On my bedside table, I have a well-thumbed copy of Brent Walth’s biography of Thomas Lawson McCall, “Fire at Eden’s Gate”. March 22nd, 2013 was the centennial anniversary of McCall’s birth in Egypt, Massachusetts. The grandson of a copper king and a congressman and former governor of Massachusetts, he grew up on a ranch bordering the rugged Crooked River near Prineville, Oregon and in New England. McCall attended the University of Oregon and graduated with a degree in journalism and worked for the Oregonian newspaper and as a radio news announcer. His concerns went beyond the daily news, as he ventured into promoting fair treatment for migrant workers and the protection of the rich natural resource legacy in Oregon. As a reporter in 1962 for KGW Television in Portland he presented the documentary “Pollution in Paradise”, a chronicle of the impacts of unregulated toxins disgorging into Oregon’s air and flowing into Oregon’s waters. McCall served two terms as Governor of Oregon and was responsible for an astonishing array of achievements that made the State an innovator in statewide land use planning, farmland protections, recycling, the clean-up of a major river system (Willamette River), and a landmark bill to allow public access to coastal beaches.
I often walk on Neptune Beach south of Yachats. The beach is not long but at the south end you encounter rocky outcrops that contain innumerable tide pools filled with echinoderms such as deep purple sea urchins and brownish-red Pisaster starfish, or colonies of California mussels, brilliant orange anemones, coralline red algae illuminating the pools, and the occasional crab and sculpin hiding in the among the tidepool crevices. If the tide is out and you don’t mind dodging the waves, you can venture into lower tide zones and touch the leathery backs of molluscs such as black chitons or the peaked-helmet shaped shells of numerous limpets, or witness the slow carnivory of sea stars pulling apart mussel shells, or examine the craggy structure of their numerous neighbors, the ivory-colored pelagic goose barnacles. Traveling further south and scrambling over ledges, you encounter a cave carved out of the rocky shores by waves crashing ashore during winter storms. Near the overlook, and covered by layers of sand there are mounds of mollusk shells, Coastal tribal middens, remnants of countless feasts scattered over the centuries. Just off-shore in April, I have occasionally watched the backs of giant migrating gray whales as they surfaced while feeding between strands of bull kelp. For some years, I walked the beach with my golden retriever who loved to swim among the waves, climb the rocks, and eat shells, an occasional small crab, seaweed and numerous washed-up sticks of various sizes, shapes and conditions. If the wind is strong, you could wade up Cummins Creek which flows into the north end of the beach, and soon be in the quiet of a Coastal mountain stream with giant spruces towering along its banks and mergansers diving in peaceful shallow pools.
Oregonians are blessed because our beaches are available to all. Such is not the case in most coastal areas where high rise hotels and private residences fence off beaches and keep most citizens away. Oregon’s Beach Law passed in 1967 provides the public with free and uninterrupted use of the beaches along our 362 miles of shoreline. It also directed that the ocean shores be administered as a state recreation area. Without Tom McCall’s force of will and ability to rally overwhelming public support, with a dramatic media event that included two helicopters filled with surveyors and scientists landing on the beaches accompanied by reporters, the Bill may have died in the legislature.
“Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.” ~ Tom McCall
