Jazz & Oysters 2010

     Last year marked the twenty-fifth year of Jazz & Oysters in Oysterville.  Apparently, it also marked the final year – not of J&O, but of holding it in Oysterville.  We are devastated.  J&O was born in Oysterville, birthed by Oysterville residents Carlos and Sharon Welsh as a fund-raiser for the Water Music Festival.
     Festival board member, Charles “Carlos” Welsh, was the jazz director and events coordinator at radio station KMUN in Astoria.  His wife, Sharon Montoya Welsh, taught cooking classes at Grays Harbor Community College and had co-authored a cookbook, Oyster Cookery.  They lived in Oysterville.  It didn’t seem much of a stretch, then, for Carlos to come up with the idea of a “Jazz and Oysters” fund-raiser to be held one Sunday each August in the Oysterville school yard.
     Since then, it has grown in reputation to the extent that, although still a fund-raiser, it has a life of its own.  Many of the jazz and oyster and, yes Oysterville, aficionados have no idea that it grew out of and is still related to the October Water Music Festival.
     By now, too, many of those who work so hard to plan the event, coordinate the set-up and tear-down, manage the food and the beverages, deal with the safety concerns and the myriad other details of a full-sized event, have no strong bias toward Oysterville as a venue.  Their needs are for a place that can accommodate all the foregoing and still have room for future growth of the event.
     Reportedly, the final “straw” was a parking issue.  Specifically, it seems, parking on School Street.  When J&O began, parking was allowed on the north side of School Street only.  The south side of the street was cordoned off.  The parking spots nearest the entrance were reserved for handicapped parking.  I know this because Nyel and I were in charge of traffic (a nightmare job, to be sure) and J&O still uses the handmade signs, lettered and laminated by yours truly.
     Last year, for the first time ever as far as I can remember, the tides were such that the Oysterville Regatta occurred on the Saturday before J&O.  Regatta Headquarters happened to be at the cottage closest to the school grounds and so, on Friday and Saturday, there were a number of cars and boat trailers parked there – probably on both sides of the street.  The regatta and subsequent awards dinner finished up Saturday evening and by Sunday morning, all but one or two of the vehicles were gone.
     My cousin Anna’s wedding was on that weekend, too, but most of those festivities also took place on Friday and Saturday.  Still, it was a big wedding and there were cars parked along Territory Road Sunday morning during the after-wedding breakfast which may have added to the J&O parking headaches.
     But it is the parking on School Street, that has been specifically cited as the reason this year for changing the venue to the Beach Baron’s bailiwick at Wilson Field in Nahcotta.  Presumably, the folks who rent out the school house (Oysterville Community Club) said there were complaints from ‘the neighbors,’ though I’ve talked with  the near neighbors and all are totally mystified and disappointed at the loss of a great tradition.  And, typically, no one from J&O or the OCC checked with the neighbors to find out if there was, indeed, a problem and, if so, how it might be soloved.
     As is often the case, communication (not parking) is probably the culprit.  In this particular case, J&O is the unwitting victim.