Don’t you hate it when you click on a button or link on a webpage, and nothing happens, so you click, and click, and click, and then dozens of pages suddenly explode open?
You don’t? Well, la-di-da. Good for you.
Hey Jude
What was the list? We’d written items on the blackboard. I paused by the rice to visualize the chalk scribblings and compare it to the shopping cart. Sweet pot, broc, car, ban, OM, cil. All secured. Ch. Butt. Brd. Blk b. Lem.
I’ll head for the cheese, get that done – no, the bread is closer. I’ll go through the bread to cross the store to reach the cheese. Then I’ll swing back by the rear aisle for the butter, detour to the canned goods for the black beans and lemonades, and then, off list, perhaps a bit o’ choc.
The store is easily Ashland’s most popular. Shop ‘n Kart has a vibe of peace and food. Lots of organics. Nice selections of fresh produce, cheeses, beers and wines, and green stuff made to help us reduce waste and our foot print. Good location, too, here on the town’s south side, off Ashland where it meets Tolman. Busy, busy place.
Background music plays. It’s usually rock. Sometimes it’s classical. ‘Hey Jude’ came on as I surveyed the bread and found the whole wheat offering desired. I sang along, remembering when I heard and sang along as a child. Shifting gears, I veered past other shoppers, passing as I remembered, pol – for polenta, backtracking to the pasta zone. Others softly sang with the Beatles as I went.
Exiting that aisle, I entered the perpendicular central aisle toward the dairy cases. ‘Hey Jude’ swelled. So did the store singing. More and more people sang the song, and sang it louder and louder. I don’t know if they knew they sang aloud, or if they were conscious of others singing aloud, but hearing more singing as the French horns flared and Sir McCartney sang, I half-expected the shoppers to begin synchronized dancing.
“Na, na, nah, na-na-na-na.” Visions of ‘Basketball Jones’ surfaced from my teenage years. I heard someone say, “Now the cashiers,” and the cashiers took up ‘Hey Jude’, then they called for “just the people in the ice cream section,” and they joyfully spun in their Nikes and sandals, kicking their legs up in their jeans, skirts, cargo shorts and capris, raising their eyes and smiling toward an unseen ceiling camera, holding out their purchases as they sang, “Hey Jude, judy, judy, judy, wow.”
The song ended. The singing silenced. Dancing stopped. Shopping resumed. Most of it had been in my head, of course, unlike the shopping list, which was now gone. Where was I going?
‘Nights in White Satin’ began. I heard someone softy singing along, but realized it was only me.
References:
Familiars of our Past
A carpet of fog was rolled in with majesty in the afternoon’s middle, and that was it. Sunset decided not to show and sunrise didn’t get up. Twenty miles an hour sea breezes stretched the Stars and Stripes into a snapping fabric panel and tortured our hair into brambly messes.
We were in Bandon.
The fishy fresh smell from tides, ocean and piers hooked its fingers up our nostrils and jerked us in – again and again, often eliciting, “Whoa, I’d forgotten that smell,” that sort of primitive and unfiltered smell associated with small coast towns we’d lived in and visited. Sea sprays blended with mists to coat us with salt and sand.
Bandon was a step away from our first world existence of dry and hot Ashland, but it was further than we expected in technological miles. While the hotel room had a flat screen tv, coffee maker, frig and nuker, the things required and expected for the modern American urban traveler, the wireless connections were spotty and phones never acquired a signal. Your experience may vary.
Sunshine heralded our arrival, so we were absurdly hopeful about how the visit would go. We used that time on the first afternoon to stroll the beaches past Facerock while the tides were out. Imagination easily informed us, we are the first, we have discovered a new territory and ocean, thinking about what it must have been like for the first humans to travel that way and look out on the powerful sea.
Returning to Bandon’s Oldtown, we wandered the windy streets, unchanged from two years past, save businesses had closed or moved away. Menus were perused. Food offerings were the same as before, basic pub grub and seafood offerings. Without knowing the reasons for it of season, month, weather or day of week, the streets were usually free of other souls. Waiting to eat was only encountered for breakfast on the second day, as one eatery was closed for repairs and the other was closed for good, reducing where to eat breakfast by almost fifty percent.
There wasn’t even a Starbucks, Dutch Bros, or Seattle’s Best, for heaven’s sake.
No, those places are not my first choice when traveling but their ubiquitous availability has become a meter for how far from the norm we’ve gone. It’s odd to find a place in America without these places. Nor were there fast food places, except for Subway. Other than a Dollar Tree, the chains have not found Bandon. That would have been wonderful, if Bandon exuded more charm. It was like visiting an aged movie star who no longer knows who they are.
A wallet of money and credit cards were found on the First Street sidewalk the second day, requiring a visit to the police station and foisting worries about the person who lost it on us. Hopefully they’ll be re-united with their wallet. Then we drove up coast to Coos Bay. Heading back down, we missed a turn and ended up in a state park, which was cool. A coyote trotting down the road was encountered. We stopped and gawked. He gave us a glance and veered away, disappearing into the forest. But there he was again on our way out, giving us a longer, more appaising gaze as he traversed the forest along the road. Being romantics, we thought encountering him was significant. Some precious web time that evening was spent trying to determine what his appearance meant to us, and which of us it was meant for. I believe he was a messenger telling us to let go of the past and pad into the future.
Those are the highlights. Bandon, we decided, needs a new tide, a new wind. Despite the sea breezes, the town is in the doldrums. Perhaps it’s as they wish, a nostalgic visit to a fading past. It did recharge our batteries, sooth our anxieties and blow out our stresses, as was our desire. Visits to the oceans do that for us, though, and there are other coast towns to visit.
It’ll be a while before we return to Bandon.
Michael Seidel, writer 