ammogirl

I want to tell you about the town I grew up in, but I am finding it hard to begin.

What can I say? That it was small? That we had less than 5,500 people? That doesn’t begin to convey anything.

It really doesn’t. Lincoln City is unique. Us, the people that grew up there, we are unique. I bet there isn’t one of us who doesn’t miss the sound of the ocean, and the call of the seagulls, and the smell of the salt. Have you ever just sat in front of an ocean, with nothing else around you, and just watched? It’s never the same. It’s beautiful. I hated my hometown, but I loved it the same. It was field trips to Cascade Head, and back roads, and hating tourists, and working, every one of us, the day we turned 14. It was driving the 1.5 mile loop from Gallucci’s to Wayside and back, over and over. It was Mother-Daughter Tea at Salishan, every year, and less than 90 people in your graduating class, and levis and flannel shirts and jean jackets.

It was rain. It was seafood and the Pixie Kitchen being open for business sometimes and Dairy Queen south. No McDonalds until they built one senior year and ball games at Kirtsis Park. It was that statue of Lincoln on the horse. Teachers that were hippies through and through and taught you things not in textbooks. The Bijou theatre, with it’s second run movies, and the big road trip to the Valley once a year for clothes shopping.

It was trees and fresh air and green, all the time, and wondering what the inside of the Big O tavern looked like, and really, between it and the Old Oregon, which one was better?

It was art, a lot of it, everywhere. It was crappy fireworks on Siletz Bay and Kenny’s IGA and wood houses and rusty cars and going to Sand Point when you were little and Catch the Wind flying their kites every day until giant windsocks were no longer something to be amazed at.

Lincoln City was all of us going to either Dr. Kay or Dr. Sproed. It was chicken and Jo-Jos. It was the annual Fireman’s Ham Dinner. It was cracking jokes at the name of Ben’s mom’s store: The Red Cock. It was being terrified of Mr. Kinney but then feeling sad when you heard the news, because this was Lincoln City, and nobody does that, not here.

It was KBCH and the News Guard and the Senior Fish Fry, and always feeling safe. It was hating Newport.

This summer, when I went back for the first time in years, it hadn’t really changed. The air is the same, and the sounds are the same, and the people are the same. It was exactly enough time to make me both want to spend more time there and to be thankful I don’t have the time to spend.

I do have to go back soon though. Deep down I have always suspected the Big O is the better of the two bars. And I just really, really need to know if I’m right.

Tschuss!