 bout a year later I was reading Tim Egan’s The Good Rain, a book about the history of the Northwest’s land and its exploitation. I liked what he had to say until I came across a line about Forks: "Surrounded by thick stumps, burned-over land and eroded hillsides, Forks is to the Olympic Peninsula what a butt rash is to Venus."
Butt rash! I’m sure I’ve said worse. When you live in a small town, insulting it is the local pastime. But there’s something about a stranger reducing the place where I learned to ride a bike and had my first kiss to a few lines about "an abused timber town." He hit too close to home.
Egan’s city, Seattle, is all concrete and sprawl. It’s worse than any clearcut I’ve seen. So what gives people like him the right to say what’s ugly and what should happen with the land on which they are nothing but summer tourists?
I mentioned my reaction to a couple of co-workers. One, a beautiful long haired man, didn’t know I was from Forks. "Wow, I never would’ve guessed," he said. "I almost got beat up by a pack of loggers in a grocery store there once." Another said she cries everytime she sees the stumps of the Olympic Peninsula.
Fuckin’ hippies, said the voice that lives in the back of my head. That voice never went away.
Recently I was riding on the freeway in a friend’s car when a log truck pulled along side of us. She shook her fist at the driver: "Tree killer!" I smiled at him. I know him. He’s a hardworking man, doing the same work as his father and grandfather. Urban people like my friend and me, in Ford Explorers and Jeep Wagoneers, scold him all the time. I want to apologize for us.
I’ve often felt uncomfortable with my ambivalence about timber issues. I think some trees should be preserved, but I also think logging is necessary. In Eugene, it’s not cool to think trees need to be cut. In Forks, it’s not cool to talk about protecting the environment. And it’s not cool in either place to be in the middle. Friends from both sides try to win me over. I’ve always felt like I needed to choose a side.
This spring I went back to Forks for the first time in three years. I drove first to Second Beach, a spot that has always been close to my heart. It was one of those rare days when the sun shines and everything sparkles blue or green. The ocean was the color of the gel in Aquafresh toothpaste, and the sand was dry. I sat down, leaned my head against a log and let the ocean quiet my mind like I’ve always done. This is my favorite spot in the world — the opposite of a butt rash.
On my way into town I didn’t look at the stumps or the land thrashed by logging. I was too busy searching cars and passers-by for the faces of people I used to know. These people whose livelihoods depend on the forest industry are people I’ve babysat for, people who came into my parents’ shop to buy heating elements, people who sent money when I graduated from college and got married. Not many recognized me, a stranger in my own town.
I heard later that the weekend I was in Forks a pack of dreadlocked people stormed the office of the Washington Commercial Forest Action Committee (WCFAC), a group that works to promote loggers’ interests. They pushed papers and pamphlets onto the floor and questioned WCFAC’s director about timber practices. They had pictures of clearcuts and wanted to know why animal habitat was being destroyed. I get the feeling they didn’t accomplish much, that they and the director argued at each other, neither hearing the other. One of the dreadlocked people mentioned something about being from Eugene.
Later, when I talked to the director by phone, I sensed he thought I might be affiliated with the dreadlocked ones because I’m from Eugene and I’m a vegetarian. I told him I could see both sides but that I had trouble defending clearcuts to my preservationist friends. He told me I should tell my friends that if they really want to think globally and act locally they should support a local timber harvest.
"And I have one question for you," he said at the end of our conversation.
"Why are you a vegetarian?"
I stumbled through an answer about disagreeing with factory farming.
"So do you eat dairy products?"
"No." I lied.
I braced myself for the inevitable question about whether or not I wear leather shoes, but he didn’t ask.
I was shaken after our conversation. Someone from my town had lumped me in with the stereotype of the hypocritical urban environmentalist. If he only knew how careful I have been to defend Forks and how many arguments I’ve gotten into because of a town that’s not even my town anymore.
I’ve thought about this a lot since then, and I’m ready to admit these things. I’m a tree-loving, pro-logging environmentalist vegetarian who wears cowboy boots and eats Phish Food ice cream. When I see a clearcut, I look for the saplings planted and hope they will grow big and strong. I am a warrior recycler and an avid hiker. I drive a 4x4 with a CB radio. I wear hemp clothing and belong to an organic farm. I blast the radio when John Cougar Mellencamp comes on. I’m not wishy-washy. I’m just afraid of extremes. I’ve been there.
It’s like standing in a tidal pool. The ocean rushes in and out with so much force. You have to plant your feet.
Jamie Passaro is a graduate student in the literary nonfiction program. She likes to play in the trees, talk on her CB radio and wade in tidal pools in her spare time
|
