Gem of The Pacific Northwest

Gem Of the Pacific Northwest

North Bend, Oregon

We all live in a metaphorical snow globe. Now, before I get tarred and feathered as some sort of conspiracy theorist, let me explain. Our snow globe is our scope of understanding of the world surrounding us. The more of the world and people you meet and experience, the larger your snow globe grows. The theory invites exploration and travel with the byproduct being growth and evolution. My snow globe began in North Bend, Oregon.

From a distance, North Bend is nothing more than a sleepy fishing town. With a population of less than ten thousand people, I've always known that I have small town roots. Located on the Southern Oregon Coast directly next to the Horsefall Beach, North Bend is nothing less than beautiful. Quaint if you will. You'd be crazy if you called it a beach town though. By no means is Horsefall a beach you'd want to spend the day at. It's cold. It's uninviting. The wind blows so hard that the sand feels like needles when it smashes into any area of exposed skin. Now, living in San Diego, I'm still not a fan of the beach. Some things will never change despite how wonderful the new reality presented actually is.

North Bend gave me a true understanding of what it meant to grow up in a dying town. Watching people, initially drawn in by the beauty, quickly turn tail and leave town. Coast Guard families would be stationed in town and get out as soon as they possibly could. Be it the stench of low tide or the lingering feeling that the town could have a financial collapse at any time, the families that stayed were few and far between. I had to learn quickly how to deal with loss. I lost friends and relationships every year, and it's given me the tools necessary to deal with that kind of loss in my adult life.

Small town living isn't for everyone, but I believe that everyone should experience it. Living in a place where your business is everyone's business almost instantly has truly shaped the way that I carry myself as an adult. You know for a fact that the moment you step out of line, it's going to make it through nearly every ear in town by weeks end. Making mature decisions and learning to deal with the consequences of my actions has been ground into the fiber of my being from an early age thanks to that phenomenon.

It's not uncommon for the image of a town to change over time. In North Bend's hay day, it was a booming logging and fishing town. Since both of those industries have fallen into decline, North Bend is now best known for it's methamphetamine production and distribution. Along with the new industry has some a wave of retired Californians staking their claim in the area because of the large lots and cheap home prices. The irony is that the homes are cheap because no one wants to stay in a town with no hope for an industrial revival, and yet the blue hairs continue to roll in. Seeing my town change over the last 30 years has given me the gift of understanding that things change, and change isn't always bad. I embrace change, and I remain hopeful for a happy future in my endeavors.

I wish I could say that North Bend was culturally unique, but it really isn't. Of the roughly 9000 people who live in town, it's a safe assumption to make that most of them are American by birth. The small number of people who ended up in town, but are from a different part of the world, live a very different life. It's a life of forced assimilation. The nail that sticks out gets hammered. Even the Native American tribe of the area, the Coquille, mostly lives on the reservation outside of town. Being a man of color, I was quickly introduced to what racism was at the tender age of 5 by Mike Bollen who asked me simply "are you a n-word?" Needless to say, he didn't say "n word" he gave me full term. I went home that day and asked my mother what that word meant, and I was given an explanation that I still remember to this day. My mother said plainly "that word means hate. That word means fear. That word means refusal to love. You are not that word, that word is not you." As silly as it sounds, I would like to thank Mike Bollen for my introduction to ignorance. I've carried that day and his and my mothers words with me always. Mike is not North Bend, but there are many people just like Mike who call themselves proud citizens of my beloved town, and I'm grateful to them for showing me how not to live my life.

We will never forget our first love. I have had an ongoing love affair with North Bend since my family moved there in October of 1989. Previously, we lived in a suburb of the much larger Oregon town, Portland. Even at the time, Portland was big city and even at that age, I knew that downsizing to a small town would be hard. I can't say that I'm not grateful though. Living in a town roughly one tenth the size of the town you spent your early days in gave me the gift of knowing that bigger isn't always better. Despite the meth problem in North Bend, the crime rate is fairly low. It's a town where you can leave your doors unlocked more often than not and still feel safe. North Bend gave me a sense of security that I miss, now living in San Diego, California.

Playing sports my entire life, I was fortunate to be considered "good." I would make All Star teams for the sports I played in, and it was nice to be recognized. Whenever we would play teams from California, Texas, Arizona, and even Washington State, we could get clobbered. The larger states had larger talent pools, and had more to draw from. So, naturally, they were better. This was a bittersweet lesson, and I'm grateful that North Bend force fed it to me. There is always someone bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, richer, etc. out there. This was very obvious very early, but I count it as one of the more valuable lessons North Bend taught me. This little town in the middle of nowhere, whether it knew it or not, taught me humility. The willingness to be humbled but stay hungry. There are many ways to learn this lesson, but I wouldn't change my personal experience for the world.

Despite all of the things that North Bend showed me that hurt me, everything was part of expanding my snow globe. Being a North Bend resident showed me that I wanted nothing more than to leave. It showed me that I had a burning desire to expand my snow globe as rapidly as possible. It showed me that we have a choice in life to accept just what we see and question nothing or get out on our own and build our own human experience one moment at a time. I love North Bend for everything it is and everything it isn't. I wouldn't be half the man I am today without that sleepy little town on the Southern Oregon Coast.