Have You Ever Heard 18,000 People Gasp In Unison??
Damon Lillard has never been to the Oregon Coast. Say it ain't so....
When you live in Portland, OR, there are a few cultural norms of which people assume you’ll avail yourself. None of the expectations are particularly difficult or demanding. And they have the advantate of being quite beautiful and an awful lot of fun. There’s Mt. Hood and Timberline Lodge. There’s the Oregon Wine Country. There’s Multnomah Falls and the Columbia Gorge. And then there’s my personal favorite, the Oregon Coast.
The first place I ever saw the ocean was in Manzanita. I was 21 (that happens when you grow up in a land-locked state), and I’d come out to visit my then-girlfriend, later-to-be-(now-ex)wife, who was from Portland. We’d met as students at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. So when she invited me to come out for a visit, I was excited to finally have a chance to see the Pacific Ocean.
I fell in love with the ocean on that trip. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to have visited ocean beaches in several parts of the world, but my favorite remains the Oregon Coast. Perhaps it’s the memory of how it all started. Still, it’s an extraordinarily special place for me, and my only request when I die is to have my ashes scattered at Manzanita and Oceanside (just outside Tillamook).
Oregonians tend to assume that people will as a matter of course visit the places I’ve mentioned. It’s part of who we are and what we come to appreciate through living in a place gifted with such an abundance of natural beauty. So it came as quite a shock when we learned that one of our heroes- Portland Trail Blazer point guard Damian Lillard- has fallen short of that expectation.
“This is embarrassing,” Lillard admits, “but I haven’t been to the coast in all these years.”….
Oregon’s most famous resident has never experienced one of the state’s most cherished treasures.
WAIT…WHAT???
Now in his 11th season in Portland, it’s not as if Dame Time hasn’t had plenty of time to head west for a bit of beach R & R.
You could be forgiven for wanting to give Lillard the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it’s a long drive, and with all of his responsibilities, maybe he just hasn’t been able to find the time for such a long trek.
Well, you’d be wrong- WAY wrong. According to Google Maps, from my home in north Portland to Manzanita, it’s all of 84-miles- a one-hour and 53-minute drive. You have to crest the Coast Range, which at its highest point in northwest Oregon, is about 1600 feet above sea level. It’s an easy drive, except for the few times during the winter when it gets a wee bit o’ snow and ice.
You don’t even need a map or GPS. Just point your car west on Hwy. 26, follow the signs, and eventually you’re going to hit the ocean.
And yet Damian Lillard hasn’t taken his family over the Coast Range and onward to the Pacific Ocean? In 11 years? How is that even possible?
Lillard likely had no idea that he would spark a controversy with his revelation. His comment appeared during a prerecorded bit Monday night on the big screen at Moda Center during a first-half timeout. The game was either-or.
You know, steak or fish (“Fish”), horror or comedy (“Comedy”), sunrise or sunset (“Sunrise”). Then he was asked to choose between the Oregon coast and Multnomah Falls.
Ever heard 18,000 people gasp?
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Lillard later said, wryly.
As someone who grew up in a coastal town without a stop light, the kind of place where fog rests on meadows like a scene from “Brigadoon,” I have a responsibility to preserve local secrets. I know the skeptical eye locals cast at the notion of more Portlanders infiltrating our little communities.
No one’s talking about the Lillard clan moving en masse to Lincoln City or Gearhart, though I doubt anyone would have a problem with that. The shock was in the realization that in 11 years, Damian Lillard has never crested the Coast Range to experience the Oregon Coast.
That seems almost criminal to someone who didn’t grow up in Oregon but now considers it home. How do you live in Portland for 11 years and not drive 84 miles to the west? Especially when he missed most of last year after having abdominal surgery. He didn’t have a day or three when he could’ve taken his family for a drive down Hwy. 101 from, say, Astoria to Coos Bay?
(They could stop for coffee at what, IMHO, is the best coffee shop in the world- Wanda’s in Nehalem.)
I cherish the excursions Erin and I make to the Oregon Coast like no other trips we take. It’s my happy place. I can sit and listen to the waves come in and out for hours. There’s something magical and hypnotic about the rhythmic sound; I can look at the waves and know they looked the same 5000 years ago as they do today. And, unless humanity @#$%s things up with the changing climate, they’ll look and sound the same 5000 years from now. Listening and becoming part of that is very humbling. But to think of the constancy and inviolability of the process- moment after moment, year after year, millennia after millennia- is awe-inspiring.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that one could live in Oregon for 11 years and never follow the sunset a mere 84 miles to the west. Of course, we have friends who have beach houses in Manzanita, so we always have a reason to go to the coast for a visit. We’ve also stayed at inns and hotels up and down the coast. One of our favorites is the Adrift Hotel in Long Beach, WA, just a few miles across the Columbia River from Astoria, OR. It’s dog friendly, which makes it one of our favorite places to bring Magnus, the world’s best dog, who loves to run on the beach like his butt’s on fire.
After this (tragic?) news broke, I suspect Damian Lillard will have no shortage of volunteers offering to take him to the Oregon Coast and show him around. Hell, I’d even volunteer. I could pick him up in Portland or at his Toyota dealership in McMinnville, and I’d happily show him why I’ve spent years trying to talk Erin into retiring on the Oregon Coast.
You can’t live in Oregon for 11 years without seeing the Pacific Ocean. That would be like having pizza without ever having tomato sauce. Sure, I suppose you could do it, but why would you even want to?
Please, will someone- ANYONE- get that man to Cannon Beach immediately??