Day 38, Friday March 22: Ferndale, California to Coos Bay, Oregon

Carnegie libraries visited: None.

Ferndale is the gateway to California’s Lost Coast, the least developed portion of California, with steep mountains plunging into the surf. Ferndale itself is five miles inland. The entire town is registered as a California historic landmark, and it's magical in the mist. Its population hasn’t budged much since it applied for a Carnegie grant; in its application, the town had “about 1600” residents, while the 2020 census showed a population of 1400.

After a moist night in Goldfinger, where I parked across the street from the library, I headed over to the Mind’s Eye Manufactory and Coffee Lounge. Mind’s Eye is on Main Street, which is lined with “Butterfat Palaces,” the well-preserved Victorian-style businesses financed by the local dairy farms. Mind’s Eye wears a Victorian skirt while inside is a world of arts and crafts. The owner’s passion is building canoes based on Alaskan native traditions, and one of his creations was hanging on the wall. The pig-tailed server rang up my latte on the vintage register, and I took a seat against the wall under the boat.

One of the first things I do in the morning is read the New York Times on my phone. My mind frequently churns with micro moral dilemmas regarding such trivial tasks. Should I pay to subscribe to the New York Times, or should I read it for free through my public library? I could easily do either on my phone. I believe in supporting public libraries by using their services. Any service I use will be duly recorded and used by the library to justify its budget. I also know that high quality journalism is expensive, and that the Times (and other honest sources) receive revenue from my personal subscription that it would not if I used the library’s site license. It is also easier to read directly through my Times app than it is to access it through the library.

Convenience triumphs: I’ve decided to read the Times through my app subscription. I would like to think that I am doing this because it gives the newspaper more revenue, but the real reason is probably because it is easier to do so. We humans have a tendency to justify our self-interested actions with more lofty ideals.

Traveling north on US 101 I pass through the villages Moonstone, Big Lagoon, Berry Glen, Klamath (and its evil twin, False Klamath) and miles of the Redwood National and State Parks, home to the tallest trees in the world. The National Park Service advises me not to try to find the very tallest one, as its location is now closed to the public and trespassers are subject to a $5000 fine and up to six months in jail. No worries: awesome trees abound along the Newtown B. Drury Scenic Parkway, the ten mile diversion I take off US 101. Rain falls all morning. I drive in silence, admiring everything and photographing nothing. 

My first stop is in Eureka, twenty miles north. A solitary man holding a white garbage bag and a green umbrella is walking into the library. On Main Street, a wooden boat has been converted into a dining area outside an oyster bar; across the street, the blue Nissan pickup proudly proclaims that it is Powered by Jesus.

Next: Crescent City, where the library looks like a mobile home. The “public” part of the public library expresses strong, and sharply differing, opinions of it. One recent five-star review gushes, “As I settled into my new life here, I spent hours walking between school and the library, immersed in studying and reading, which ignited a fire within me…They provide outstanding classes tailored to kids of diverse ages and needs.” Another reviewer spits: 

In four words: do not go in..I spent three days in this library. And of all the hundreds of libraries I have ever worked in around the world, this one is one of the worse [sic] in USA only…I felt like I was in prison here. Cold, noisy, and a toilet on request. When you add to that the number of homeless people around the building who live directly in the parking lot designated for the library, I can only write that you will feel better elsewhere.

The library received far more five star than one star reviews, with the praise usually given to the library staff (“the employees are the best I’ve ever encountered, and I truly enjoy the way they work so well together, almost like family, you can definitely sense that they enjoy their time working with each other and enjoy their work”) and the complaints focused on noise and the presence of the disruptors:

I had a problem with a crazy guy the other day at the computer's (sic) and she didn't even make him leave when I told her what he did so I left to avoid more problems without getting anything done. I won't be coming back. It's sad you let the crazies do what they want to us decent people who mind our own business. 

As the rain lets up, I continue north along the coast: the Chetco Community Library in Brookings, the Curry Public Library in Gold Beach, the Port Orford Public Library, and the Langlois Public Library.

Langlois (pop. 177) was famous, so it was written, for its blue cheese until the factory making it burned down in the 1950s and was never rebuilt. (The “Langlois Cheese Factory” does live on, in name, as an event venue.) The village has an RV campground, a small grocery, a fire station, the excellent Floras Creek Coffee Company, and a public library. Not seeing it until I was almost passed – it’s hard to see from the Oregon Coastal Highway – I jammed on the brakes, hung a louie, and cut the engine. It was 5.15 pm, fifteen minutes after closing time. 

Three women were loitering outside and, after taking a few mediocre pictures of the library (not the fault of the scene, but of the photographer) I strolled over to talk with them. I wasn’t prepared for an interview, and I didn’t take notes on our conversation, which was a shame because they gave an enthusiastic and knowledgeable library tour. They – the library’s director, the chair of the Library Board, and one other staffer – showed me with pride items in the library’s collection: the book A Girl From Yamhill, by Beverly Cleary, a local writer whose children and young adult books sold 91 million copies; a love letter from the Portland author Brian Doyle, who had given a talk at the library; a dragon made from the construction paper cut-out hands of the library’s users; the delightful Museum of Tiny Things that had been installed in the drawers of the old card catalogue. My guides didn’t rush and they didn’t push. They were justifiably proud of their library. They asked only that I send them a copy of my (proposed) book, and I promised them I would do so.