Northern Oyster Company, 1940s

     Wednesday is Paper Day in our house.  It’s the day the Chinook Observer is waiting for us in our Oysterville postbox.  It’s the only newspaper we subscribe to.  We read it from front to back and, finally, recycle it in all the ways that only discarded newspapers are best for.  Some weeks, its pages contain just the ho-hum.  But sometimes an issue is packed with so much information and thoughtful commentary that it is worth the price of the entire year’s subscription.  This was one of those weeks
     For starters, there were names of people we know on almost every page…  Right on the front page was the tantalizing headline, “O’ville Farms reopens to more strife” – a story about our neighbor Dan Driscoll’s ongoing problems with the Department of Community Development, the County Commissioners, the Army Corps, his relatives and everyone, it seems, except god.  Cate Gable (also a friend) did a masterful job of presenting the non-understandable in an understandable way.
     On the other hand, I didn’t really get the point of the two photographs that accompanied Cate’s article.  Taken by Oysterville resident Michael Parker, they showed the old cannery building in different years and taken from different angles.  It seemed to me like comparing oysters to clams.  I wish they had used the old 1940s postcard picture of the Northern Oyster Company in comparison to Oysterville Sea Farms of today.  It would have made more sense.
     Then, in Letters to the Editor, was the delightful reaction to the proposal for Tsunami berms, written by my friend-since-childhood, Anne Cannon Nixon.  “…I’ve watched normal ocean waves flatten my sand castles for over 70 years,” she wrote.  Right on, Anne!  We made a lot of those sand castles together and I couldn’t agree more.  Besides, if Long Beach does build that berm east of Long Beach School and the worst happens… Is there a risk that the children will be saved and the adults of Long Beach won’t?   What will happen to all those orphans?
     And there was Cate’s “Coast Chronicles” column about her reunion with her Camp Fire group who were together from second grade through high school.  My kind of story!  I loved it!  I, too, was a Camp Fire Girl back in the fifties and sang the Wo-He-Lo song around the campfire.  And I, too, have kept in touch with a group of friends from those years.  Cate’s comment, “We fell in together as if absolutely no time had elapsed,” spoke not only to me, but for me.
     Wayne Downing’s column “An Old Dog’s Tale” also was about a subject close to my heart – the remnants and ruins left from the past.  Wayne and I met as cast members last fall in PAPA’s production of “Shoalwater Shenanigans.”  We talked about old places we loved, the Oysterville Cemetery for one.  I am crazy about his column.  Invariably, I wish I had written it, myself!
             There were more names of friends and acquaintances and of places and events that were not only familiar, but part of our everyday lives.  Every page mentioned something that had meaning for us.  That’s the beauty of a local paper in combination with a small community.  In our lives, it makes Wednesdays special.