Driftwood Vernacular

Borrowing from Wikipedia, that eminent source of all things believed by someone else to be true, “vernacular architecture” is the term used to identify structures built from “immediately available resources to address immediate needs.” The definition goes on to describe such structures as usually “crude and unrefined”. No where does the term more rightly find its fruit than on north coast beaches where countless driftwood structures organically materialize from the sand, crafted by unseen hands in a moment’s inspiration, for very temporary occupancy or simple personal fancy.

I’d like to introduce what I hope becomes an occasional series highlighting a distinct architectural style found on this one stretch of beach and others where a steady supply of movable driftwood is available, a style I’ve coined Driftwood Vernacular.[1]

On our little beach, we often discover outstanding examples of driftwood vernacular architecture. The beach here is liberally strewn with driftwood rafted down untold miles of north coast creeks and rivers, smoothed and polished by the sands and salts of the roiling Pacific, and tossed willy-nilly across the silvery Humboldt sands. These smoothed sections of redwood, fir, madrone, oak, alder, and hemlock are the life-sized Lincoln Logs for countless structures that rise and fall with the seasons and the tides.

Driftwood structures, it is presumed, are most often thrown up quickly by regular folks like you and me, but by those with more limited attention spans. While others in their beachcombing party are content to watch the waves, scan for shorebirds, gawk at the seals, or hunt for the perfect stone, these creative constructionists, untrained in the architectural arts, see utility in the storm-tossed beach litter. Fitting peg to hole and beam to post, or crafting tipi tripods without the benefit of rawhide lashes from fresh bison sinew, their creations rise from the sand in mere moments. Then the builders, like the Anasazi of yore, vanish.[2]

Their structures remain behind…for a while at least. Occasionally, they’re reinforced, added to, or altered by the next set of beach walkers. School kids who begin their seasonal migrations to the parks in early March are regular contributors to the driftwood vernacular portfolio. College spring breakers who migrate for shorter periods but at similar times to local school kids, are also suspected participants in the local driftwood arts.

Tides and time take their toll. The harshness of winter’s storms bear no mercy upon these structures. Older buildings are cannibalized by more recent builders who believe they can improve upon the last craftsman’s efforts. And it’s sad but true that now and then, some mindless bureaucrat hoping only for the faint praise of a governmental safety commendation, or perhaps believing that wild beaches must remain free of man’s handiworks, will dismantle and tear asunder the creative genius of those who came before them.[3]

I hope to create among both of the readers of this blog, an appreciation and understanding of Humboldt County’s unique driftwood vernacular landscape. Through documenting their appearance and disappearance here, we can raise the public’s awareness of this important element of coastal heritage of the ultra-near past and present (though if we find something interesting, we may delve into the deeper past as well.)
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The photos above are of the most current structure on the beach. A small abode, designed for one occupant or a very familiar pair, it is only a few feet across, with a small entry portal. It lacks a roof, as do many of our driftwood vernacular pieces. It does, however, contain the rare example of driftwood furniture: a small seat in the southwest corner of the one-room dwelling. This structure also contains a clue to the builder’s intentions in the charcoal-etched “House” sign, vertically planted at the entryway.

Built on the eastern slope of the high-arching beach, away from the blunt force of the ocean winds, one can imagine the rolling sounds of the surf lulling the occupant into a brief afternoon doze, or perhaps a zen-like meditative state from which the occupant could consider their place in the universe in relative comfort and safety. With the open roof and open door design and a good pair of binoculars, birdwatching opportunities abound in the nearby estuary. Privacy is also assured as most casual beach denizens would steer to the ocean’s side of the beach, leaving this modest structure generally undisturbed.
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Outside contributors to this article are welcomed. Email or post a link in the comments if you care to share your driftwood vernacular experiences with the masses.

[1] I just invented that term, so any future use of the phrase driftwood vernacular must henceforth be attributed to me. I know, because I Googled it and nothing came up. Like Wikipedia, I’m free to make stuff up as long as it sounds sort of intelligent and no one tries to discredit me.
[2] Yes, I know the Anasazi did not vanish into thin air but dispersed across the southwest and are the forebears of today’s Pueblo peoples, but the phrase above makes for a more interesting literary statement. Literal truth must step aside occasionally for self-described clever turns of phrase.
[3] This is not me.

