LOCAL
A6 — THE OBSERVER
SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2021
VOICES
Special moments only happen once, but memories last
By CARLA KELLEY
ANYONE CAN WRITE
Special to The Observer
I remember Camp Pine Valley
because it was the site of my fi rst
kiss, delivered by a sweet nerdy
guy named Frank.
He was 12. I was 11 but
working hard to look older.
Frank was a skinny guy who
wore thick glasses. His real name
was Franklin, but at that time in
his life he preferred Frank. We
both longed to be reading books
instead of choosing up ball game
teams, but books were in short
supply at Camp Pine Valley.
He was not interested in sports,
which endeared him to me. I
could swim and paddle a canoe,
but I couldn’t catch or throw a ball
or run fast, which guaranteed that
I would be chosen last in the fre-
quent team selections endemic to
summer camp.
Most of summer camp for me
was about these daily rejections
and other athletic failures, like
my fi rst horseback riding expe-
rience when the horse lay down
and tried to wipe me off its back.
But amidst these juvenile humil-
iations, Frank picked me to expe-
rience a fi rst kiss, his as well as
mine.
I recall that he held my hand at
campfi re sing-a-longs. I felt loved.
Suddenly I was not all alone any-
more. That was special. That was
very special indeed.
After the eight-week summer
camp session ended, we campers
Nearly 40 years in the business have taught me that readers are bombarded and over-
whelmed with facts. What we long for, though, is meaning and a connection at a deeper
and more universal level.
And that’s why The Observer will be running, from time to time, stories from students who
are in my writing class, which I’ve been teaching for the past 10 years in Portland.
I take great satisfaction in helping so-called nonwriters fi nd and write stories from their
lives and experiences. They walk into my room believing they don’t have what it takes to be
a writer. I remind them if they follow their hearts, they will discover they are storytellers.
As we all are at our core.
Some of these stories have nothing to do with La Grande or Union County. They do, how-
ever, have everything to do with life.
If you are interested in contacting me to tell me your story, I’d like to hear from you.
Tom Hallman Jr., tbhbook@aol.com
Tom Hallman Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning feature writer for the Oregonian newspaper. He’s also
a writing coach and has an affi nity for Union County.
left the woods and hills of the
Laurentian Mountains and
returned to Montreal where most
of us lived. Frank and I “dated” a
bit after camp, although “dating”
is a big word for what we did. We
had absolutely no private time
together.
A date with Frank meant his
father drove him to my house.
Frank and I would climb into the
back seat of his dad’s big sedan
and hold hands, while both his
parents sat in the front. Then we
would all drive to see a movie.
This in itself was exciting: not
because Frank was holding my
damp hand in his, but because it
was illegal for anyone under 16
years of age to attend most movies
in the puritanical Quebec Prov-
ince of 1957. His nice parents
would attend the movie with us to
bolster the lie about our ages as
we bought our entry tickets.
I have no recollection of what
movies we saw, but I recall sev-
eral of these dates. Best of all, I
could now brag that I had a boy-
friend, which vastly improved my
social status. Frank was defi nitely
a good thing in my life in the
autumn of 1957.
A few months later, our little
romance came to an abrupt end
when my father took a new job
— in Iowa. In 1958 our nuclear
family did what no one in Mon-
treal’s close-knit community ever
did back then: We moved more
than 1,000 miles away from Mon-
treal and all our relatives.
I recall a few letters back and
forth between Frank and me, but
soon the intervals between them
lengthened until the correspon-
dence stopped. Kids our age had
no access to expensive long-dis-
tance phone calls. Letters written
on paper and ink took a long time
to arrive. I got busy adjusting to
my American high school and I
never saw Frank again.
Or did I?
Flash forward to April 2021.
I am living in Portland, Oregon.
This is my 11th city since leaving
Montreal in 1958, but I have been
here 40 years. I moved here in
1980 from city number 10, which
was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I
have a career and a life. Camp
Pine Valley is a distant memory; I
have to do research to even recall
its name.
I’m still in touch with a couple
of people who live in Pittsburgh.
One is a professor at Carne-
gie-Mellon University. My friend
contacts me when there’s news
about someone we both knew
back in the 1970s. Last April, my
professor friend sent me an obit-
uary from a Pittsburgh news-
paper. On the same day, I received
a second copy of the same obit-
uary, from someone else in Pitts-
burgh whom I had not seen in
decades.
The subject of the obituary
was a well-known professor of the
history of art and architecture in
Pittsburgh. He had degrees from
McGill, Oberlin and Harvard.
He had published nine books in
his fi eld, many of which recorded
his fi ndings from excavations of
famous cathedral sites in Italy.
He had won a Guggenheim Fel-
lowship among other prestigious
prizes. He was internationally
famous for his writings on archi-
tectural and cultural history. His
name was Franklin.
There was nothing in the obit-
uaries about his attendance at
Camp Pine Valley, but this was
defi nitely Franklin of the fi rst-
ever kiss.
By some trick of memory,
I do not recall meeting Frank
when we both lived in Pitts-
burgh in the 1970s. Frank was
then a young professor at Carn-
egie-Mellon University. He was
married; I was newly single after
a painful divorce. Somehow, 40
years after I left Pittsburgh per-
manently, both of my friends
from the ’70s who sent me his
obituary retained the memory
that I knew Franklin.
Maybe Franklin’s name came
up when I lived there. Maybe we
met, disliked each other and I
deleted the meeting from memory.
