It has already been almost 36 years ago, on April 11,1984 to be exact (according to my old records) and I was finishing a performance tour of my Mark Twain show for all of the Timberland Libraries situated near the Pacific Ocean coast. The tour started in Amanda Park in the north and was now ending at the South Bend library with the final show in the series. As usual, I carried my stage props in my pickup truck and slept in a small travel trailer I pulled behind me. When I arrived in South Bend there was no place to park my caravan by the library. So I followed a suggestion to spend the night at a place called “The Sou’Wester Lodge” in the community of Seaview — just south of Long Beach.
The Sou’Wester turned out to be a large three-story building that had once been the summer home of a senator from Oregon and was now a lodge with hookups for travel trailers and with a few “retired” mobile abodes nearby, some of which sported murals on their sides painted by artists in lieu of cash. Those owners were Len and Miriam Atkins, and I don’t believe any of us could have predicted the lifetime camaraderie we would come to share.
Len came to my show that night and we agreed that I would do another performance in June at the lodge. Little did we know (to quote an old dramatic phrase) that it would be the first of an eventual 14 shows I was to do there. Len claimed it was 15 but I think he may have included the original library performance. My records show 14, the last of which was 20 years later, on Dec. 11, 2004.
Both Len and Miriam were born in South Africa but moved away when they could no longer live in the “Apartheid” atmosphere that existed there. They went to Israel to live and work on a Kibbutz until Len accepted an invitation to join and work with the well-known child psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Spok. They wanted a place of their own, though, something on the order of Esalen Institute in Big Sur, on the California coast, but smaller. So they pulled up stakes and hit the road in search of such a place. According to Len, they decided within an hour after they first saw the Sou’wester that they had found it. They could continue doing their healing of troubled minds, but on their own time and under their own conditions.
The Sou’wester took on a character of its own as well. After they searched for furniture to complete the furnishing of several units, the decor could best be described as “garage sale chic.” Few people minded that not many items matched. In fact, there was a tablet on each bedside stand in most units where lodgers could write their opinions on anything they wanted. Sometimes guests took them home when they left, just to preserve the feeling of being there. I saw only one negative opinion in the years I scanned those remaining tablets — delightful writings, poetry and sketches — and that was from an apparent perfectionist who probably became angry because he or she couldn’t call for a bottle of expensive brandy to be sent up to the room.
If Miriam noted a particularly stunning picture in a magazine, it might end up thumb-tacked to a wall until a suitable frame could be found. A desk in their kitchen had once been an old pump organ. Potted plants and large carvings filled the covered porch that framed the building on two sides.
Darn! I’m already past the end of my customary 600 word limit. You can be certain that at least “Volume Two” shall follow.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