The Perfect Stone: A Valentine's Tale

I saw it lying there in the wet sand on a day not unlike today. The last gentle wave had slipped back to the sea leaving behind streaks of puffy white foam and popping bubbles as hidden air pockets sucked the ocean water into the sand. A mosaic of colored pebbles decorated the gray sands beneath my feet.

One small rock, set off by itself, away from the clustered masses, caught my attention. It is small, an inch or so across, and flat, less than a quarter inch thick. It fits perfectly in the small depression in the center of your palm. Hold your hands together as if you’re praying, or if you’re the non-catholic waiting in the communion line for the priest’s blessing. That tiny gap between your two palms is the exact size of this stone.

It is smooth and flawless: there are no cracks, no crystalline inclusions, no chips, dents, or dings. It is very near a geometric circle, if not quite perfectly round, trending almost heart-shaped. And it is a pure, even, flawless jet black.

I waited a few minutes, contemplating and examining this seemingly common stone. Often a rock that appears unique and stunning in the temporary polish of sea water, loses its luster as it dries. Bright reds, greens, browns and blacks tend to turn an indistinct gray as the warmth of the sun or your hands draw the moisture away. But while I waited there patiently on this lazy afternoon, the rock kept its shine as it dried.

I knew then and announced it to myself: I just found the perfect stone.

That evening, with great flourish, I presented the perfect stone to my family. At first they were skeptical. How can a stone be perfect, they asked. What makes this rock more special than all the other rocks from the sea? Who are you to claim this stone stands above all other stones?

Then I let them hold the perfect stone. They felt its smooth, black coolness in their hands. Turned it over in their fingers. Clasped it between their palms. Rubbed its smooth surface against their equally smooth cheeks. Though they searched, they too could find no flaws on this rock. And soon, they understood that I had indeed found the perfect stone.

“Can I keep it, Daddy?” said one child.

“No,” I said. “This is the perfect stone. I need to care for it myself.”

“I’ll take good care of it,” said the other child.

“No,” I said. “I found it, thus it is my responsibility.

My lovely wife looked up at me and asked, “Can I have it? If you love me, you’ll give it to me.”

“I"m sorry my love,” I said. "What’s mine is yours, now and forever. But this is my rock. I will keep it next to our bed and you can see it every day. You can even pick it up and hold it if you wish. But the perfect stone belongs to me.”

And so it was. Every time the family would walk together on the beach, one of us would find another seemingly perfect stone. We’d examine it closely, turn it over and over and consider its qualities. There were many contenders. And when we came home and held the challenger up to the perfect stone, its flaws were instantly revealed. Today, an abandoned flower pot sits by the back door, overflowing with almost-perfect stones. All fell short of the perfect stone.

Now and then, my wife would ask, “Can I have the perfect stone?” And every time I would tell her that she should consider it ours, as long as she knew it was really mine. I would hand it to her and let her hold it for a while, to be charmed once again by its simple perfection. But after a few minutes, fearing that any longer may imply some sort of dual ownership, I would ask for it back. She would pout in that girlish, you-don’t-really-love-me-do-you flirting way that women have perfected, and hand the perfect stone back to me.

For months, the perfect stone sat quietly (as stones are wont to do) next to my bed. I shared it with my family when they asked. We even brought it down to impress a few friends on occasion. All agreed that no finer stone had ever been seen.

On Saint Valentine’s Day I struggle, as all men struggle each and every year, with how to honor the love created when two souls join together forever. Flowers are standard and expected, of course. Lingerie works when you’re young, before you get the lecture about it being a gift for the man, not the woman. Chocolates either sit in the cabinet uneaten because holiday chocolates rarely taste as good as they look, or they’re eaten too quickly, making your loved one nauseous and hyperactive, certainly not conditions conducive to romance.

