November 12

I have no way of knowing, but considering the time and place, these rocket scientists may have been breathing a little too much Oregon air. On the 12th in 1970, a dead sperm whale washed ashore in Florence, Oregon. Trust me on this one, after a couple of days a dead cetacean weighing about eight tons starts to get just a little ripe. I can testify to the fact that the while beaches along the Oregon coast are always cold, they are not an adequate substitute for proper refrigeration. In Oregon, all beaches are under the jurisdiction of the state’s Parks and Recreation Department. Curiously, the task of removing Moby (the whale, not the musician) from Florence’s lovely waterfront fell to the very capable Oregon Highway Division. Apparently, after meeting with members of the United States Navy, it was decided to use the same techniques that would be appropriate for removing a very large boulder from a highway: just blow the darn thing up. Taking into consideration the fact that this was a very big whale and quite dead, they figured that 1000 pounds of dynamite out to do the trick. The resulting explosion scattered blubber over a wide area, crushing a car and showering areas well away from the beach with icky whale guts. What do you think the workers from the Highway Department saw when the smoke cleared? Go ahead take a guess. If you guessed that they saw a very large, very disfigured, very large dead whale still on the beach you win a prize. Rather, you would have won a prize if I had taken any steps to hold a contest and provide one, which I haven’t.

Frank Herbert wrote a great portion of his Dune series while visiting Florence, Oregon to research an article he was writing on the Department of Agriculture’s coastal management program.