Oysterville History

What do you call it when an officer of the law uses his position to embarrass and belittle a private citizen? I’m tempted to call it a bully pulpit – ‘bully’ with its modern meaning and not in the Theodore Roosevelt sense. If you caught this week’s paper and read the letter by South Bend Police Chief Dave Eastham, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Imagine! Taking umbrage at what a journalist writes in her weekly column and then doing a records search on her citations and then writing about that in a letter to the editor! It seems unseemly. Cate Gable surely must have pushed more than one of the buttons on the Chief’s City of South Bend Police Department uniform.

At the Nahcotta Dock

To those of us in Oysterville, though, the Chief’s overly-sensitive reaction to Cate’s complaint was not very surprising. After all, it was the South Bend Raiders back in 1893 who kidnapped the county seat from us. They came across the bay in two steamers and broke into the Court House on a Sunday morning when the good citizens of Oysterville were all in church. South Benders were getting their knickers in a twist way back then about how we see things over here on the coast.

However, I did learn one thing from the Chief’s letter.  In South Bend they don’t have a 45 mph speed zone. Good to know. With all the different speed limits – first from 50 to 40, then to 30, then to 25, then back up to 40 or is it 50 – along that stretch between the beginning of South Bend and the outer limits of Raymond, who has time to register which speed is in which city? One eye on the speedometer, one on the changing signs is about all I can manage. So, Toto, the words to live by are, ‘if it’s 45 we aren’t in South Bend anymore.’ Apparently that’s s point of pride in South Bend. Go figure.

Logo

Just for the heck of it, I Googled ‘speed limit signs in South Bend, WA’ and you’ll never guess what popped up! A site by the National Motorists Association called “Speed Traps in South Bend, Washington!” There were write-ups by several people who, like Cate, have been nailed on the main drag through South Bend. Most were tourists who, after their experience in “The Oyster Capital of the World,” don’t intend coming back. Can’t say I blame them.

I read Chief Eastham’s letter more than once – not because it wasn’t understandable the first time around. It was pretty straightforward. No, I read and re-read it because I wanted to be sure I was picking up the tone correctly. There was definitely a tone. And not a very welcoming one, either.

In South Bend

So, our plan is to forget going through South Bend to the Montesano cutoff next time we go up to Seattle. I’ve been told it doesn’t take any longer to go up to Longview and then take I-5. I’m all for that.  Although I will miss stopping to buy car snacks at the friendly Pioneer Grocery…  Oh well.