Yesdterday at the Schoolhouse

I’m not sure how this day (the second Friday-the-thirteenth of the year) will go but I’m here to tell you that yesterday was one of the best days ever here in Oysterville, at least from my point of view.

I was scheduled to give the third in the 2015 Schoolhouse Lecture series and I was quite apprehensive about it. Even though my topic, “Putting the Story Back in History” is near and dear to my heart, I vacillated as I prepared my remarks – would I be able to keep within the 50-minute time frame? Or, conversely, did I have enough to say? Or would what I planned to talk about be of interest? And, most basic of all, would anyone come?

As it turned out, there was a large audience – a comfortable mix of friends, acquaintances and strangers. They were attentive throughout and even laughed in all the right places. And afterwards a man introduced himself to me – a cousin of Oysterville neighbors – who had spent summers here as a kid and who ‘recognized’ my great uncle Cecil from one of the stories I told. I loved it that he and his wife made that connection with me!

Yum!

But, beyond that, by the time I reached home (after going to lunch with a new friend from Astoria) the emails were beginning to come in. I had given a suggestion at the end of my talk – a simple and fun way for people to begin documenting their own history. And they were doing it! Yay! On behalf of historians of the future (and posterity, in general) I can’t express fully enough how important those memoirs and journals and diaries are…

Plus, the day was memorable in other ways, as well. I had the pleasure of the aforementioned lunch with a new friend and, later, Nyel and I went on a “double date” with Carol and Tucker to the Shelburne for dinner. Although I’ve known proprietor David Campiche for nigh unto forty years, his friendship with Tucker goes back even further — they were in college together. They are both great story-tellers (and teases) and so the evening encompassed much more than a delicious dinner.

New Outhouse at the Oysterville Church

To top it all off, Tom put the finishing details on the Church Outhouse right down to the crescent moon on the door! It’s not every village that can boast an old fashioned privy as its most recent construction – not in our neck of the woods anyway. Never mind that inside is a modern porta potty. I’m sure the little building will become another story prompt right here in Greater Downtown Oysterville – at least among those who have ‘real’ outhouse memories! Already someone was telling me about the only ‘five-holer’ he had ever seen…