Maybe I met him and told other
friends who taught at Carne-
gie-Mellon about him. Maybe he
never forgave me for dropping our
teenage correspondence. Any of
these scenarios is plausible; I just
don’t recall.
Thinking about Camp Pine
Valley after all these years
reminds me that the camp put on
a production of “The Wizard of
Oz.” I was cast as the Tin Man.
My solo song was “If I only had a
heart.”
I hold Franklin’s memory dear
because his kiss awakened my
young heart. That only happens
once.
Revamped skate park to open Aug. 7 in Enterprise
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — The
long-awaited revamped
Enterprise Skateboard
Park will celebrate its
grand reopening Saturday,
Aug. 7, with new features
and a celebrity motiv-
tional speaker.
Professional skate-
boarder and MTV celeb-
rity Brandon Novak will
be on hand for the event,
according to Ron Pickens,
of Enterprise’s Alternative
High School and Building
Healthy Families.
Pickens, who has been
spearheading adding new
features to the park, said
the opening will be at
10 a.m. Novak, who has
earned a reputation both
on and off his board, is
scheduled to speak from
11 a.m. to noon.
Pickens said just
Novak’s speech is
planned, but “hopefully,
Brandon Novak will do a
skating demo.”
A half-pipe has been
the major addition to
the park, although other
obstacles have been added
or upgraded. Pickens said
Monday that the park is
not quite complete.
“We’re two ramps shy
at this point, but we’re
pretty close,” Pickens said.
He said some signs and
benches also need to be
added and will be done
this week.
“If all goes according
to plan, the park should be
fi nished by Friday night,”
he said.
Notice
Recently, Avista requested a change in natural gas rates for our
Oregon customers. We know you care about your energy costs,
so we think it’s important to share this news with you.
Pickens said artwork
designed by some of the
girls from the Alternative
School has been added.
“It’s nice to see a breath
of fresh air down there and
see some color,” he said.
“The girls’ artwork adds
some color and some fl air.”
The project has
been underway since
December, when orig-
inal plans called just for
the addition of a half-pipe.
Then, this spring, the
project received a surprise
anonymous donation of
$51,500. Pickens expanded
his plans and with dona-
tions from BHF, the city,
community groups, pri-
vate individuals and busi-
nesses, they’ve brought in
about $77,000 and have
been able to add to their
original plans. Over the
past month and a half, he’s
been working with the
Alternative School kids on
benches and signs.
He said the dona-
tion dollars do not count
toward the cost of donated
labor.
“It feels good to see all
these pieces get arranged
and this project get suc-
cessfully pulled off ,”
Pickens said.
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On July 30, 2021, Avista made five annual rate adjustment filings with the
Public Utility Commission of Oregon (PUC) that if approved, are designed to
increase overall natural gas revenue by approximately $8.1 million or 7.4%
effective Nov. 1, 2021. These filings have no impact on Avista’s earnings.
The first rate adjustment is related to Avista’s decoupling mechanism.
Decoupling is designed to break the link between a utility’s revenues and
customers’ energy usage. Generally, Avista’s natural gas revenues are adjusted
each month based on the number of customers rather than therms sales. The
difference between revenues based on therm sales and revenues based on
the number of customers is surcharged or rebated to customers beginning
in the following year. If approved, Avista’s request is designed to increase
overall natural gas revenue by approximately $2.0 million or 1.8%. This rate
adjustment is driven primarily by the expiration of rebates currently being
passed through to customers.
The second rate adjustment is the annual Purchased Gas Cost Adjustment
(PGA) filing. PGAs are filed each year to balance the actual cost of wholesale
natural gas purchased by Avista to serve customers with the amount included
in rates. This includes the natural gas commodity cost as well as the cost
to transport natural gas on interstate pipelines to Avista’s local distribution
system. If approved, Avista’s natural gas revenues would increase by
approximately $6.1 million or 5.6%. This rate adjustment is driven primarily
by wholesale natural gas prices, which are higher than the level presently
included in rates. Avista does not profit on the actual natural gas commodity
or the costs to transport natural gas to Avista’s service territory.
The remaining three miscellaneous adjustments relate to intervenor funding,
demand side management program funding, and recovering costs associated
with regulatory fees. The combination of those three miscellaneous filings is
a decrease in overall natural gas revenue of approximately $49 thousand or
0.0% effective Nov. 1, 2021.
The bottom line
If all five requests are approved, and you are an Avista natural gas customer
using an average of 48 therms per month, you could expect your bill to
increase by $3.15, or 5.1% for a revised monthly bill of $64.68 beginning
Nov. 1, 2021. All other customer groups receiving
firm natural gas service from Avista would also see increases.
For more information
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are unable to provide copies
at our office locations as we usually do. However, copies of our
filings are available at www.myavista.com/rates or you can call
us at 1-800-227-9187.
This announcement is to provide you with general information about Avista’s
rate request and its effect on customers. The calculations and statements in
this announcement are not binding on the PUC. For more information about
the filing or for information about the time and place of any hearing, contact
the PUC at:
Public Utility Commission of Oregon
201 High Street SE, Ste. 100
Salem, OR 97301
(800) 522-2404, www.puc.state.or.us
This notice contains forward-looking statements regarding the Company’s current expectations.
Forward-looking statements are all statements other than historical facts. Such statements speak
only as of the date of the notice and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of
which are beyond the Company’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially
from the expectations. These risks and uncertainties include, in addition to those discussed herein,
all the factors discussed in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec.
31, 2020 and the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2021.
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