer materials up front. So we have an engineering team that’s always looking for ways to synthesize things better, purify things better, how to redesign things once they have a nanomaterial that can do something that an engineer wants it to do. We test the toxicity, go back and make it safer, before it actually gets out on the market, rather than doing it the other way around […].  Traditionally, engineers are focused on getting something that does the job […], that solves the question they’re trying to address: we need something that will do “this.” They build something that does “that,” it goes on the market, and then sometimes they go “Oh, maybe we should have thought about that a little more.” So what we’re trying to say is that if we have cheap, fast ways to look at how toxic something is, you can bring them back over; we can test it real quick once they have it and then they can go back to the design board and engineer out some of those things, especially if we can understand what little aspects can cause toxicity. […]

TYG: How big are zebrafish when they’re full-grown?
BH: About an inch long.

Stacey Harper: They’re aquarium fish.

TYG: They’re like a gazillion times the size of their embryo!
BH: In fact, have you ever been at Pet Smart and seen the glow-fish, they sell these glowfish that glow in the dark? Those are zebrafish. Those are actually zebrafish that have green fluorescent protein or other fluorescent proteins added to their DNA. […] They actually started out for research purposes, and now they sell them as pets.

TYG-Graphic Designer: So it reproduces glow?
BH: Yeah, they actually put it right into their genes.

TYG-GD: I can see some tribal modifications coming along! 
BH: So a lot of this lab is really set up for doing these zebrafish exposures. We don’t have the fish here, we have a fish facility on campus that raises them, so we just go out and get eggs and do the work here. […] We have some animals that we raise here, not zebrafish. So we also do some work with some other types of animals… Here we have what are called Daphnia—they’re plankton, fresh-water plankton, sometimes called water fleas. We can actually put a couple of these on here [brings out a microscope slide].

TYG: They’re cute!
SH: And they’re also crustaceans like the Artemia […], the sea shrimp.

TYG: What about here, what are you raising in here?
SH: Crayfish. I used to do cardiovascular research with them.

TYG: That must have been heart-breaking! [laughter all around] […]

[We move back to the microscope to look at the Daphnia. Allen climbs up on a stool to zoom in and see them, and pronounces them cute. Meanwhile, BH brings out the female crayfish holding her babies under her tail, which is also cute.] […]

BH: So the crayfish are something we use, similarly to how we use the zebrafish: we use mainly the embryos, and [study how nanoparticles] affect them. Crayfish and zebrafish are not super-sensitive out in the environment. We use the zebrafish for human ALF [a gene called TFIIA-alpha/beta-like factor] to look at toxicology and how it relates to humans, but they’re not real sensitive. They’re sort of like crayfish: they can survive a wide range of things out in the wild. So we also have these Daphnia which we use. The Daphnia are very sensitive: you can blow on Daphnia the wrong way and it’ll kill the whole population, just about. So they’re something that’s used by the EPA and a lot of regulatory agencies as sort of a quick screen, a standard where they can look real quick and see how toxic something is. […]

SH: Another cool thing about the Daphnia is they’re all genetically identical—the females actually clone themselves, so you don’t have the genetic variability.

TYG: You don’t even have males?
SH: Not unless they’re stressed—then they make males, and then they go back to sexual reproduction. If the temperatures get wrong, if the salinity gets wrong, if they’re stressed environmentally, then they produce male offspring which form in kind of a case that can dry out.

TYG-GD: How would that help restore the un-stress of the population?
SH: Because then, once the water comes back, the cases—they’re called ephippia—they hatch, and then you have genetic mixing. […]

BH: So it’s sort of a way of giving a new hand shuffle. If there’s plenty of food and everything’s good, they play the hand they’ve got. They don’t need to do sexual reproduction, they just keep making copies of themselves. But the minute things go bad, or get stressful, or things might be changing, they go into sexual mode.

[Moving to another part of the lab] These instruments will actually measure the color of nanoparticles and how they interact with light, whether they will fluoresce if we excite them.

SH: This is one of the cool new instruments we got that allows us to watch Brownian motion of particles—do you know what that is?

