37
“This Was a Real Nice Clam Bake” *
"This was a real nice clam bake
We're mighty glad we came
The vittles we et
We're good; you bet
The company was the same
Our hearts are warm, our bellies are full
And we are feeling prime
This was a really nice clambake
And we all had a real good time."
*--Public domain: "Published in the United States between 1928
and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice." *Rodgers and Hammerstein
(Carousel)
What if
life is a party, but we're standing around with a bunch of drunk
people?
Instead,
let's go to the beach, where a great body of water rolls in and out, and on the
outward swing, we can imagine all our concerns are washed away.
My folks
rented a beach house the first year Neil and I were married. It was uncommon
for my folks to rent a house, and I don't know the occasion, however we were
invited so we drove up from McMinnville where Neil attended college, and I
worked for a dentist, to Long Beach, Washington—quite a distance for my folks
from The Dalles.
The Beach
house was a simple structure, with exposed 2 x 4's on the inside walls. It had
a kitchen and three bedrooms, one for my mom and Mike, one for Neil and me, and
one for the kids.
It was the
first and only time I had ever dug for clams.
You walk
along the beach, looking for bubbles percolating through the sand. It must be
after the tide rolls out and the clam begins burrowing in the sand again. When
you see bubbles percolating at the beach's surface, you frantically dig to get
to the clam before it out races you.
We had so
many clams that we fried more than we could eat, and Mike made a huge pot of
clam chowder.
My
brothers and sister were little then, and Bill was a baby born seven months
after Neil and I were married. Jan and Mikie ran around as kids do while Mike
and I stood cleaning clams at the outside counter that had a sink built into
it. A perfect seaside spot for preparing dinner.
I have
often dreamed of a house sitting on the sand, no yard work, just sand up to the
door. The sea is ahead; I can see it from my window, but out the back, there
are trees, for I love trees and want them in my life.
At my
little dream house, I can write all day and party with friends at night. Nobody
cares if the house is perfectly manicured, or the table is set according to
lofty standards. You drink wine, eat great food all of us prepared, have
great conversation, and laugh a lot.
After
hearing the play Carousel rehearsed, with Neil singing in it, and
then attending the performance by the Linfield College thespians and choir,
the lyrics to This Was a Real Nine Clambake stand out in bold
relief in my mind.
Neil's and
my first official date was a fraternity party at the beach, where we ate food
wrapped in foil and buried in the sand, so I guess I could call it a clam bake.
I don't remember any clams, though. I remember steak and baked potatoes. Our
food was whatever you dug up from the sand.
Neil and I
had been acquainted for years as we went to the same church, but we dated other
people during high school and didn't connect until he was in college.
After he
had broken up with his girlfriend—and don't tell, but I had not yet officially
broken up with my boyfriend, Neil was home from college, and after the church
service, he invited me to have lunch with him and his family. (I knew his
mother already from church. She was fun, and I liked her, so we had an easy
conversation.)
After
lunch, Neil and I drove up the Columbia River Highway to become better
acquainted. He then invited me to his upcoming fraternity gathering at the
beach.
Neil and I
walked the beach, and I remember thinking, "I hope Neil is a good
kisser."
He passed
the test.
I broke up
with my boyfriend, and Neil and I have been together ever since.
38
A
Six-Foot Rattlesnake
About 12 or 15 kids
walked along a California country road searching for desert wildflowers—with
the girls wearing pants. Field trips were the only time we could wear pants to
school. Suddenly, everyone stopped.
There, stretched out in
all his glory, was the largest rattlesnake I had ever seen. It was about six
feet long and six inches at its girth. We all stood agape as the snake slowly
crawled off the road.
Nobody suggested killing
it.
On yet another
University of California Botany field trip, we saw a small herd of cattle.
Someone commented on how curious they were, cocking their heads and looking at
us. They were alert, engaged with each other, and curious about us. There they
were on spring grass, away from confinement and the filth of being crowded in
small spaces. Their brains responded to a new event like the Aboriginals
approach a new day—at the wonder of it. For some of my classmates, this
was a revolutionary experience.
Animals behave as farm
animals when you treat them as such, and as pets, when you treat them that way.
Both of the field trips
were to the California desert where we searched for flowering plants. We
carried a Taxonomy textbook with us, for we were keying the names of plants by
examining their flowers.
I still remember Stenstimen's
spectacular, but that's the end of it.
“The author and the reader know each
other: they meet on the bridge of words.”—Madeleine L’Engle.
Supposedly the following quote came from a
Native American elder, “You can look at
the events ahead as a hole or a door. A hole will suck you in. A door will open
to new possibilities."
Let us choose the door.
And from Dr. Terry Cole Whittiker:
“It takes a daring person to give up
sickness and give up living from doom and gloom. It takes daring to actually
give from joy and to change your work so that you are doing nothing but adding
to peoples’ greatness.”
Yesterday, I stumbled upon an old blog site that I no
longer use, and I was struck by Terry’s quote. I was taken back to the first
time I walked into Terry’s Science of the Mind Church in San Diego,
California—and walked out a different person.
Maybe I didn’t change so much in the hour or so I
spent there, but it changed my focus; I found a home where others thought
similarly to me. They came together in joy and celebration.
Those memories sent me back to reading some of the
material I knew long ago, but it dimmed of late when I got caught up in world
conditions. Zig Zigler was correct when he said, “People often say that
motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it
daily.”
Neville Goddard (1905-1972) wrote, “A nation can exhibit no
greater wisdom in the mass than it generates in its units. For this reason, I
have always preached self- help.”
Some say you are selfish in going for self-help. No,
if everyone was whole, if they knew they were divine beings in love with life
and the world, we would live in paradise. Until that day, we must have laws,
preserve the rights of individuals, feed the hungry, and protect the weak and
innocent. That’s society. We’d have a hard time without traffic laws. Can you
imagine setting up the stop light system? I am amazed.
