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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 11, 2019)
2 Wednesday, December 11, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Happy Holidays from The Nugget! Get behind the mule During the holiday season, please be mindful of our deadlines and special closings that allow our staff time with family (while still delivering The Nugget to each of you every week). By Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief Thursday, December 12 ... Closing at 3 p.m. Tuesday, December 24 ... Closing Early Thursday, December 26 ... Closed Tuesday, December 31 ... Closing Early Due to adjusted press times in December, we are unable to accept advertising or content past deadline. Display Advertising, Announcements, Events, Meeting Calendar ... 5 p.m. on Friday Classifieds, Letters to the Editor ... 12 noon on Monday Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: One of the reasons I purchased property in Sisters in the fall of 2005 was because of the fresh, crisp air. It was great to be able to walk outside and breath. My wife and I used to like to get up on the weekend with a blanket and nice cup of <Joe= and sit outside on the porch on winter mornings. Pine-needle burning appeared to be an accepted practice in spring and fall, and for the most part, folks burned small controllable piles that didn9t give rise to much smoke. I have noticed a huge change in the way peo- ple burn, and in the air quality in the last five years. Not only have we been subject to mas- sive forest fires, but we have been inundated with large pine-needle burns (sometimes very wet needles), for extended periods of time after the big fires were out. Unfortunately, some folks who just don9t care appear to burn pine needles all year long. Some of these pine needle fires are not moni- tored by those who start them. Some cities, such as Sisters, have outlawed burning within city limits, but that doesn9t prevent those outside those limits from burning not only needles, but trash from their businesses, con- tinuously. Some of these burn piles just plain stink. There are solutions to all the smoke, but it would take action by Deschutes County: " Burning could be eliminated altogether, and folks would have to use free dump days. " Burning could be limited to a two- to three-week window in the spring and fall. This would give asthmatics a chance to saddle up and get out of town during these periods. " Burning could be eliminated in the sum- mer months so all our Sisters events can be smoke-free. Whatever the solutions, the current situa- tion is toxic. Smoke is permeating inside sen- sitive people9s homes all year long. Sisters kind of smells like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when the steel mills were running full blast when I was growing up! See LETTERS on page 34 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Light rain Rain Rain/snow Snow showers Partly cloudy Partly cloudy 45/40 46/35 43/27 39/24 41/25 43/27 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC 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. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Graphic Design: Jess Draper & Lisa May Community Marketing Partners: Vicki Curlett & Patti Jo Beal Classifieds & Circulation: Kema Clark Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Owner: J. Louis Mullen 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. ©2019 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. 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 Newspaper9s 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. You got to get behind the mule In the morning and plow& 4 Tom Waits A friend told me the other day that her daughter was complaining that none of her teachers or classes inspired her. My friend and I were both a little bemused; we couldn9t recall that we ever thought we were sup- posed to be inspired in high school. Inspiration is overrated, anyway. Any creative person will tell you that if you wait around to be inspired, you9re not going to get a whole lot of work done. Oh, inspiration can strike 4 and when it does it9s a glorious feeling. Trouble is, it tends to last long enough to get you started, but not long enough to help you finish. At some point, you just have to get behind the mule and plow. Inspiration is to creativ- ity a lot like what infatua- tion is to love. Feels great; doesn9t last 4 and you can9t rely on it in the long run. Trouble is, we9re bom- barded with social and cul- tural messages crafted to make us think we9re sup- posed to be living in a state of constant inspiration. Buy this product, take this class, use this app and you9ll be inspired to do great things. You9ll be <living your best life.= When, in spite of it all, we don9t feel inspired, we feel like there9s some- thing wrong with us. Why is everybody else so inspired and <living their best life= and I9m stuck here behind this damn mule? It9s not hard to see how the gap between our <best life= expectations and aspi- rations and our often-unin- spiring reality can be down- right harmful. Despite liv- ing amid the greatest plen- titude and material ease, comfort, and convenience in human history, rates of depression and suicide are alarming, especially among young people who one might expect to be in the prime of life. Could the <inspiration gap= be a factor? Maybe we should stop chasing inspiration and instead seek something else: Satisfaction, per- haps? There can be a lot of satisfaction in looking back at that field you plowed today. A friend of mine hits the gym three times a week. It9s safe to say she9s never once felt inspired by the prospect. In fact, she often spends the morning almost sick with dread of what she9s going to put herself through. But she does it 4 she works hard and she comes back from her ordeal feeling a great deal of satisfaction. It9s a triumph of discipline, not of inspiration 4 a quality we tend to underrate these days. Steve Earle, one of America9s great songwrit- ers, described the differ- ence between his two men- tors, Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, comparing them to the Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: <One [was] not particu- larly disciplined, didn9t live very long, didn9t work that much, the last few years of his life, and then Allen and Guy were incredibly disci- plined and left huge bod- ies of work,= Earle says. <Guy had cancer the last 10 years of his life, and he still worked till the very end. ... And I learned from him that these things that artists do, they call them disciplines for a reason.= And there9s a strange 4 and somewhat ironic 4 phenomenon that occurs when we discipline our- selves to just get down to the work: Inspiration grows out of the process. It9s a slow burn, not the lightning flash of <pure= inspiration 4 the song that comes complete to us in our dreams. That lightning flash comes rarely, if ever, and is a gift beyond our control. That slow burn is a fire we can build and tend for ourselves. It9s got staying power. Perhaps that9s a bet- ter message to be sending to our kids. It9s not glamorous, and it probably won9t impress anyone on Instagram, but there9s satisfaction to be found out there in the field. And maybe that9s better for us than inspiration. Now, if you9ll excuse me, I9ve got to go hitch up the mule. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.