Tillamook: Not Just a Cheese
At the end of August, I published this piece in the Medford Mail Tribune, and I’m only now remembering to post it. But with a couple months’ perspective, I can see why I won’t be sending more work to that editor. No hard feelings, but he revised and cut my stories without consulting me, give them titles I didn’t like, and didn’t even tell me when a story had gone live. So I’m grateful for the opportunity, but I think I can find a better home for my writing.
In this case, I found out my piece was online when I received an angry email from a woman who thought I was racist against white people because I portrayed the removal of tribal peoples as a genocide (though without using that word). Lady, it was a genocide, and I am a white person. But thank you for your email! It was really exciting to have said enough in a fluff travel piece to make someone angry. I’m pleased and a little proud. Below is an excerpt and a link to the full story.
By the way, “Not Just a Cheese” is neither the title I sent the editor nor the one he used. It’s just the one I liked this morning.
When I came to the State of Jefferson a few months ago, I expected a change of pace from the smothering heat of Austin, Texas, which I’d endured some four or five summers. I pictured hiking through deep, cool forests, leaping off waterfalls into icy pools, and wading waist-deep through dripping ferns.
Such was not the case. My pocket of paradise is hot, dry and plagued by forest fires that fill the air with gray-white smoke, terrorize wildlife, and make breathing painful. Our local wildfire, the Natchez, was nothing compared to the Carr fire near Redding, the horrors of which we watched on TV, uncomprehending.
Because burnt marshmallow smells and oxygen deprivation are de rigueur for summer in these parts, it isn’t uncommon to hear the cry at the start of the weekend: “I’m heading to the coast!”
I took a cue from the locals and followed suit. The last weekend in July, I met my friend Nick in Portland, where we were joined by some friends from Denver. On a clear, sunny Saturday we loaded up our packs for an overnight and headed out, following Highway 26 northwest out of the city.
The town of Seaside was small and unglamorous, though some of the houses had a wood-shingled charm that made me nostalgic for New England. We rolled through the quiet streets and found an unmarked parking lot across from a waterfront condo complex called Whaler’s Point. Though signs expressly forbade overnight parking, Nick had called ahead and learned that by giving his license plate numbers to the proper authorities, we were in the clear to park there while backpacking.
We tightened our boots and threw on long sleeves, because the air was cool. Then we passed under a ranch-style overhead sign reading “Tillamook Head,” and started down the trail.
We were immediately swaddled by cool green splendor. This was the lush, wet, fern-riddled forest I’d been dreaming of. The trail ziggled gently uphill in a muddy climb through mixed conifers and the occasional behemoth Sitka spruce. As we neared the bluffs of Tillamook Head, we heard the surf pounding the cliffs below; now and then we’d catch sight of the Pacific, shrouded in its scarf of insoluble mist. The sun rarely pierced the fog, which clung to our damp skin. It felt glorious.
Read the rest of the story here.