On one such Valentine’s evening not so very long ago, I sat on the edge of the bed. In one hand I held an empty Hallmark card. In the other hand rested the perfect stone. I looked it over carefully. I considered its origins and its discovery. I remembered the wonder it had brought to our family and our friends. After all these many months resting comfortably on my bedside table, the perfect stone retained all of its glorious perfection. Confident and comfortable in the difficult decision I had made moments earlier, I slipped the perfect stone into the card, licked the gummy glue, and sealed the envelope.

The perfect stone fell out of the card and into her hand. She looked at it, held it in the small pocket in the palm of her hand. She rolled it over once or twice. Then she started to cry. Not tears of annoyance. Not the sneering I’d anticipated. But the happy tears you see when the wealthy yet aloof guy finally consents to marry the plain but boring older sister with tightly pressed breasts in Masterpiece Theater versions of Jane Austen novels. (Or so I’ve gathered as I walk through the TV room wondering how they watch that stuff.)

Mind you, she’s only cried with one other gift I’ve presented, and that was our engagement ring 23 years ago. The perfect stone became the perfect gift, bringing a swell of tears to her blue eyes.

“It’s the perfect stone,” she said, biting down gently on her lower lip. “I thought it was yours.”

“Yes, my love. It was mine. Now, it’s yours," I replied with all the Victorian romantic flourish I could muster.

She laughed through her tears. I laughed with her, and at her, for crying over a stupid little rock.

But it wasn’t a stupid little rock, was it? It is the perfect stone.

Tonight the perfect stone sits alone in a blue Wedgewood pottery dish on her bedside table. Every once in a while, she hands it to me and asks if I want to hold the perfect stone, just for a moment. I usually accept, remembering the time when it belonged to me. Then I hand it back to her. It’s in good hands now.

Beavers & Bureaucrats

It’s a cool February late afternoon, a steady breeze blows in from the north, and a not-quite-foggy haze in the pastel sky just before sunset. I’ve spent much of the day sequestered in a box we call a visitors center with little ambition to get much done and alarmingly few visitors to chat with. All afternoon I’ve stared out the front windows at a glorious day, wanting to join the gulls in their swirling and diving over the surf that sweeps in on the beach in regular and oddly horizontal waves.

Foregoing the opportunity to spend the final hour of my day in yet another box I call my office, I venture out to the mouth of the creek as the sun slips down towards a horizon hidden in distant clouds.

A large gathering of mew gulls and western gulls huddles around the mouth of the creek. I find a seat on the low bench of sand carved out by recent swift running waters from upstream. The estuary has returned to its pre-storm bulb shape as the channel narrows and calm water once again sits in its southern bend.

Every couple of minutes a surge of sea water riding on two or three larger waves pushes through the channel. The main surge pushes straight up the deeper main channel, small, rolling waves surging upstream through the boulder-lined levee walls towards town. A smaller pulse of water bends around the small sandy peninsula on the south bank of the creek, easing its way around the curved shoreline and gently swelling the estuary’s south slough.

25 harbor seals laze at the end of that tiny peninsula, the high curving bank of sand protecting them from the ocean surf. They watch me warily as they always do wondering if or when they’ll need to rock their sausage-like bodies off the dry sand into the water if I approach any closer. A couple of faint-hearted fellows bail into the water when I reach in my pocket for the camera, only to return to the beach a few minutes later when they realize I’m not going anywhere. These same two or three chickenshit seals repeat their panicked escapes twice more, once when I pull out a pen to take these notes, then again when I reach in my back pocket for a hankie to wipe away the post-flu nasal drip.

I walk back by way of the south slough of the estuary needing to head home, more to help with science fair projects than a desire to leave this spot on the beach. Just as I step onto the observation platform overlooking the estuary, I hear quiet munching. Just below me, not ten feet away sits a plump brown beaver noshing on some willow stalks. I don’t think he even noticed me for the first ten seconds or so. It was reaching (again) for that damn camera that catches his attention. He looks up at me, a bit pissed I think for interrupting his happy hour, and slides quietly into the calm, dark waters and disappears.

