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Java Dave Goes Home
On the way to the wave energy show in Newport yesterday, Emily and I stopped in to see a familar Philomath face.
It was my third or fourth trip to this small logging town, starting with our show looking back at the Clemens Foundation college scholarships.
The first time, we heard about the anger surrounding the decision to go from having a two-way main street to a "couplet" of two one-way streets. At the center of that anger — at least for me — was "Java" Dave Campbell, who ran a coffee shop on one of the affected streets. On all my subsequent visits through town I'd stop in to say hi, grab a bagel and get some gossip. He was always the same: adamant that the couplet had literally divided a community and hobbled local businesse and unfailingly warm and cheery.
I assumed that's what I'd find yesterday, as well, but got a bit of a surprise instead. Dave is selling his coffee shop, and "retiring" to his house in the hills where he'll roast beans and sell chocolate and wine.
His cafe-parting words — written on an anti-couplet t-shirt that Emily bought as a souvenir: "The road/economy and life... I left, happily, with futuristic thoughts of fun."
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I think the Philomath street couplet is an improvement from a traffic-flow standpoint, but I can see where it might detract from "main street" feel.
Some hang onto the past and don't think of change as leading to improvement or new possibilities?
Interesting show in Newport. Very complex topic with many of the points addressed. I do wonder about the cost/benefit analysis though. Commercial wave generators to produce only 10 percent of Oregon's electricty WANT? (How much electricity does Oregon truly NEED?)
Wave energy seems a potentially expensive (ecologically as well as financially) solution for a problem I'm not sure exists. We have to be better conservators of resources which is counter to our American lifestyle based on excess and "progress".