I have been a beachcomber for over 60 years, we won’t say how many years over 60, but for a very long time. When I was young, I would visit my grandparents at their beach cabin on the northern Oregon coast. Their cabin was filled with Japanese glass floats they had gathered from the beach after wild storms. One time, my grandma took me down to the beach to look for floats. I found one. I was thrilled with the discovery; it was only years later that I realized that the float was too clean and polished to have just washed ashore: my grandma had planted it for me to find. She had also planted the seed for the thrill of discovery, which has remained with me to this day.
Fast forward to the past two weeks. Howard and I have been on a road trip down the Oregon coast. We stayed the first two nights in Newport, then moved on to Florence. As I was out for my first walk, I noticed little bits of plastic littering the beach. I am more than used to garbage and debris on beaches, horrified by the amount of trash people toss out and the damage it causes to birds and wildlife. After the Florence beach, we moved on to Bandon, and I wondered if I would find small broken bits of plastic there, too. Yes, sadly I did. These tiny pieces of colorful plastic bits were new to me and I started picking up the little shards, filling the pocket of my coat.
The next time I went for a walk, I took a plastic bag to collect my treasures and enlisted help from Howard, who is always such a good sport, even in the pouring down rain and wild wind.
I kept going for walks and kept collecting bits of plastic, and I also discovered other fun things: a little toy soldier, a rubber wheel off a tiny car, a plastic spoon. I delighted over finding pink or red pieces, and beautiful shades of turquoise.
After every walk I would go back to our cabin, dump all of the bits into a colander, carefully wash them in the sink, spread them out to dry, and then put them into a clean bag.
After several walks, I had quite a collection and started thinking about how to display these mosaic chips. One day while out junking, I discovered a silver platter for only $8 – it would be perfect and better than a jar, because with the round platter, people would be able to touch and move the pieces around and try and figure out what some of the odd pieces were in a former life before they were broken apart and smoothed by the sand and water.
I am sad for the pollution and litter people toss so easily, but glad to have cleaned up a miniscule portion of two beaches.
Post Script:
While beachcombing at a beach in Crescent City, I didn’t see a single piece of plastic, but I did discover a teeny tiny sand dollar. I almost fainted. I picked it up with pure joy, posed for a photo, kept walking, and found another one, even smaller than the first; it had the tiniest little pin hole right in the top. True gifts from the sea.
