I told this to Frank a while ago but here we go again...

This thread drives me nuts. Why? I miss the Oregon coast like crazy. Here's the details:

THIRTY-TWO years ago (pushin' 33) Carol and I left Chicago with everything we cared about loaded into a VW bus (1967). We headed West to find the place where we wanted to live. We had our records, books, cat and dog. We hit every Western state before settling in Depoe Bay, Oregon. There we found a house on a cliff looking South toward the town. It rented for $60.00 a month. We also paid that same amount for a storefront right downtown on the ocean. That became THE FOLK ART SHOP. Sold records, banjos, dulcimers, books, and all manner of home made folkart items. To make a long story short, we lasted there about 2 years---singing in Lincoln City and Newport--trying to sell things and ideas folkie. NOBODY came in to buy. Nobody knew what we were doing. Very few gigs. Eventually we headed back to Chicago and the Midwest where making a living with folk music was doable in a beatnik sort of way and travel was easier. (The East Coast was closer now.) But a love for the Oregon Coast will be a part of me as long as I live.

If folks like the people talking in this thread had been in Oregon back then---if places to hang and hear and play the music had been there----if anybody who knew who Woody & Pete were (and the ones who did know of them didn't think that to know them meant I was a Communist or worse)---well, I might still be there. I came to love walking the beaches in the fog and rain. Now, when it rains here in Illinois, I get nostalgic for Oregon. I go out in it and walk and pretend that the fog here is obscuring tidal flats at he base of Cape Foulweather and hundreds of tide pools filled with unbelievable forms of life.

I do hope you good people out there know fully what a paradise you are so lucky to inhabit. Here's one guy and gal who are truly glad we climbed down those cliffs when we had the energy and the health to do it.

And if you folks looking for alien life in space would only look once at the base of Cape Foulweather, I'm sure you would find all that you search for -- and all without first having to discover warp drive.

Art Thieme