By Sheldon
Photos by the author

Ben Jones bridge near Cape Foulweather, Oregon.

There is a stretch of coastline between Newport and Lincoln City that was a popular destination for our family while I was growing up, visits I agitated for relentlessly to feed my passionate interest in marine biology, especially the tidepools for which the Oregon coast is justly famous. Although I have made two trips to the coast since we moved back in 2015, they were to a different part of the area, so it was not a proper homecoming.

This time, I took a day off from work (I’m still getting used to this concept of “vacation” which is nearly as strange to me as the concept of “steady, full-time, paying job.”) last Monday. We decided to visit the coast, the part where I spent so many happy days and hours with family, on scout outings, or the occasional church youth activity. I expected it to provide cause for reflection, and the setting did not disappoint; there is no other place on the planet that lends itself to deep, delicious musing like the Oregon coast.

As we drove through the tall conifer forests towards Newport, I realized that this would be the first time in about 40 years that I had visited this area. It was strange, being the one behind the wheel; that had always been my Dad or whomever was the Responsible Adult du jour. Upon arrival, I recognized… nothing. Well, almost nothing. Everything was different, but there was still a feeling of familiarity due to place names that had not changed. A few venerable establishments remain, like the Inn at Otter Crest or the Inn at Spanish Head. There was a golf course that I don’t remember being there before, which struck me as near-sacrilege. I loathe golf courses not only as unnatural monocultures, but as large tracts of land given over to an activity for people who really need to get a life.  But that’s just me.

The coast I remember was in the 1970’s. It was the setting for Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which  was practically scripture for much of the counterculture back then, and quite a bit of conventional culture, too. That was one thing about the place, besides the tidepools and the Marine Science Center in Newport that fascinated me. The Oregon coast was a haven for countercultural types. I remember hippies camped on the beaches–living there, apparently. There were wanderers, hitchhikers, artists, poets, and friends of the earth. I vaguely recall the odd Vietnam vet seeking solace in nature from whatever horrors haunted them. It was a time and place of realization that something was deeply wrong, leavened with a boundless optimism that it could all be put right, but in the meantime, here was this place of prodigal loveliness to enjoy.

Coastal fog, Neskowin, Oregon.

I was, probably to the consternation of my parents, fascinated by the counterculture, by these people only a few years older than myself who were off looking for community, for company, for answers, for something other than the stale platitudes and hypocrisy they perceived all around them, and could no longer stomach. That is the visage that came back to me wrapped in sandalwood incense and macrame, accented with the god-awful decor of burnt-orange shag carpet. But though one can mock their often self-inflicted caricature, I agree with countercultural critic Theodor Roszak that the instincts of those kids were dead on target.

Of course it wasn’t all hippies and communes then–very little of it was, quite likely. Today it is all quite conventional, even if it isn’t entirely corporate either. Mom and Pop businesses persist and even thrive; The Newport Cafe is one such 24-hour diner where you can get a damned good omelette. But I also saw too many empty or soon-to-be-liquidated storefronts. It is in this context of an election that would have overwhelmed even Timothy Leary’s tolerance for weirdness that I can’t help wondering when and how the next countercultural wave will manifest itself. These kinds of things are predictable, except for the timing and what is going to happen. Okay, maybe they aren’t predictable. But I can feel one coming. A lot of people can. I’ve seen a familiar gleam of anticipation in the eye of more than one old hippie. I hope it happens soon. I hope the next upheaval makes the 60’s look like the 50’s.