What a Marvelous Day for a Clam Dance...

My father would have been 94 today. He would not have been in good health... in his honor, I'm going to talk about a fish (he loved to fish)... and a very special dance (and you already know he loved to dance)...

This fish is, pardon me, was in Oregon, along route 101. It was after the Oregon dunes, and sat, for what seemed like forever, in a huge pile of driftwood. I cannot imagine what forces pushed all that wood (you can see it in the picture) up at the end of the field near the road. I don't know if there was water around this pile at any given time (high tide) or if it was the result of... the earthquake of '64? or some other calamity.

Someone, sometime before I ever drove up there, trudged out in that mass of wood and build a fish. It was a rather large fish, with a tire for an eye, which will give you perspective. There were other smaller structures around it, but it was unmistakable from the road. I think what helped it last as long as it did was, besides construction,was unavailability. I drove by it for years before I parked a ways from it and walked out along the highway to get this picture. It was difficult for vandals to get to, which probably helped it's survival.

It's gone now. I noticed it failing a few years ago, and last year it was gone. Someone has built some smaller things in it's honor, but it's gone... I'm glad I took this picture when I did...

I miss it...

Now... for the clam dance we have to move to another state; Washington. Joe (you remember Joe) and I traveled around the United States in 1976, the bicentennial year. We were out for more than 4 months, in a VW camper, looking for somewhere we could get along. Learned one of life's great lessons out there. Are you ready? "If you can't get along here, you can't get along anywhere". That's it. But, along with the arguments in every state, we had some really fun times. One of those was up in Long Beach, Washington.

You can drive on the beach in Long Beach. It's a dicey proposition if you don't know what you're doing, because the tide can eat your car in a very short time, and you will never see it again... no joke. There is a narrow strip of drivable beach, made more narrow by the clam beds. Long Beach is (or at least was) a GREAT clamming beach.

We were up there in Late April. We had friends up there so we didn't have to do the driving on the beach, and were able to get farther up the beach to do our clamming. The first day it was a breeze... we had the tools (a clamming shovel and a bucket) and the ambition. It was a Friday, and there weren't a lot of people out, so it was an excellent adventure. We took the clams back to the campground and let them sit and shit (that's what clams have to do before you can eat them... and they won't do it on command, so you have to be patient). We cleaned them, bagged them and put them on ice. We actually made clam chowder when we were in Wyoming, several days later!

Back to the beach... it rained that night. The next day dawned cold and drizzly, and there were a lot of people on the beach, as the season was coming to a close. When the weather gets foul, the clams go deeper into the sand, and are no longer easily visible by the tiny little holes that show their hideouts. We were shown how to stamp our feet around to make the holes bubble water, so we could find the little suckers... It was definitely a more difficult task than it had been the day before. At one point I stopped to rest and looked down the beach....

Oh... my.... gawd..

The beach is miles long, and there were... I don't know... at least a thousand people there. Maybe more... maybe a LOT more. And there they were. Dressed in colorful wet weather gear..

doing the clam dance...

Each person had a distinct style of bringing the clams to notice. Stamping, jumping, arm waving, one footed two footed, often accompanied by joyous singing or barely discernible grunts. Bursts of color and sound, as far as the eye could see (which was actually a great distance) and unlike anything I have ever seen again. If I had only had a camera...

I'll never forget it...

It makes me smile to this day...