TYG: Yes, I think so: it’s when different things are constantly moving.
SH: Right. It’s their natural vibration. We can actually watch the particles; we put them in here, and they go through this little chamber here, and there are laser lights that go on it. What we see is the reflection off of those particles. […]

BH: It’s basically just a microscope that has a laser and a camera on it, instead of a white light.

SH: But remember how I was talking about some particles attract to each other, and they agglomerate? In here we can change things like the pH, or the salts that are in there, and we can watch that Brownian motion turn to agglomeration and then they start vibrating together, combining. Very cool. […] What this instrument lets us do is to track the particles, and then you can get their size by how fast they’re moving. […]

TYG-Editorial Assistant: So how much does it matter what the substance is?
SH: For this particular instrument, if you’re dealing with something metal-based, you get a lot more reflectivity so you can pick them up better. [With] something that has a high aspect ratio, like the nanocrystalline cellulose, the tracking [of the Brownian motion] on that sometimes is off, because it’s not a sphere. Those models are based on a spherical particle, so there are some limitations there. […] Then we can do some data analysis on it, and it allows you to figure out what size they are and what intensity they gave you.

TYG: What size most of them are… It would be nice if you could measure something directly.
SH: That would be really nice.

TYG: But why couldn’t you just get one, or two, or even three or four, and then just do it that way?
SH: Well, you could… but then you don’t know how it’s going to interact with all those other particles. Remember how important that is? Particles alongside of it can cause this one to…

TYG: Conglomerate.
SH: Yup. And they can be attractive, or repulsive. The particle that’s in solution with them affects them way more than the gravitational force of the planet.

BH: So we have this instrument that measures the size, and we have these instruments that measure the color and the fluorescence and how they react with other chemicals. We have an instrument over here which allows us to measure something called zeta potential, the charge on the surface of them. Zeta potential tells you whether they’re likely to aggregate or not. You know, opposite charges attract, like charges repel, and so by knowing—especially if we look at two particles we want to mix—we look at their zeta potential to know how much they might interact.

TYG-Ed Asst.: Now does a given material tend to naturally form particles of a fairly consistent size, or can you take one substance and have all kinds of different sizes?
SH: All different sizes, and shapes! So depending on how you’re synthesizing it, you can have a chemically identical material, but different shapes […].

BH: Gold is a great example of that. You can use the same gold synthesis process, but if you change the temperature and the stabilizing agents, one will make spheres, and one will make rods.

TYG: What are some of the nanomaterials being tested?
SH: We try and test whatever materials we can get our hands on. We’ve tested all different types of metals and metal oxides, carbon-based materials, the cellulose materials, polymers that they’re developing for drug delivery. We’ve even tested viral capsids—the casing on the outside of a virus; the RNA is on the inside—the case is actually in the nanometer range, so they are nanoparticles. […] They’ve developed some on campus that actually have like a little plug that they can chemically unplug and plug back up, so you can literally fill it and use it as a delivery agent then unfill it.

TYG: How dangerous are gold and silver nanoparticles? 
SH: Gold? Not very dangerous at all, especially relative to silver. And silver’s not very dangerous to humans, but it is quite toxic to aquatic organisms. […] It’s not the silver nanoparticles, it’s actually the oxidation of the surface of the silver, and it’s the silver ions that go out and cause the problem.

TYG-GD: So is that why they use silver for wound coverings? 
SH: Absolutely. It’s the best anti-macrobial agent. […]

BH: What it looks like now is that silver nanoparticles aren’t really any different, any more toxic from the silver you might have in a silver ring or a silver necklace; it’s just that they have a lot of surface area relative to the other forms of silver. […]

SH: And did you know that silver nanoparticles form naturally, too? If you took your sterling silver earrings, and stuck them even in just a humid chamber the silver on the surface would actually start ionizing off and it would nucleate somewhere else, and naturally form other silver nanoparticles. So it’s probably been going on forever, we just didn’t know!

TYG: How dangerous are nanomaterials as a whole, and are there some that are particularly concerning?
SH: I would say that as a whole, what we’ve found in our lab is that they are fairly safe. We’ve tested over a hundred different nanomaterials […] and we’ve only found a handful of them that appear to be toxic at a level that would be concerning.

