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Wednesday, August 10, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
N
John
Kass
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
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ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
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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
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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.