We Went West

I remember the day we decided to move to the Oregon Coast.  Geza, Henry and I lived in the lovely town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, where Geza had just finished his doctorate in math, and was in the process of applying for jobs in universities all over the world.  As we received rejection letter after rejection letter, we crossed off daydreams of living in some leafy little college town here and there; so, we decided to look for a future in the world of community colleges. Faced with the prospect of taking on additional jobs that we deemed less-than-glorious, we decided to make our home someplace we did find glorious.

We decided on Oregon, hoping for college work, but ready for anything.  Geza and I were no strangers to restaurant jobs.  Those paid the bills when we were both in school. I began to scour the internet, looking for job listings at community colleges in Oregon, and stumbled upon a position for a math instructor at Oregon Coast Community College, in the dazzling little city of Newport Oregon. 

I gasped, hopped up from the library chair, and ran outside, where Geza and Henry were consorting with the water fowl of Oklahoma State University's picturesque Theta Pond.  I announced, "Oregon COAST Community College" with jazz hands.  His eyes lit up.  That was it.  IT!  We sent in application materials, but we were infected with the idea of living on the Oregon Coast.  Whether Geza got the job or not was becoming less important.  We felt an urgent need to get out there right away.  So, we packed our Corolla full of wooden train set pieces and Blue's Clues VHS tapes, squeezed our almost-three year old in there somewhere, and made a journey of faith.

We figured, they have pizza and burger joints on the Oregon Coast, right? So? Even if we didn't get the job, we'd just rent a cheap apartment and work and spend our free time playing on the beach with our little boy.

 It ended up being a good thing that we moved so quickly.  The job opportunities in Newport boom at the beginning of the summer, and dry up within weeks.  Had we waited to find out that Geza would be granted an interview at OCCC, we would have been doomed to drown, financially, from day one.  He did get the interview, and he did get the job, but it was an adjunct position, with sometimey hours and pay.  We both got service jobs the day we arrived, and secured the aforementioned cheap apartment soon after.

Money was tight, but life was good. We started renting a little house near the ocean and our second son, Thomas, was born during that time.  Geza, always looking for more permanent work in the area, soon heard of a math instructor position at Tillamook Bay Community College.  It was full-time and as permanent as you can hope for, so he went for it, and got it, and here we have been for 8 more years.

And what did we find in almost eleven years of life on the Oregon Coast? Many treasures, some obvious, some unexpected. We knew it would be beautiful, but we could only hope to meet kind people and be given an opportunity to become part of a community.  The people we met in our first jobs at the restaurant and gift store are among our most beloved friends to this day.  I'll never forget how important their help and generosity was in those early days when we had nobody else.

When we moved to Tillamook, we doubled our kid count, with the arrival of one more son and a daughter, and involved ourselves in schools and organizations regularly for years.  Making friends has been easy.  People here are smart, kind, no nonsense, usually creative, and a little weird sometimes, just like I like them.  I don't think a day goes by that I don't feel happy that we made the choice to raise our family here.  As the years pass, we gain more from the people and land, and learn better how to make the kind of lives we want for ourselves.  Here, you can grow, make, catch, gather, and save the elements around you to ensure a relatively comfortable survival. You just need to be willing to learn new things constantly.  Often, I am encountering these skills for the first time, right along with my kids, and those of you who read along with the twists and turns of our learning curve.

Juggling a growing operation such as this one has been an education of its own, and I am ever the struggling pupil. Since the kids left school, Geza and I have worked and thought hard on the education of our family.    There is a lot of animal and plant care in our lives, along with a broad assortment of hobbies, which leads to the need for a lot of materials, tools, supplies, feathers, <fill in the blank with the weirdest thing you can think of, because we'll probably need to buy at least six pounds of it someday.>, paper, etc.

We are now in our thirdish year of Whatever-This-Is-Style homeschooling ,and I need to make a confession.  I have a secret weapon, which serves as therapy, a community builder, supply store, and recycling center.  Plus, it gives me the opportunity to say "I got this at the dump." I just love that. Some call it Cart'm,

  but I call it Xanadu.  

The shakedown from decades of materialism and cheap manufacturing has lead to heaps and heaps of junk, everywhere you look. It's like Wall-E, without the marshmallow people in hoverchairs. I feel like a post-apocalyptic stay-at-home mom, scavenging on the the rusty underbelly of the carcass of our once mighty industrial society.

You might be saying to yourself, "So what? It's a thrift store.", but you are wrong, and talking to yourself, so that's what.  Thrift stores usually strive for all the affectations and accoutrement of a bargain retail store: tags, racks, labels. 

Bins and masking tape, fools!  It's like a thrift store you wear coveralls to.  And I'm not just saying that because I wear coveralls everywhere.

The leavin's are choice.

 And the prices are so low, they're dirty.

 The masking tape does not lie, that chair is solid, and it's $8.

Sometimes we go there to take in our recycling and shop, but most of the time we completely forget to bring the recycling and just come there to browse and buy armfuls of fabric, saw blades, blank books, high end kitchen items, fencing, baskets, leashes, fake eyelashes, and other necessities.  You never know what you're going to need until you go there and look at everything.  For example,

This  is going to get the treatment and will hold CDs for the littles to rock on the accordion case DJ bench.  Two bucks, and it's very sturdy, if not a little tacky.

Every spring, they hold a fabulous party called the Trash Bash, in which people dress up in costumes they make from recyclable materials and trash.  Henry used it as an opportunity to make himself into Baron Von Bon Bon, and, using supplies from our recycling bins and Cart'm, gave himself this rad steampunk mechanical arm.

He's already planning his costume for this year's bash, and I think Thomas will get in on it too.  There is also talk of conspiring with their kids' outreach coordinator to dismantle microwave ovens together with fellow homeschoolers.  Jealous?  Yeah, I know.  The cheerful, helpful Cart'm employees are there because they too love the place.  They juggle a multitude of responsibilities and demands, all while creating a unique culture of fun-loving creativity. 

 Not to mention, the drive there and back is like one of those,  

 well, it's just...

 Let's put it this way, I take a lot of pictures.

 and I'm not just saying that because I 

 take pictures all the time.

 

So, if you make your own journey westward, and if you visit us, and if I try to take you to the dump, it's not because I think you're broke or dirty (not that there's anything wrong with that, goodness!); it's because I want to show you the best time I can, between the hours of 10 am, and 4 pm, Thursday through Sunday, Monday in the summer.  And please, remind me to load the recycling in the car before we leave.