Hometown happening

A plane crashed into a house today in what I consider to be my hometown. I didn’t grow up there. Most people who know me are adamant that I never really accomplished growing up … I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but the term Grown-up carries some kind of responsible baggage with it. I’ve embraced responsibility, I guess, but I’m still resisting the grown-up thing. Obviously, I’ve never seriously embraced it.

My hometown, Gearhart, Oregon, is in the throes of an ongoing tragedy. People have died, most of them, I think, are most certainly not grown-up. We have dead kids there. This is wrong. Kids are not supposed to go before their parents. Not in this country. Not Now.

But kids die all over the world. They are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. They starve. They get blown up. This is common elsewhere. In Gearhart, Oregon, it is most rare, indeed.
It's curious why I think of Gearhart as my home town. I’ve lived in Portland since 1979 (you do the math), but I still think of the North Oregon coast as home. Why is that?

I think it’s because the love of my life grew up there. I kind of pinballed around until I caromed into her in Gearhart, of all places. Our eldest was born in Seaside because that’s where the hospital was. It was a good time and a good place to be born. It was before Reagan and the whole Bush-fueled descent into our Twenty-first Century hell. Life was easy in a lot of ways. It was hard to make ends meet, but we were working people and it’s always been hard on working people. We carry the load. We shoulder the debt incurred by all those nice folks who make the proverbial killing at the expense of everything else, the planet, the economy, the working people.

Am I bitter? Hell, no. It is what it is. I’m having a great ride. I have wonderful people who think I’m wonderful (mostly, anyway). Life is too short to take it too seriously. If there are angels, I think their best advice would be: Lighten up. Have some fun. Share your joy. In the end, it’s who loves you and who you love. That's the important stuff. Next time you start going sideways, let that pop into your head and see if it doesn't smooth things a bit.

Abidee, abidee, abidee, that’s all folks!