It was, folks, my first beaver. At least my first Humboldt beaver. I know what you’re thinking: “Bob, you’re a ranger. You must see this shit all the time!” It doesn’t happen that way. I’m more typically, by position more than desire, the office jockey doing paperish tasks and organizing other folks to get out and experience this stuff than actually getting out to play in the out of doors myself. But lately it’s the making-up of excuses to get out here so I have something to occasionally write about that’s opened up the bureaucratic blinders to everything that shares this little corner of the planet with me.

Not a bad job, eh, when you can write off an hour on the beach as a pay-worthy experience. Hasta la proxima.

The Romney Rules: A campaign strategy for 2012

“…there was a special feeling in my heart when I realized that the three places Ann and I lived have all voted for us — Michigan, Massachusetts, and Utah.”

Mitt said it most clearly last night in claiming favorite son victories in all three of his home states. All the other candidates did just as well among their own hometown folk. Huck and Hillary won Arkansas, with Hillary adding the ol' Chappaqua family homestead in New York. McCain took Arizona. Obama won Illinois, Hawaii, and the ex-pats in Indonesia. Hillary did manage to lose her childhood home to the sitting Senator from Illinois, however, in the only contested hometown race.

Based on those results, I hereby officially announce my candidacy for the 2012 Republican nomination for president.

Why Republican? Simple political expediency. The winner-take-all primary format guarantees I win all the delegates from anywhere I once called home, and provides the clearest path to victory. (This proportional thing the Democrats are doing is much too confusing for me and the national media, and anything too complicated for the blown-dry hairpieces of mainstream journalism just isn’t shared with the public at large since we’re more easily entertained by Brittany Spears' underpants and cute photos of the world’s ugliest dog, which should not be confused as one in the same thing.)

Plus, Republican positions are much less complicated, more black ‘n’ white (literally) than are the nuanced and convoluted Democratic positions that no one ever quite understands. (See the prior parenthetical comments about complexibilityness in the national dialogue.) Simple is good in today's America.

So if you’re lookin’ to invest your future campaign contributions in a winning crusade, I’m the perfect national candidate. For the record, I’m only claiming hometown status in places I (or my parents) actually resided and had US Postal delivery.

Here’s the math:

Rhode Island	Humble birthplace	19 delegates
Maryland	Pre-school	37 delegates
Illinois	K-3 (and an early Cubs fan)	70 delegates
Massachusetts	Grades 3-7 (Go Sox!) and 2 years workin’	43 delegates
New Jersey	Garden State Pkwy, Exit 142. Discovered the female vote.	52 delegates
Pennsylvania	High School amid the birth of the supermall	74 Delegates
Texas	3 years of college, a fundamentalist Christian college to boot	138 delegates
Washington DC	More college	19 delegates
Colorado	Yet another college	46 delegates
New Mexico	A college degree (finally) + 12 years careering + wife + kids	32 delegates
South Dakota	A summer of workin’	26 delegates
Idaho	2 summers of workin’	31 delegates
Virginia	A winter of workin’	63 delegates
California	6 years now and growin’	172 delegates

By simply claiming favorite son status, I have 822 of the 1191 delegates necessary for victory before the race even begins. If I can pull in my wife’s home state of Florida (113 delegates), Maine where I’ve spent many a summer (20), and both Ohio (88) and Arizona (52) where I have deep family roots, I’m at 1063 committed delegates. Another 128 delegates shouldn’t be difficult considering my Obama-like charm, Hillarious intellect, Romneyesque good looks, and liberal use (though that may not be the proper Republican phraseology) of Huckabee’s holy bookcase in my campaign commercials.

So, attaining the Republican nomination won’t be an issue, especially now that being pro-choice, anti-Bush, anti-gun, anti-war,and of squishy religious beliefs are no longer screen-out factors. The same math guarantees an Electoral College victory in Nov 2012.

The bigger questions come as we slip into the lame duck years of my administration (which I hope come quickly since I’m not really interested in workin’ that hard) as to where to locate the Bob Flame presidential library and which of my former homes is designated Bob Flame Boyhood Home National Historic Site. Both of those questions, though, should provide ample opportunities for corporate fundraising graft as my tenure as your 45^th president draws to a close.

