PSU Magazine Summer 1987

Making (a) room for Melville I t was to be an "oceanfront bed and breakfast for book lovers," with rooms named after authors. And there were no plans for a Herman Melville Room? Nathan Cogan, PSU English professor, thought this was a terrible oversight, so he and his wife Sara ('83 MPA) agreed to help create one. The Melville Room is now one of twenty rooms decorated by volunteers for the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a renovated apart– ment house on the Newport, Ore. beach. The hotel is named after the owner of a Paris bookshop that was headquarters for the "lost generation" in the 1920s and 1930s. Co-owner Goody Cable, a patron of the arts herself, recruited the Cogans one night at her Portland coffee and dessert establishment, Rimsky Korsakoffeehouse (where the tables are named after different composers). "One of our hobbies is restoring furni– ture and houses," said Sara, who has been a refugee coordinator for the City of Portland for the last five years. The Cogans' luckiest find was a bed– stead someone had left behind in the apartment building, a 19th century replica that the Cogans refinished to look authentic. From the New Bedford (Mass.) Whaling Museum, they bought prints of sailing ships which they framed themselves. Two 100-year-old captain chairs, a curved-glass mirror, a captain's chest and a whale door– knocker added to the sea captain motif. The finishing touch in the Melville Room was a copy of Moby-Dick. "Moby-Dick is one of my favorite books," said Nathan. But for the pro– fessor, who is a "Shakespeare person," the real connection with Melville goes back to his childhood in Bath, Maine. "I grew up on the sea," he said, "in the biggest shipbuilding city in the country. The clippers that Melville Nathan and Sara ('83 MPA) Cogan relax in the room they decorated/or the Sylvia Beach Hotel, a book lovers' haunt in Newport, Oregon. went out on and which he wrote about in his stories were probably built in Bath." Now when the Cogans want to visit "the watery part of the world," they can stay at the Sylvia Beach Hotel for free, seven days a year for five years in return for their volunteer work. The only problem is choosing a room. Will it be Mark Twain? Colette? Emily Janice Yaden Continued from page 13 Rep. Ron Wyden's legislative assistant for health care and aging affairs. In 1984 she earned a master's degree in health services administration from George Washington University, and then went to work for Northwest Strategies, a Portland consulting firm. When Goldschmidt needed someone to work on health care issues in his race for the governor's seat, he recruited . Yaden, who had been a volunteer in his first City Council campaign years before. She was among the new PSU MAGAZINE PAGE 20 Dickinson? Edgar Allen Poe? Dr. Seuss? Dr. Seuss? This room, complete with a bigger-than-life mural of the Cat in the Hat, was provided by PSU alums Pat ('75 MST) and Dale ('66) Walhood. "The 'roomers' are real diverse and interesting," said Sara. "And I love the emphasis of the hotel - on reading, relaxing and conversation." governor's first appointees early this year. Her work is intense, but so is the enjoyment she gets out of it. Working for Goldschmidt, she says, is "wonderful. He is absolutely the most exciting person I have ever worked for. "I feel there 's a real strong expectation level that I don 't think has been around for a long time," she says. "A feeling that things are going to get done, both in state government, in the legislature and among the constituency groups." PSu I •