The Peripatetic Historian
The Beach Issue. August 2024, Vol. 4, no. 3.
Welcome to the August issue of the Peripatetic Historian.
This Month:
Peripatetic Field Report: On the Beach
Book News
What’s New in Old News?
Then and Now: The Waves Giveth, the Waves Taketh Away
Let’s get started…
Peripatetic Field Report: On the Beach
I am, by birth and genetics, a product of Western Oregon. I was raised in the shadow of Douglas fir, fed on trout and salal berries. Although destiny and good luck have led me to roam the world, I return like the silver flashing steelhead to the green, moss-draped streams from which I sprang.
This month marked my latest visit. June ended a two year stay in the Middle East, probing the ancient glories of the Arabic world. In two weeks I depart for Taiwan and the wonders of Asia.
My present life is defined by where I am not, an absence from the land of my people. After decades spent yearning for an expatriate life, I have finally achieved my dream.
Home is the latest visa in my passport.
My literary education was grounded in the works of Ernest Hemingway, a man who roamed and wrote about wherever he landed: Cuba, Spain, Africa, Italy, and Paris—above all Paris, his movable feast. He described a world beyond his Midwestern upbringing, broke open the coconuts of diverse cultures, and offered a taste of the exotic, the different to readers unlikely to retrace his steps through foreign lands.
He was deeply influential, capturing the imagination of a young man from the Oregon mountains, just beginning to write and dreaming of the lions who slumbered upon foreign shores.
That’s a rather long way to say that I’ve spent a lovely six weeks reconnecting with my homeland. The Pacific Northwest is the one place on the planet I instinctively understand, the one place where I am neither foreigner nor tourist.
Dark green water and fog-cloaked forests whisper in my sleep.
Nevertheless, the hands of my clock now point to “peripateticate.” I’m no Hemingway, but I do hope that these small reports convey a little of the wonder I find in the rest of the world.
Next stop: Taipei.
Book News
Lift-off
In addition to rest and relaxation on the coast, I have been making the first appearances in the Lighter than Air tour. Here’s an example, from my event at the Mark Twain House & Museum:
August brings four more in-person lectures. If you are in the Pacific Northwest, check the tour schedule to see if I will be close:
Discounted Copies Still Available
Rowman & Littlefield, publisher of L.A. Birdmen, is offering newsletter subscribers a 20% discount off the cover price of the new book. If that’s something that might interest you, click this link and claim your discount:
What’s New in Old News Goes Electric
July 25, 1965 - Bob Dylan performed his first electric set onstage at the Newport Folk Festival.
July 18, 2024 - Richard Goodrich dropped the first audible version of What’s New in Old News?
I’m not asserting that these two events are of equal weight or cultural significance, but they did both happen in July. Now, if you are one of those people who prefer to consume old news through your ears, we have an app for that.
It’s a move that’s been several months in the making. Back in the pandemic days, when classrooms went remote, I spent a few months making podcasts for my students and found I enjoyed it. When Substack added podcast hosting to their mix of capabilities, I decided to power up the old microphone and give it a try.
Going forward What’s New in Old News? will exist in two formats—the traditional newsletter that arrives in your inbox on Thursday mornings and a podcast that is available through Substack or the podcast distributor that you already use.
I am still trying to set up the distribution network, but if you search for “WNON-POD” on Apple Music or Spotify, you should find the podcast.
Alternatively, you can listen through Substack at the podcast’s home page:
Then and Now: The Waves Giveth, the Waves Taketh Away
It seemed a brilliant idea.
In 1906, Thomas Potter, son of a real estate developer visited Tillamook County on a hunting trip. Although accessibility was limited—a boat remained the easiest way to reach Oregon’s northern coast—Potter looked at the five mile sandspit that enclosed Tillamook Bay and saw profit.
With Portland—seventy-three miles east—growing into a metropolis, Potter realized that the city’s residents would hunger for coastal vacations. The long stretch of beach was ideal for a new community: Bayocean, a resort intended to rival New York’s Coney Island.
Faster than you could say “plat that,” civil engineers drew their plans and construction commenced. By 1912, 1,600 lots had been sold, roads had been tarred, and houses filled the high bank that conferred an ocean view. A heated saltwater pool—the Natatorium—a boardwalk, and a hotel served visitors. The site still lacked overland access—visitors had to ride a ferry across from the mainland—but the dream appeared viable.
Those traveling by sea from Portland complained of the rough ride when crossing the bar at the mouth of Tillamook Bay. Wouldn’t it be better, asked visitors, if the Army Corps of Engineers installed a jetty to protect the entrance?
The Corps was dubious, but when residents raised enough money to match a government allotment, the Army built the north jetty, a line of massive stones extending a mile out to sea.
This new construction, although calming the entrance, altered the local currents. Beach erosion began, chewing into Bayocean Spit. As the years passed, houses toppled into the advancing sea. The Natatorium and hotel were overwhelmed by winter storms. The community was abandoned long before the last abandoned house collapsed in 1970.
Paradoxically, the construction of a southern jetty in 1973 altered the currents a second time. The sand returned, filling the voids and rebuilding the dunes. Today the spit is an empty, wild place covered in sea grass, spruce, and scotch broom. A solitary marker indicates the place where a dream died.
The waves giveth, the waves taketh away.
And that’s the newsletter for this month. My final days in the United States run out of the glass like Bayocean sands. A fresh adventure awaits: typhoons, earthquakes, and the far side of the Pacific where the great waves are born.
First impressions next month. Until then, be safe, be sensible,
If you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, or others in the series, it does help me out if you spread the word. Hit the share button and pass a copy along to someone else who might find it interesting.
Be safe and sensible in Taiwan with Mary. Happy trails.