Coast Chronicles: On the beach side

Published 12:09 pm Tuesday, March 28, 2017

No matter how many folks have tried to explain why we on the Peninsula are south county and you across the bay are north county it still makes no sense to me. Look, we’re west and you’re east, OK? But, as we know, long-standing traditions and stories die hard in our neck of the woods; after all, we’re still bitter about South Bend hijacking Oysterville!

At least on the Peninsula I feel we have our directions straight. There’s the north end, the south end, the bay side, and the ocean side. Easy peasy. Strangely though, even in our small world there are still “regional” differences by north/south and ocean/bay, especially in the weather, but in other ways too. Folks that settle on the ocean side find the aesthetic appeal magnetic, and our ocean front property is still the best deal on the West Coast. But once you’ve been here awhile, you begin to realize that the bay might be a great choice too: the weather is milder, the soil is better, and it’s not as windy.

We also have the “back road” and the “front road” designations, which imply that the ocean side is really where it’s at: as if it were the front porch of the Peninsula. So that makes the Sandridge side the back porch, where things are quieter, more intimate perhaps. It’s the side tourists wander over to eventually; it’s razor versus manila clams.

There’s no doubt about it, though, the beach side has its charms. Walking out your door to the ocean — just minutes away — is a luxury many people can only imagine. So this week, I’m including a few stories that focus on people and places on the beach side of our little finger of land.

Ambling past Doc’s tavern in downtown Ocean Park last week, I noticed a bulbous orange pod in the back of a pickup truck, so I went inside to get the scoop. This rescue pod was being hauled around by Pete Riedel, president of Reliable Emergency Shelters and is the invention of Randy Harper. He thought it up after the Aceh tsunami that killed nearly 300,000 people. (There is more info at a Chinook Observer story March 8th: provide link). I commented on the cool design, including the brilliant color. As Pete says, “Well, you want to be seen.” On the indelicate question of what to do with body wastes while you’re awaiting pick-up, Pete says there are six “wag bags” inside, along with three days of food and four gallons of water.

Although the pods have never been used in an actual tsunami, Peter rode the giant tangerine over the Husum Falls on the White Salmon River. “It was scary,” he says, “My engineers [who were watching] had a lot more fun than I did.” (Here’s a video www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1df3okUnF0. They’re also on Facebook: www.facebook.com/reliableemergencyshelters.)

If you want to get a look up-close and personal — I’ll bet Peter would even let you get inside — he’ll be bringing a pod for display this Thursday to the Planter Box sometime around noon. The basic model, which holds two people, costs $6,500.

Then I stopped by to see Mike and Debbie Schramer who moved to Ocean Park last fall. They are talented artists in the unique niche of fairy stuff. I know, it’s a little hard to explain, but they are well-known for their construction of fairy houses, villages, and accouterments and have been working on their second beautiful coffee table book, “Fairy Village” (Familius, October 2017).

Their shop, Fairy House Vintage at 1306 Bay Avenue, shows off a mind-boggling collection of both fairy things and a variety of other arts and crafts: paintings, sculpture, vintage and collectibles, linens, dolls and doll clothes, furniture, and handmade objects of all kinds.

Unfortunately, Debbie and Mike have an offer they can’t refuse in Provo, Utah so they’ll be moving themselves and their amazing objects d’art sometime in April. In Provo, they’ll have the opportunity to create not only their retail shop but a permanent display — an entire fairy village: Fairy Garden Shop, Toy Shop, Musical Instrument Shop, Elfin Wearables, Vintage Bakery, Clockmaker’s Shop and Market. Smithy. There is also a Village Mill, School, Garden Gazebo, Sea Shell Shop, a Fairy Dress Shop and the Elf Library.

If you haven’t yet been to their shop in downtown Ocean Park, stop by before they close to catch a glimpse of the meticulously crafted Fairy Village — they’ll be open this Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. You won’t see anything else like it anytime soon.

Here’s a quick update on the Wreckage saga that I wrote about last year. The home, across from the Ocean Park elementary school, was built by Guy Selwyn Allison of logs washed up on the beach in 1912 and is for sale at $235,000. The current owners, who live in Seattle, bought the property 40 years ago, but they’re ready to pass it to the next stewards. They indicated that there are several potential buyers who’ve decided to think about it “when the weather gets warmer.” (It was initially rumored that a RV park developer was interested in the property but no sale has been made. For information: 206-437-1500.)

Allison’s grandson, Barry Allison Bartron, who visited the Peninsula last year, was trying to rally the family to purchase the property and bring it back into familiar hands. But he feels there’s a lot of deferred maintenance that would need to be done. “I think about the Wreckage almost daily,” Bartron said. “To see it go breaks my heart. If we were going to buy it we would buy it as a family vacation home for the grandkids, but they have no real connection to it now. It doesn’t mean anything to them. So it’s not going to happen.”

“If we bought back the Wreckage, it would just be in a holding pattern, a way to keep the property alive until we could find enough money or another group to restore it. The bottom logs all need to be replaced and on the east side they’re going to have to remove and replace probably three levels of logs. But for us it’s not a matter of money, it’s really a matter of distance.” All the family now lives in southern California.

Bartron says that as far as he knows, most of the items in the interior are much the same as when their family was actively using the house forty years ago. “I’d hate to see us lose that much history. I assume everything inside would be trashed. I’d be tempted to take the little bed I slept on that’s still in the bedroom.”

The ocean is known for its comings and goings. So it goes.