A flawless plan, don’t you think?

My Endorsements: Super Sunday & Super Tuesday

Not that anyone of sound and independent mind should really care, but here are the crucial picks for the crucial issues of the day from one middle-aged, middle-class, middle-mortgage, mid-level bureaucrat, husband, and dad.

Super Sunday: I grew up just outside of Boston in the ‘70s, back when they were the Boston Patriots led by QB Jim Plunkett, RB Sam Bam Cunningham, and WR Randy Vataha. The Philadelphia Eagles supplanted the Pats as my favorite team in high school, but I continue to follow ‘em, and, quite honestly, the Patriots have provided a few more opportunities to cheer in recent years than have the Birds.

After an impossible and impressive run to 18-0, it’d be a shame to see ‘em lose this last and championship game. While I usually run with the underdogs in the Super Bowl just to see top dogs get knocked off the roof of their dog house, Fate demands a Patriots victory today. A season-long streak like this comes along once a generation. And it’s time to witness a little perfection in our world, don’t ya think? I’ll be grinding up some salsa and guacamole, frozen mozzarella sticks, and boilin’ up the chili dogs by 3pm today. It’s the Patriots’, all the way.

Super Tuesday: I will stand in line on Tuesday morning and color in my voter's bubble for Barack Obama…because it’s time to change. I have no doubt that Hillary would be a solid, formidable, effective president. If she emerges victorious at the end of this process, I will support her with all I have available to give. The positions taken by Clinton and Obama are not all that radically different. In all fairness, I’m having a hard time figuring out what they would do differently than the other when elected.

But……

I’m so tired of the language of politics today. So beleaguered by the pettiness, the crassness, the obnoxiousness, the shiftiness of the dialogue. I’m exhausted by right v left, blue v red, east v west, Hannity v Colmes, Carville v Matalin. For 16 years, this country has done nothing but holler at each other across increasingly rigid lines. You can blame talk radio, the insipid corporate media, and the internet, but we are no longer one country, indivisible. We are not united to stand; we are divided to fail. Another four or eight years with the Clintons in the White House just prolongs the angry, short-sighted, politically expedient rhetoric, not only in Washington, but in our own communities across the continent.

It’s time for America to speak with a new voice. It’s time for someone who can lead us with a vision for the future, a vision that includes justice and opportunity for everyone. The only one in this race capable of changing the nature of our national dialogue is Barack Obama.

I admire the way Senator Obama has kept his campaign focused on the future, on changing the framework of the debate, and generally steering clear of the name-calling and blame-placing brought upon the race by the Clintons. I was among the hundreds of star-struck fans at Bill’s Eureka performance a few weeks ago, but the Clinton campaign proved itself that night, and continues to prove itself today not only capable, but eager to sink into the political muck to reach a political victory, and not of reaching up to take us to a new place.

Perhaps my vote is a vote against something as much as it is a vote for something. And it’s likely that my vote for Obama will be cancelled out within my own household. But, and it’s become cliché, it’s time for a change. For the country’s sake, we have to end the politics of polarization, stop this rhetorical inanity, and move forward, to a new future, a future we where can are proud to be United States and united Americans again. Barack Obama is the only one standing in the campaign capable of leading us there.

What about all the ballot initiatives, Bob? I oppose the entire ballot initiative process in principal, so I probably won’t vote on any of ‘em, out of pure spite. This is idiot special interest democracy run amok. I’m tired of being hustled at the Farmer’s Market and the Safeway parking lot by students and ne’er do wells who don’t understand the nature of what they’re asking us to sign on the dotted line for, and who are almost always paid by the signature by some corporation, special interest group, or billionaire. How about doing away with this ridiculous ballot initiative process altogether and making the legislature do the job we send ‘em to Sacramento to do for a change?

And while we’re on the topic, we already have a term-limit law in place, folks. It’s been there since the founding of the state and the US Constitution. It’s called an election. If you don’t’ like your congressman, vote him/her the hell out of office. There’s absolutely nothing stopping you.

Enough ranting. I’ve got guacamole to create.