TYG: What are they?
SH: Some of the more toxic ones are the quantum dots, that are made of cadmium selenite. It’s mostly because of what they’re made of: cadmium is really not good for organisms and selenite is not either.

BH: So I was going to show you this: these are dried fungus, like mushrooms, and these will actually synthesize nanoparticles. We have a whole group from Korea working in our lab right now. They’re actually using fungi and bacteria as green synthesis methods for nanomaterials. So they’re taking just like silver salt, and putting it in with these, and that will actually make the silver nanoparticles themselves.

TYG: Cool! What kind of research do you see happening in the future? 
SH: […] I think we’re going to get enough information to be able to design the materials in computer models, before we even synthesize them, and be able to predict where they’re going to go and what they’re going to do. […] I don’t know that we’ll have global [rules], more material-specific ones.  I just don’t see us having an overall global [rule].

TYG-Ed. Asst.: Size is not destiny.
SH: No.

INTERVIEW WITH NICOLE LOXLEY

Nicole Loxley makes and sells leather goods at Turtle Island, 153-b Hwy 101, in Yachats.

TYG: So, how did you come to Yachats?
Nicole: Well, I found out about Yachats when I was travelling and doing festivals and shows, up and down the Oregon coast. This was a place [where] I used to stop a lot, and get food at the restaurant next door, Luna Sea, and when I was thinking about buying a house, I had two or three choices that I could go, and I was able to find property here! And I was so excited to have it.

TYG: Well that’s really good! Especially if it was relatively cheap. I mean, properties around here can be really expensive because of the oceanfront.
Nicole: They can, but if you don’t want an oceanfront property, which I didn’t, then it was perfect! I love it here—there are lots of opportunities for artisans and craftsmen here, and that was one of the things I wanted.

TYG: How did you get into leatherwork?
Nicole: I learned doing leatherworking originally from my father, because he built and repaired pipe organs, and played pipe organs for the silent movies back in the 30’s and 40’s, and the pipe organ actually has leather bellows that drive the air through the organ pipes. If you are someone that builds and repairs a pipe organ, you have to be able to do leathercraft repair when the bellows tear.

TYG: I bet that was hard, when he first learned it.
Nicole: Well, he knew how to do it, and I used to steal his leathercraft supplies and make little bags and things like that out of it…

TYG: Oh no! 
Nicole: It wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing, but it was fun. I learned a little bit of leathercraft from him, and then I did it as a hobby for many years. I used to make my neighbors’ boy scout projects for them, because they would pay me extra money with their allowance to make a project they didn’t want to do, because they knew I could do it. It was fun! I got to make belts, and purses, and all the little knife sheaths, and all the kinds of utility tool things that one does. I learned it from that, really!

I did a lot of other jobs in my life, and decided then that I wanted to work for myself. I thought: What do I know how to do? And I thought: I know how to make leathercraft. I know how to do leather projects. So I started a business doing that! And I’ve done that professionally for 18 years.

TYG: Wow. What kind of leathercraft do you make now, here?
Nicole: Here in Yachats, I think my best-selling products have been a lot of cellphone cases for people, because now there are all these different sizes and shape phones, so I’ve been making custom cases for people. I’ve made a lot of custom knife sheaths for people here in town, local folks; I’ve made a few gun holsters and things like that, and a lot of leathercraft repair since I moved to Yachats.

[Showing an item] This is a medium buffalo hide purse. There are different ways that it’s decorated and finished, but this is probably the single most popular item that I have. It’s a good medium size, it’s really strong, and it lasts just about forever. I use real good materials, and I can make everything, and then I guarantee my work. So if somebody actually manages to break something on one of my pieces, if they bring it back to me I’ll fix it for free. If their dog ate it, or something like that that’s beyond my control, then I might charge them a small fee; but if they tell me an entertaining story usually I just do it for free.

TYG: Are these just colored, or are they actually green hides?
Nicole: No, I actually dye them.

TYG: Where do you get all these different… holdings, on the bags?
Nicole: Oh, you mean the metal findings? You know, I have a number of different suppliers. Some of them are made for me by people that I know who do jewelry work, and many of them are things that are commercially available if you know where to look for them. The trick is knowing how to find it, and once you have it, knowing what to do with it!

