By Jim Heffernan
I first saw Tillamook in 1976 when I was barely thirty. It was a family adventure with my wife and our two boys in a VW pop-top. We drove from Denver in July, hit the coast at Pismo Beach and followed Highway 101 north to Vancouver Canada.
California and Washington were nice, but Oregon enchanted us. I think it started with the guy in Coos Bay who sold me a used tire and mounted it on my bus for $10. I felt an instant working-class kinship with him, and with everyone we met. It was as if the cold water at the beach made for warm hearts in the people who lived here.
But I think more than anything is was the greens of every shade everywhere you looked. I think everyplace in the country has a beautiful verdant spring time, but it you don’t water, the vegetation turns to a dismal brown in the heat of summer. Not so on the Oregon coast, always green here.
We came back in the summer of 78. This time we came through Nevada and entered Oregon near Lakeview. We saw that there were big chunks of Oregon that looked like Colorado in the summer. We were relieved as we got close to Brookings and it was green again.
On that trip, my passengers grew tired of my demonic driving all day long. They begged to stop for a day just to chill. We pulled in at Nehalem Bay State Park early morning and stayed the night. It was a sunny day and the beach was nice, but it was very windy. My wife and I spent the day in the bus reading as it rocked in the wind. The boys scavenged “whips” of kelp and chased each other. I groused that the one day I was going to be here there was a freak wind storm. I later learned that the wind storm was really just normal “ocean breeze”.
But we committed ourselves to moving and made the move the next year. Sent out resumes to every factory, cannery, and mill on the coast I could find, sold the house, and quit the job. When replies to my resumes were few, I started losing sleep. I was thrilled when a reply from the Creamery showed up. In May of 79, we left the boys with grandparents and headed for the coast again. I got the job and it supported us for the next 30 years.
We needed a house and found a run-down farmhouse just south of Tillamook. It was the right size and had a boxwood hedge in front and a Laurel hedge along the side. It looked out across green fields and herds of Holsteins, the coast range rose from the far edge. We signed the papers, got permission to park our car at a filling station, and boarded the bus for Denver.
We gushed about the wonderful house we had found when we got back. The view, the hedges, the river out back! My wife’s father asked, “What kind of heat does it have?” We couldn’t tell him. We never looked.
We’ve lived here for 46 years. I like to say “it’s a Buddhist house, it wants to one with the earth”. Not all of our walls, floors, and plumbing have lasted the 46 years.
Still I’m grateful I live here. It’s a rare day when this place doesn’t gift me with wonder.
There must be a million ways the clouds can drape the mountains. Flocks of birds show off just for me. I regret I’ve slept through so many sunrises.
Just a couple of days ago, I experienced a new wonder.
I stepped outside on my way to the store. I heard a sound unlike any I’ve heard before. It was a little like rainfall. It was little like a honking flock of geese. I was mystified.
When I walked away from the carport, I realized I was under a murmuration of starlings. I had often thrilled to the sight in the distance. Hundreds, thousands, who can count, starlings flying in unison, darkening the skies and disappearing and reappearing as they turn this way and that. But this was the first time I was close enough to hear. It was magical, transfixing. The volume rose and fell as they turned toward me and away. The shape-shifting of the flock was hypnotic.
Scientists say they do this to intimidate and deter predators. They say they maintain their position by tracking the seven birds nearest to them. They may be right, but I think starlings may have secrets we’re not privy to.
I think they do it for the thrills they share in a collective consciousness. It’s synchronized dancing by a multitude with the threat of mid-air collision. I’ve never seen them lose a bird.
I think they do it for us. They’re sending us a message about keeping ourselves open to wonder. They’re telling us to ground ourselves in the here and the now. Listen to them. Maybe they know more than we.