Cannon Beach Gazette: Stories

While Cannon Beach resident Richard Ortez has had many milestones throughout his 70-some years of living, when the April 2008 edition of “Generator & Distributor” magazine came in the mail recently he found himself looking at a new one.

Founded by the Vintage Chevrolet Club of America, Inc., the magazine has been a favorite of Ortez for many years. He had always admired the cars and the features on the people whose passion he shared for authentic vehicles. On a lark, he had sent in his own story and photos, about how his fascination with Chevrolets dates back to the 1940s. “For me,” the story reads, “it’s been Chevrolet and apple pie in that order.”

Ortez said he had no idea if the story would make it into the magazine so when he opened up his box at the Cannon Beach Post Office and pulled out the April edition, his heart skipped a beat. There was his 1939 Master 85 Business Coupe, standard model, parked in front of his Cannon Beach store, Sabra J’s Attic, right smack dab on the cover.

“I have always been fascinated by the people who make the front cover of the magazine, although I never dreamt I would make it,” he said. “I sat in the car for 20 minutes. I was in shock.”

Since he was a boy growing up in west Los Angeles, Ortez had fantasized about someday owning a 1939 Chevy. “I’ve always been fascinated by automobiles,” he said. “I always took the time to try to study the different cars, the years and the models. As a young boy I’d go to the wrecking yards and look at older cars.”

At the age of 17, he purchased two Master 85 Business Coupes for $15 and $25 and combined them to make “one nice 1939 Coupe.” It was the first in a long string of antique cars he would collect and own over the years.

One day, as he was working underneath an old car at a Mobil Station, three girls came by. One of the girls, Diane, he married in 1956 and has been his wife for more than 50 years.

“In my younger days I was a ‘leg man’ and from my position I couldn’t see their faces I could only see their legs -- so I picked out the one with the best legs. She happened to be attached to those,” he said with a laugh.

Lucky for Ortez, Diane shared in a love of cars. Soon both of them were working on his vehicle, Diane making a pair of blue garters to hang in the rearview mirror, while he tinkered under the hood.

“Fortunately, I’ve always appreciated and enjoyed cars of the 1940s and 1950s,” she said. “I spent a lot of time when we were dating helping him. I love the cars he’s had off and on through our entire marriage.”

Still, after four children joined the family, the cars always had to be the first things to go when times got tight. But throughout his career, first as a mechanic for the military, later as a machinist for F-14 fighter landing gear, and then as a Northwest area sales manager, his love affair with them has continued.

After retiring from serving as a sales manager based out of Portland, the couple moved to Cannon Beach. They built a house on a lot across from the elementary school and, in 1997, bought the house next door that had been a flower shop. After gutting the building, it was remodeled based on a storefront they had seen in movie. The name

“Sabra J’s Attic” came from Diane’s great-grandmother who, as a widow, opened a store by the same name in Chicago in 1905.

“This building looks identical to the one she had except for the placement of the door,” Ortez said.

Sabra J’s Attic has changed in its 10 years in business, starting off as a Victorian-themed antique store and espresso bar and now offering a range of mostly new items from baby clothes to home décor. When Ortez had a bad fall in 2002, Diane had to cut back in order to take care of him and eliminated the coffee bar.

“What we really enjoy about the shop is what people come in,” Ortez said. “They’re not customers, they’re guests.”

While the couple, who admit they are in the “fall of their life,” say they are looking for what their next step should be, right now they are both content where they are. Between running the store and cruising around town in one of Ortez’s three shiny vintage cars — a 1925 Model T Coupe, a 1927 Chevrolet Capitol and the 1939 Master 85 Business Coupe — life is pretty good.