TYG: I see! I think I know why you’re getting so much cellphone business, because of J.D. next door, especially. I bet you didn’t do so many cellphones in your old space, but now, people can just go into J.D. and then come right over here for a custom case.
Nicole: He’s sent me a few customers! When I’m not working in the store, I go on the road and I sell at festivals and shows, and I do a lot of Renaissance Faires, so I make medieval-style leathercraft. I repair horse tack for the jousters at the Renaissance Faire events, and I make costume equipment, sword carriers, and all the medieval-style equipment: pouches and belts and so forth that people wear as part of their costumes.

TYG: Cool! 
Nicole: And then when the people that are sword-fighting at a Faire break something, they bring it to me and I fix it for them.

TYG: I think a Renaissance Faire is a time when you bring back old things, basically a time when you sort of re-live the Renaissance….
Nicole: It’s a re-enactment: they have people in costume that re-enact historical events that occurred during the Renaissance period, or in a lot of cases, it’s more of a fantasy thing—the re-enactment is done in a way that makes it really fun. They re-enact the good parts, the fun parts of the Middle Ages: the honor, and the chivalry, and the beautiful costumes, and the pageantry of it—not things like the disease, and the religious intolerance, and the ignorance.

INTERVIEW WITH MARI IRVIN OF "MARI'S BOOKS AND ..."

TYG: So—how did you come to Yachats?
Mari: Well, in 1995 I came over to Yachats to visit my sister-in-law and brother-in-law… and at that time I was teaching at the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California…

TYG: Psychology, if I remember correctly—?
Mari: Yes, educational psychology, right. So I came over to visit them, and I sat out on their deck several afternoons, and I thought, “You know, I think I would like to retire up here.” See, my sister and I grew up in a family that moved to Oregon when I was in junior high school, so we lived in Portland and in Corvallis and in Eugene, so Oregon was a place that we knew about. Plus my dad used to drag us over here in the car, and make us look at the ocean, bored us to death [joking sigh]….

TYG: I know, I hate that! [laughter]
Mari:  So he must have infected me with the Oregon coastal bug. So the following year I came up and I bought a house! And then I used that house for a vacation rental for several years, because I didn’t retire as quickly as I thought I would. And then, in 2006, I opened the bookstore, next door in that little space.

TYG: Wow, I thought it was a lot older than that.
Mari: No, no, we’ve just about finished seven years now. But the bookstore is something, Allen, that I’ve wanted to do for many, many, many, many years. And I don’t know why I’ve wanted to have a little bookstore, but I really have. So ever since I bought the house, I’ve been kind of looking at places in Yachats where I might want to have that bookstore. And I kept looking at that little space next door. And in December—no, I guess it was January of 2006, Jeannine and I came up here to spend a couple of weeks, because we lived in San Francisco—and there was a sign, “FOR RENT” on that store next door.

TYG: And you were so happy.
Mari: Mm-hmm. And Jeannine said to me, after a day or so, she said, “You’ve talked about this as long as I’ve known you. Now do you really want to do it? Because if you do, you’d better—you’re getting old.” So [chuckles] we made our decision in about 48 hours.

TYG: Wow.
Mari: And then we told my sister about it, although we had talked about this with her—she lived in St. Paul, Minnesota. So she says, “Well, I’d like to get involved with that bookstore too, but I can’t right now, ‘cause I live in Minnesota.” So we made her our Midwestern regional, uh, buyer, so she bought books for us. That was kind of like a joke. She bought all kinds of books at library sales and shipped them out here to us. And every time she would come out here, she would work in the store. And then, miracle of miracles, a house was for sale a block away from where we live, and Mary decided to buy that house, and now we are neighbors!

TYG: I see. What was in the small shop before you got it?
Mari: Well, the small shop had had a number of things. Right before we got it, there had been another little bookstore there. But that man had closed his bookstore maybe about six or eight months before we decided to come down here and live. And before that it had been—oh, it had been a typewriter repair store….

