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Bayocean, Oregon

If you drive to the very edge of Oregon and then get out and walk, you can stand where developers built Bayocean, what they called the “Atlantic City of the West.” It rose up in the early 1900s on a narrow sand spit that forms the western edge of Tillamook Bay.

Bayocean had a hotel, a bowling alley, a neighborhood of homes and even a small railroad. They even had a large natatorium, with heated seawater and a wave machine.

But being built on a sand spit was the little vacation town's undoing; the whole place washed into the ocean as the sand was eroded from under it.

It's now returned to nature, and is a great location for birding.

 

You Can't Undo Your Past

NEW YORK (AP) — The organization that runs New York’s Bronx Zoo is apologizing for racism in the zoo’s past, including putting Ota Benga, a central African man, on display in the Monkey House in 1906. Benga went from the zoo to an orphanage in Brooklyn and then to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he worked in a tobacco factory. He died by suicide in 1916.

"Better late than never" doesn't really apply in this case.

 

Worth Noting:

On this day back in 1969 Neil Armstrong made history as the first man to walk on the moon.

 

San Diego Freeway Work Uncovers Part Of the Past

Turns out there are a lot of fossils in the area - and I don't mean old folks. The work has uncovered all sorts of things, from fossilized reeds to a camel.

A lot of people are surprised to learn camels originated in North America before moving to Europe and Asia. They became extinct here about 11,000 years ago.

About the time people began moving in, apparently.

 

The Angst Is Understandable.

For years, a group of Metzger residents have been battling to save a stand of old-growth Douglas fir trees from being torn down to make way for homes. In a May ruling, the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission said Washington County was out of compliance with planning goals designed to protect significant natural resources.

Those trees are a century old and 150 feet tall, and they're an important pocket of habitat for deer, beaver, and a host of other critters. A developer wants to cut them down so he can build six homes there, and planned to "mitigate" the losses by planting a few fir saplings around after the homes were built. That's hardly mitigation, as it'd take decades for any sort of canopy to form. And that's assuming the beaver didn't fell the saplings and use them for construction materials of their own.

Of course, they would; been there, done that.

 

 

"Come Home To Ghana!"

It's kind of odd that they're now pushing this message to black folks in the USA, considering their own history:

“We continue to open our arms and invite all our brothers and sisters home. Ghana is your home. Africa is your home. We have our arms wide open ready to welcome you home. Please take advantage, come home build a life in Ghana. You do not have to stay where you are not wanted forever. You have a choice and Africa is waiting for you.”

For nearly 150 years, Ghana was the center of the transatlantic slave trade that sent millions of Africans to the New World. The vast majority of slaves purchased by Europeans in Ghana had been captured in tribal warfare or were simply kidnapped to sell to European slave traders, according to the liberal Tracing Center, an organization that promotes education about the institution of slavery.

Well, it appears that they've halted the former practice there of "necklacing", in which a used tire was placed around the neck of a suspected criminal, laced with gasoline, and set on fire. So there's that.

 

Moments In History

On April 2, 1865, the Confederate Army evacuated Richmond along with the Confederate government, and on April 4, 1865, Lincoln and his son Tad debarked at Rockett’s Landing (still there) just downstream from Richmond, and in the company of Adm David Porter and a dozen sailors, walked about 3/4 mile up the hills through the streets of Richmond to the Confederate White House (still there – I guess the mob will tear that down next) in downtown Richmond to see Jeff Davis’ office. Along the way, he passed through thousands of now free slaves, who cheered, reached for his hand, tried to touch his coattails, hugged his knees and even kissed his boots. They well-knew who their emancipator was – Father Abraham they called him. He told them to stand up, that they no longer needed to kneel to anyone but God.

Democrat-Run Cities

America is experiencing the best economy in 50 years, lifting every major minority group with record low unemployment, growth, dollar valuation, and accelerating wages. This should turn the tide in America’s cities – but the turn is slow.

Instead, we are witnessing higher homelessness in “sanctuary cities,” and policy stagnation across major impoverished, often unsafe cities – Baltimore to Buffalo, Birmingham to Brownsville.

Oddly, all but a couple of these failing cities are run by Democratics. Who'd have guessed?

 

 

“How much for the little girl?”

Yep, Belushi's dead, but the legacy lives on.

John Belushi, a Chicago native who grew up in Wheaton, was so popular at the time he could simply flag down police cars and they would take him wherever he wanted to go, recalls his widow, Judy Belushi Pisano, who is writing a book about his life, “Belushi.” John Belushi died in 1982 at 32 from a drug overdose.

In “The Blues Brothers,” John Belushi’s character was so inspired by “preacher” James Brown he glowed — radiating in a beam of light — and then he flip-flopped down the center aisle of the Triple Rock Church.

Although the interior of the church was shot in Hollywood, the re-creation was so exact that the pastor at the time wondered if film crews had sneaked inside.

Here.

 

Oregon Histories Mysteries

Nov. 12, 1970 is an auspicious day in Oregon history. It is the day Tonya Harding was born in Portland and the day, on the Oregon coast, engineers decided to use dynamite to remove a massive sperm whale carcass from the beach.

Tonya Harding and the legend of the exploding whale were both born on this day in Oregon

Two of Oregon's most infamous characters were born on the same day, Nov. 12, 1970.

Blubber was blasted beyond all believable bounds.