2 Wednesday, August 10, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N John Kass American Voices Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: The “Letter to the Editor” in the August 3 newspaper from Duane C. Anderson was sunlight after a rainstorm. After all the nega- tive letters recently about what people do not like about living in Sisters, this letter was very refreshing. And by the way: A bad day in Sisters is better than a good day any place else. My parents, Lee and Bunny Morton, and my brothers Frank and Bob moved to Allingham Guard Station in the spring of 1948. The house had no electricity, a wood heat stove in the living room and a wood cook stove in the kitchen. We used kerosene lan- terns for light and mom had a gas-powered wringer washer and hung the clothes on the line outside. Adali Stevenson stopped to com- pliment mom on the beautiful laundry on the line and had a cup of coffee. Carl DeMoye was the lookout on Black Butte and we would trail supplies and mail to him by burro; I was four, Bob was five and Frank was eight. Price Garlington was the cook for the summer crew. He had only one arm and made the best big cookies ever. Each summer there would be a new crew to pile brush and there was also a trail crew that took burros and cleared mountain trails. I remember all the fun the trail crew had with the burros on their two-week trips to clear mountain trails. I remember Bill and Faye Brown. Clarence and Kathryn Smith owned the Camp Sherman Store and Post Office — and a 10-cent ice cream cone was a masterpiece. It broke my heart when they tore down the Allingham Guard Station house, and now the rest of the buildings. It is like removing our history; but it lives in our souls. The jumps off the Allingham bridge into the cold Metolius River were classic. There are so many memo- ries from those days and I treasure every one of them. I hope you read this, Duane C. Anderson of Tualatin. Thank you for the trip down memory lane and a moment in time that will never be equaled. Virginia “Vandy” Morton West s s s See LEttErs on page 14 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday Monday Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny 80/45 87/48 91/51 92/47 82/44 83/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. The presidential debates, or as I’d rather call them, “Mortal Combat: Death of the Republic,” will decide things. These days, Americans decide a candidate’s quali- fications not by what a can- didate has honestly accom- plished or whether they tell the truth, but by how well candidates perform talking and spinning. Talking and spinning has nothing to do with making decisions. But weirdly, it helps convince Americans that the candidates know what they’re doing. President Obama’s verbal skills certainly helped elect him president in 2008 and win re-election four years later. And even though the economy crawls along at a less than 2 percent growth rate, and millions more Americans are on food stamps than ever before, and millions have just quit look- ing for jobs so they’re not even counted on the unem- ployment rolls, and Europe is imploding, the president certainly is a smooth and supple talker, isn’t he? Unfortunately, the prob- lem with a Hillary-Donald debate is that neither one is particularly supple in the verbal arts. Trump is clumsy and Clinton is smooth, but a large majority of Americans consider her to be a patho- logical liar, which might cost her. Perhaps it won’t cost her against Trump. He’s a ter- rible debater, just lousy at it. Let’s admit it right now. He has a tendency to brag, like the guy down the street with the new luxury car, telling you he got such a deal, while you’re driving a boring gray sedan like the one in my driveway. Stylistically, Trump also yells and sighs and makes idiotic faces when oth- ers are attempting to talk, which puts him right there in Al Gore debate disaster territory. Clinton’s problem is that nobody listens to her because we’re concentrating on watching her nose grow. And she has a tendency to make her eyes big and show teeth and nod her head when she thinks she’s got her opponent cornered, like a mean matronly aunt in a stuffy living room on one of those Sunday-afternoon vis- its from hell. Neither option is all that attractive. So we might as well change the rules to make the Trump-Clinton debates a true mortal combat. And, make zillions of dollars for a federal government that is so needy, it can never afford a tax cut. All that’s required is some Roman gladiator gear and a nation shouting, “Enough talking already!” See the taller Donald with trident and net, Hillary armed with a short sword and one of those cool chain mail sleeves. The high priests of journalism read the entrails of birds. And various TV talking heads act as cut men to stanch the flow, as a focus group mob of demo- graphically correct taxpayers chant “Are we entertained?! Are we ENTERTAINED!?” If things get rough for Hillary, a few tigers may be unleashed from the arena floor. Just remember CNN’s Candy Crowley in 2012, rushing up out of the sand to rip the face off of timid Republican Mitt Romney when Obama needed help on the Benghazi issue. And in another 2012 debate, President Obama slapped the Republican some more, saying how Romney was foolish to sug- gest Russia could ever be a strategic threat, “You said Russia,” Obama said sharply. “And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because the Cold War has been over for 20 years.” Obama laughed and was credited with the great zinger of the debate season. Many congratulated Obama on his wit, as if he were Voltaire. Russia? Why the nerve of that idiotic Romney! Really, how perfectly ridiculous. Romney, tail between his legs, faded. But it wasn’t long before Vladimir Putin began slapping the president around, flexing Russia’s muscle in Eastern Europe, in Asia, in Syria and Iran. That proves you can win a debate, and lose, too. © 2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.