TYG: Typewriter repair store! Seems like an unlikely thing for Yachats! [NB: Mari later clarified that it had in fact been a computer repair store.]
Mari: You know, I think that was way back in the nineties, at least that’s what I’d heard. But it had been a number of different kinds of store, including a little dress shop.

TYG: A dress shop in Yachats!
Mari: In Yachats, right here! But then in 2010—we liked our little shop next door, and the rent was pretty cheap, and it worked out—but then, this space became open…

TYG: And you took it.
Mari: Well, Jerry Clark, who owns this whole complex, he kept saying, “You really need a bigger store.”

TYG: Personally, I agree with him. 
Mari: Well, we finally did too. So some time during 2010, I think it was, we moved over here.

TYG: What did you do, double your stock when you got here?
Mari: Well, we moved over here with not too much more than what we had over there, which sounds kinda funny, because that’s half of this size. But we had things all jammed up together, and when we came over here we kind of spread them out a little bit. Because in the other store, if three people were in the store, they bumped into each other. So this is much better. And folks walk around and they look and sometimes they buy, and the enjoy just walking around and looking at the books.

TYG: Particularly that display over there—that’s a really interesting display.
Mari: The mysteries?

TYG: Yes, because the books are actually on the diagonal. Bet you couldn’t afford to do THAT in your other store.
Mari: No, we could not. The thing about that, is that kinda happened accidentally. We were dusting the shelves, and we kinda moved the books, and then we thought, “You know, that’s a good way to have them, because then people can see the books in the back better.” Some things happen just by accident, you know.

TYG: Yeah. 
Mari: Now, we have some things in the store here that aren’t just the books, and that’s why it’s called “Mari’s Books and dot-dot-dot.” And the dot-dot-dot means, it could be whatever else we might have. So the first thing we had was my son’s photography—his photographs are on that wall.

TYG: And now you have these cool knitting projects. 
Mari: That’s [by] my sister Mary’s daughter, Kari. She’s a teacher in St. Paul, and she likes to do this as relaxation, so we said, “Well, why don’t we try to sell those in the store.” And they sell very, very well. So it’s kind of a family store now.

TYG: Yeah, I’m not surprised—Yachats is so cold, that I can totally see why [people] would want that.
Mari: I bet you didn’t know that I grew up in country that was very cold, and very snowy. I grew up in North Dakota. […] And then when I was eight years old we moved to Iowa. […] And then we moved out to Oregon when I was 12. So Oregon was kind of home until I grew up and went away to college, and then moved and lived in lots of different places.

TYG: I see. What got you into the idea of book selling?
Mari: What got me into book selling? Um… I don’t really know. I’ve just for some crazy reason, I’ve just wanted to have a little bookstore. I guess I’ve had the fantasy that I would sit here and read books all day long, and talk to people when they came in…. But it’s been nice, because this is a good way to meet people. And you meet some very interesting people who come into bookstores.

TYG: Yes. Because the interesting people are usually the smart ones.
Mari: Well, they’re smart and they’ve got lots of ideas.

TYG: What about what you did before?
Mari: Well, I’ve done a number of different things. I started out as a teacher, of children who had trouble learning, and that was in Las Vegas, Nevada.

TYG: I bet that was hard.
Mari: Well, it was hard for me, because I didn’t know how to teach. And I have to tell you that I was not a very good teacher the first year I taught. And I wanted to quit, but the principal said, “No, I want you to come back, because,” he said, “frankly, I could hire somebody who’s even worse than you are.” So he encouraged me to come back, and then it was a lot better in the second year.

TYG: Yeah, because you’d already had some experience.
Mari: Mm-hmm. And then I became a school psychologist, and we lived in Palo Alto, California for a while, and I was a school psychologist in San Jose, and then we moved to Illinois, and I was a school psychologist there, and then I began to get interested in teaching. So when my sons finished college, I said, “Okay, now it’s my turn to do what I want. And I’m going to become a university teacher.” So I did!

TYG: Why psychology?
Mari: Well, when I was in college, I majored in both philosophy and psychology… and I was going to go on to graduate school in philosophy, and in fact I actually started in philosophy, but then there didn’t seem to be a lot of jobs for amateur philosophers….

