Whale of a Tale

Growing up in Florence, OR, we had to be aware of the ocean every day. Every afternoon, the wind blew off the ocean.  When the surf was rough, we could hear it pounding from a mile or two away, and we could hear the whistle buoy  at the bar, sounding, a little lilt like it was asking a question at the end of its single note. ( In fact, in the 70s or so, when it was replaced with a whistler that didn't lilt, that sounded just one even note, everybody noticed and commented.)
     One night in about 1954, there was a tremendous explosion near Heceta Beach. Nobody ever figured out what it was, but there was speculation that it was a mine, left over from WW II, that had drifted out of some sea lane and had blown up upon impacting at the beach.
     From the hills north of town, where the highway approaches Devil's Elbow park and the Heceta Head Lighthouse, we could watch for the winter migration of gray whales, and see their distinctive spouts out at sea.
      We took countless family walks on the beach and combed the sand and the driftwood for treasures.  I came home with my pockets sagging full of agates and bits of sandstone with seashells fossilized into them.  Sometimes we found green glass globes, the floats from Japanese fishing nets, or light bulbs marked with Japanese text. For some time in the 1960s, our rubber boots would get coated with what looked like tar. I recognize now that it was crude oil. During the '60s, too, there was a spill at sea that washed cans of ale ashore. Their labels were gone before the beer hit the beach, but Vake and Buck and Sylvia would carry the cans home, check to see that they weren't leaking yet, and enjoy the ale.
     The rarest encounters were with whales that died and washed up on the beach, bearing a stink that matched their size. Florence became famous in 1972, when the State Highway Department decided to blow a whale apart to facilitate its deterioration, but they had no idea how much dynamite to use. The used plenty, a blew big hunks of whale carcass into the air and showered it down over the nearest parking lot. One piece demolished the passenger compartment, hood and truck of a large vehicle parked near by.  A news video documented the blast, and it can be seen at the Facebook website called "You Know You're From Florence, Oregon, When...." The next time whales washed ashore, it was a sad event, a massive kill-off of 20 some whales. Mark was home from medical school, working for the Forest Service, and was dispatched to help clean up the mess.  That's where he first began to hone his medical skills, carving whales with his chain saw.