DATE: Monday, November 3, 1997              TAG: 9711010065

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   79 lines

SINGING SANDS WERE NOT TO BE HEARD

I AM STILL miffed with my son, daughter-in-law and Princess Liberal Right-Thinker about the singing sands.

A couple of weeks back, we had gathered on the Oregon coast at an inexpensive lodge overlooking a creek at Cannon Beach for a few days of vacation.

For about four days we roamed through parks, walked on the beach and toured the northeastern coast of Oregon where the broad sweep of the Pacific is visible through Douglas firs, hemlocks and redwoods in elevated old-growth forests hugging the shore.

There was general agreement on the beauty of the scenery in that rugged corner of the country. But nobody, except me, wanted any part of singing sands.

After breakfast each morning, as the day's schedule - which usually turned around the mood of my 5-month-old grandson - was established, I made it a point to mention this curiosity of nature only a few miles distant.

``It's right here in this guide book,'' I explained. ``It says walkers on the beach are enchanted by the singing sands, which bring music to their ears as they walk beside the sea.''

Well, of course, Princess Liberal Right-Thinker vetoed the idea right away. She has to know everything about a place before she will set foot there.

``What,'' she wanted to know, ``do the sands sing?''

I told her I didn't know but was sure it was something appropriate and that when Walt Whitman wrote ``I Hear America Singing,'' those sands were surely part of what he had in mind.

Then my son, Larry - who has always been a troublemaker - wanted to know whether the sands sang in unison like a chorus or whether some of the sand sang one thing while another patch was singing another.

They beat anything I've ever heard.

So instead of having our ears enchanted by the sound of singing sands, we set out for an hour's drive to Astoria, Ore., to tour the Columbia River Maritime Museum, located on the river's bank.

To be fair, it was a very interesting museum, with old ship anchors, skiffs for fishing salmon, old photographs of salmon canneries, lighthouse lenses, fog horns and any number of curios from the river.

But baby Brett - bless him - had seen enough after 10 minutes and began to whimper, his interest in old navigational lights having its limits. Then he began to cry a little before really tuning up and becoming a small siren.

His mother, Tracy, carried him outside in her arms, and we all followed, sitting in their minivan, the baby in full cry.

The baby didn't want his bottle. Rocking did very little good. We were all going crazy from the noise, and things got pretty dicey in the van, people getting short with one another.

``Tune the radio to a country music station!'' Tracy yelled from the back seat of the van, where she rocked Brett back and forth as he wailed.

``WHY DO WE WANT TO DO THAT?'' I shouted above the crying, as Larry tuned in a country music song titled ``Hard Liquor, Soft Women, Easy Money.''

His mother shouted from the back seat that the baby was extremely fond of country music songs in general - for reasons not fully understood.

It was true. That song must have been one of the baby's particular favorites, for it had an immediately soothing effect. He began to coo and wiggle his toes.

Amazing.

As we drove back to Cannon Beach and the lodge, I had the poor judgment to mention that if we had just gone to hear the singing sands, it would have spared us a lot of trouble.

``Nobody would have stared at us because of the crying,'' I explained.

Princess Liberal Right-Thinker said I could forget about the singing sands, because no one wanted to go there. She claimed she wouldn't go to hear them if they were performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Then Larry piped up and said he didn't think the baby would be interested either unless the sands sang country music, which he didn't think sand did in that part of the country.

Every time I brought the singing sands up, they told me to forget it.

So I never got to hear the phenomenon. But I've got a newspaper friend in Oregon who has promised to mail me a cigar box filled with the singing sand. He claims I can put it by the bed at night and it will sing a lullaby to put me to sleep.

And I don't doubt singing sand has the power to do just that. They all yawned at the mere mention of it on our Oregon trip.

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