TYG: Yeah, I’m not surprised–that profession’s just not valued any more. However, you’d do great if you went to Greece.
Mari: [chuckles] But I live here. [continues] My mother was a teacher of elementary school children, and I didn’t want to be a teacher all that much, which is kind of interesting, because my first child was as a teacher. But I became very interested in why kids learn, or how kids learn, and what causes them problems when they’re learning….

TYG: Brain work.
Mari: Well, brain work, and sometimes for whatever reason the instruction isn’t the right thing for them at the right time—you know, what the teacher wants to teach isn’t what they’re ready to learn. Part of good teaching is to be able to work with a student, and start with them where they are, and then help them develop their skills. And I really liked helping teachers figure out how in the world they were going to teach kids that they were having some difficulty teaching.

TYG: One of the problems is that in the classroom you have some 30 kids—how are you possibly going to help each individual student? 
Mari: It’s hard! It’s very, very, very hard.

TYG: Why do [the schools] pack in so much, instead of hiring more teachers, to teach a fewer number of students per class?
Mari: It’s a matter of how the government, or how the city wants to spend their money.

TYG: Unless it’s a private school—and then you can pretty much guarantee that kind of quality. And probably a better paycheck.
Mari: [laughs] You know, it’s interesting—private schools sometimes pay their teachers LESS than public school teachers. And you may think, well, that’s kind of strange, but a lot of people really would like to work in private schools.

TYG: Yeah, I would certainly choose a private school if there was a job available… because you can develop much closer bonds in private schools. Because the classes are much smaller.

[The interview paused here while Mari helped a customer, and then we resumed.]

Mari: One of the most important things that I’ve done with my life is that I got involved with two national organizations that worked with the Lutheran Church, to create social justice within the church for men and women who wanted to be pastors, but who were gay or lesbian. And we worked about 17 years on that project, and in 2009 they changed the policy, and those of us who were working on that for 16 or 17 years felt very good about it.

TYG: What is the new policy?
Mari: The new policy allows for persons who are of same-sex orientation, or transgender, who want to be in a committed relationship, and want to be public about it, to go into the ministry. Whereas up until that time they could be members of the church, but they couldn’t go into the ministry as pastors. And what happened is that that made a lot of people live lives of deception.

TYG: What does that mean, “lives of deception”?
Mari: It means that they couldn’t really be who they were, because they couldn’t acknowledge that they had a partner, or they didn’t have a partner because they were told that they shouldn’t have a partner. So what this has done is made the church a little more what it’s supposed to be. But that wasn’t working for a living, that was just working for justice.

TYG: What motivated you to do this?
Mari: I grew up Lutheran, and I left the church, for all kinds of reasons—not particularly about my sexuality. It was really about the Vietnam War, because I couldn’t tolerate the policy of the church. But in 1990, a church in San Francisco ordained, irregularly, a lesbian couple and a gay man. […] My sister Mary lived in Iowa at that time, and she came out to visit me, in Christmas of 1989. And she was very active in her church, and I had nothing to do with the church. But she wanted to go down to San Francisco to visit this church that was going to do this ordination—and that was going to get them into big trouble with the national church. She wanted to go down and give support to them, so I went with her, and next thing you know, I got involved in it, and it became a very major part of my life. But if Mary hadn’t come out to see me….

TYG: … That wouldn’t be a part of it.
Mari: That wouldn’t be a part of it.

TYG: That’s so interesting!
Mari: Yeah, it really is. She and I have a little bit of age difference between us, I’m eight years older than she is. So I never really knew her as a young adult, because she was always a kid, and who wants to run around with kids when you’re a young adult, you know. But then we never lived near each other, we always lived halfway across the country. So one of the really nice things about this store is that Jeannine (my partner) and Mary and I are all doing this together. And it’s REALLY fun.

TYG: Anything else?
Mari: [pauses] You asked why this became so important to me. I believe that regardless of whether or not you’re a religious person, the institution of the church is very powerful in this country. And until the church changes its policy, and begins to live up to the justice that it’s supposed to hold up, then lots of things in society won’t change.

The Yachats Gazette staff cordially wish you a Happy New Year!