Entrance to Oysterville

I’ve had some interesting reactions to my blog this past summer.  Maybe I should say as a result of my blog.  The comments have come from visitors to the village, some of whom I know personally and some of whom know me but only through what I write.

Before I say exactly what I’m talking about, let me explain that I began my blog a few years back in an effort to raise my ‘author/historian’ profile and, hopefully, to increase readership (and sales!) of my books.  I decided I would write daily and, because the focus of most things I write – especially my books –  is Oysterville, I chose to blog about that.

“The Oysterville Day Book” has achieved quite a following since I began it in March of 2010.  It hasn’t gone viral or anything, but it averages 5,000 hits a day (whatever they are) and, as near as I can figure, it has 300 to 400 fairly faithful ‘fans.’  Many are my FaceBook ‘friends’ and many of those followers are folks I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting in person.

Historic Oysterville Church

Although my subject matter strays from topics about ‘greater downtown Oysterville,’ I do think that it is interest in the day-to-day life in our Oysterville National Historic District that draws most of the Daybook’s readers.  Granted, some readers have told me that it’s the antics of our ‘girls’ (our small flock of chickens) that they like most and, occasionally, I am uncomfortably reminded that there are people ‘out there’ who are very interested in the details of my life.  But, I remain confident that it is really Oysterville that is the draw.

So, it is always a shock to me when visitors who come to Oysterville, perhaps for the first time, become a bit confused when confronted with the reality of village life.  If they take time to get to know us a little – and I’m not talking tourists here, but visitors, perhaps houseguests or friends of friends staying at the Oysterville Guest House – they may learn that all is not sweetness and light here all the time.  And they seem to blame me for giving a false impression in my blog.

Sorry about that.  But, I’m not going to change my approach.  For one thing, I’m not crazy about airing my own dirty linens.  For another, I want to continue friendly relations with my neighbors. With our small population (maybe a dozen full-timers now), it doesn’t pay to be exposing the skeletons in one another’s closets.  We would soon have more skeletons than flesh-and-blood neighbors here in the village.

So, while I may allude to a contentious meeting at the schoolhouse now and then, or talk about vandalism at the cemetery or church, in general I avoid the negative aspects of life in the village.  Our interpersonal relationships and difficulties in communicating with one another are not all that different from the experiences of people everywhere.   I have always assumed that my readers realized that.  This isn’t Nirvana or Brigadoon… not exactly.  But, to most of us who live here and to tens of thousands of tourists and visitors, Oysterville does have a magical quality to it – the contents of our closets notwithstanding!