18
Wednesday, June 5, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Oregon
votes to ban
restaurants
from offering
plastic straws
By Sarah Zimmerman
In the
PINES
By T. Lee Brown
Associated Press
SALEM (AP) 4 Oregon
will ban restaurants from auto-
matically offering single-use
plastic straws under a measure
passed by lawmakers, mak-
ing it the second state to enact
restrictions on plastic straws.
The House voted 48-12
late Wednesday night to pro-
hibit restaurants from provid-
ing single-use plastic straws
unless a customer asks. Drive-
thrus could still offer straws,
as could healthcare facilities.
California previously
passed limits on plastic straws.
Gov. Kate Brown told
reporters Thursday the move
is about raising public con-
sciousness of plastic9s effects
on the environment and is
meant to encourage more
environmentally friendly life-
style changes.
<Raising awareness to
show the extent that we9re
so reliant on plastic is really
important,= she said.
On the floor, lawmakers
discussed a widely shared
2015 video showing a sea
turtle in distress as scientists
remove a plastic straw stuck
up its nose, which led to pub-
lic outcry and moved cities
and companies like Starbucks
and Whole Foods to eliminate
their use of plastic straws.
But the video, which has
more than 35 million views on
YouTube, didn9t completely
move House Republicans,
who said that restricting
straws makes little differ-
ence to the environment and
will only cause bureaucratic
headaches.
The old ways
One day a few years back,
I staked out my favorite table
in the bustling coffeehouse.
It was an antique school
desk, wobbly and funky,
resting near the great stone
hearth.
I was new to Sisters. I9d
visited many times, but now
I actually lived here. We
camped in a little trailer in
Deschutes National Forest.
Then we bounced around
furnished homes, from Black
Butte Ranch to Pine Meadow
Village.
Sisters Coffee, with its
brews and breakfasts and
friendly strangers, felt more
like home than our rentals.
I liked the people, the taxi-
dermy, the cowboy pictures
on the wall4and, tucked
inside a bathroom, one photo
of cowgirls.
I set down my antler mug
of decaf that day and com-
menced eavesdropping. At
the big slab table behind me
sat five or six white men. On
their heads, on the table, sat
five or six hats: trucker, cow-
boy, baseball.
I9d smiled as I walked
past, but none met my eye
nor smiled back. Perhaps this
was the old-school crowd
I9d heard about: the unwel-
coming, closed-off core of
Sisters.
The topic of discussion
was deer in the road. There
was enough camo at the table
to suggest the roads were not
the only source of venison
nearby.
I wished I were a hunter,
wished I knew whether I had
the guts to pull the trigger
on a beautiful buck. I grew
up raising cattle but did not
kill the animals. A mobile
slaughter van came around
for that.
The conversation had
a slow, expansive quality.
Everyone quieted when the
eldest gentleman spoke. He
held forth wonderfully on
the subject of a moose in the
road, a moose (somewhere,
some years ago; this was a
story, after all) that would
not move no matter what
the automobiles and their
humans did.
The men moved on to dis-
cussing weaponry. One guy
described a safety mecha-
nism on his revolver, and
was corrected by another
explaining the difference
between a revolver and a
pistol.
There was irritation in
both voices. <I know, I know.
This was a semiautomatic.=
The safety he described
reminded me of the Glock
27 I took out for a spin once.
You just kind of squeeze the
trigger halfway and that9s
<safety off,= you9re ready to
shoot.
A law officer friend told
me you should never draw
a handgun unless you9re
prepared to shoot, and you
should never shoot unless
you9re prepared to kill. At the
range, I almost didn9t shoot
the little Glock at all. To do
so would be to acknowl-
edge that I am capable of
killing.
Bang, bang. I was sur-
prised how many shots found
their mark.
At the coffeehouse, Nick
Drake came on over the ste-
reo. An upset gal in thick
makeup talked to a man
whose face glowed blue
from his laptop screen, open
to Facebook. Coffee-klatsch
moms grouped at the counter
in their puffy jackets.
The men began what
sounded like a well-worn
discussion: <We don9t call
911= in an emergency, and
<I figure havin9 an unloaded
gun around the house is like
havin9 a car with no gas.=
But when these fellows
imagined guns in the city,
in the hands of <urban= peo-
ple, their attitudes changed.
Their Portland didn9t sound
like mine, though I lived in
Northeast Portland for years.
Theirs sounded terrifying,
with gang bangers on every
corner.
Portland State University
was brought up. <Too many
________,= said one man.
<It9s a liberal school,=
another agreed.
I imagined what it would
feel like to be a ________,
stopping for coffee on my
way through Sisters, Oregon,
to overhear that conversa-
tion in a room full of white
people.
This was before the
Great Emboldening of 2016.
Nevertheless, I felt like a
trespasser on the men9s terri-
tory. As I might do in a for-
eign country, I sat with my
anger and discomfort, silent.
Most of the men spoke
in a <country= dialect famil-
iar across America. Funny,
though; I heard one of
them use that rural accent
to describe growing up not
on the farm, not out on the
range, but in a city.
My own accent is a mean-
dering Western one, suggest-
ing nowhere in particular.
Yet, it occurred to me, per-
haps I had just as much right
to Central Oregon as the men
at the adjoining table.
Perhaps
all
the
____________ did, too.
None of us was the first
one here. Indigenous peoples
had that honor.
Sisters Coffee feels differ-
ent these days. Slick prints of
coffee beans adorn the walls
where the cowboys and cow-
girls once hung. The antique
desk is gone from the hearth-
side, replaced by a proper
table. I can9t help but miss
them.
In Sisters, as in the city
I escaped from, the old-
schoolers and their tradi-
tions may get swamped by
newcomers& swamped
until there is nothing left to
save of the old, nothing that
hasn9t already been placed
under glass or reproduced on
a T-shirt.
It9s an awful thought.
But some of the old ways
aren9t worth preserving.
— Richard
Richaar d Esterman
E s t e r m a n Presents
Prre s e n ts —
Creekside Park • Hwy
Hwy.
y . 20 & Jeff
ff erson Ave.
Saturday
Saturd
d a y 1
10
0 ÷ ÷÷-5
÷ -5
5 ö ö÷
÷ • S Sunday
u n d a y 1 10
0 ÷ ÷÷-4
÷ -4 ö÷
Beautiful Variety
of Arts & Crafts
Sisters Dental
is uniting with our neighbor
Homemade Italian
Pasta, Gelato,
Sandwiches & Salads
Local Produce
GET $1 OFF
ANY ENTRÉE!
Wednesdays in June!
Open at Eurosports Food Cart
Garden, Wed.-Sun. for Lunch
& Dinner | 816-866-6673
Everson Family
Dentistry!
Enterrt a i n m e n t
Increased & More Flexible Hygiene Appointments
Expanded Dental Care Services
Same Compassionate Dental Team!
Special Fundraiser
Benefi tting Central Oregon
Shows Foundation
541-549-9486 | www.sistersdental.com
anks to
Special Ga th
sort,
rden RV Re
Trevor Frideres D . M . D .
Greg Everson D . M . D .
Saturday
S
a t u r d a y & S
Sunday
u n d a y
S C O T T B R O W N
rs
Bend/Siste Mix 100.7, News
KSJJ 102.9, Store, Davis Tire,
Your
,
21
Store,
Channel
al, The UPS
Sisters Rent ab, Pony Express,
Les Schw Stop Market
ail
Cascade Tr
NE
FAMILY FUN ZO
For information contact:
541-420-0279
541-213-9362
C
t
CentralOregonShowsFoundation.com