january7 2016
VERNONIA’S
volume10 issue1
free
reflecting the spirit of our community
www.vernoniasvoice.com
Cattails and Herons: Gifts, Dolls and More Holce Donation
Identifies Often
Missed Strategy
A new store has opened in
downtown Vernonia featuring an
eclectic mix of gifts and antiques
along with an amazing and assorted
doll collection, all of it for sale.
Allyson and Keith Cam-
eron opened Cattails and Herons
just before Christmas at 866 Bridge
Street, filling the empty storefront
and adding more flavor to the Verno-
nia shopping district, centered in the
800 block of Bridge Street.
“We’ve really been wel-
comed by Vernonia and want to
thank the community for helping us
get started” said Allyson.
Cattails and Herons has a
bit of a museum feel with half of
the store filled with the doll collec-
tion that Allyson’s mother, Kathleen
Tiffney accumulated over her life
time. Tiffney is now 91 years old
inside
3
storm report
4
california
avenue project
7
where do you
read the voice
10
vhs winter
sports report
and in poor health and Allyson is
looking to share the collection with
others by making the dolls available
for purchase.
In addition to the dolls, the
Camerons are also selling another
long time treasure, Keith’s collec-
tion of license plates from around
the country. Keith has hundreds of
vehicle tags, some dating back to
the teens and 20s, from every state.
“Keith probably knows anything
and everything you could think of to
ask about license plates,” says Ally-
son. “They are actually much more
interesting than you might imagine.”
The plates make unique gifts and are
reasonably priced. Allyson suggest-
ed a framed plate from the year and
state of someone’s birth as a won-
derful surprise for that person who
has just about everything; she said
if Keith doesn’t already have a 1962
from Pennsylvania in his collection,
he most likely can find one.
In addition to the two sets
of collectibles for sale, Cattails and
Herons also has a wide variety of
other items, including some nice
antique furniture, an assortment of
jewelry, home and kitchen decor,
and even some regional sports gifts
for Ducks, Beavers or Seahawks.
Allyson and Keith both
grew up in Vernonia about a half
continued on page 9
The recent donations by Evelyn Holce
and Randy Holce to the Vernonia Education
Foundation’s Sports Initiative helped identify a
great, and often overlooked, way for some people
to donate to causes while receiving tax benefits
for themselves.
The $120,000 donation by the Holce
family will help build a new baseball field at
the Vernonia school campus. Randy Holce
explained that both he and his mother Evelyn
took advantage of a tax provision that allowed
them to donate appreciated securities, in the
Holce’s case, stocks, directly to a charity without
paying capital gains taxes, as you would if you
sold it first then contributed the cash. You can
also donate bonds or mutual fund shares directly
and receive the same benefits.
By following this strategy the donating
party eliminates capital gains taxes and increases
the amount they are able to donate to a charity.
But that’s not all. It also increases your
itemized deductions you can claim on your taxes
because you can generally deduct the fair market
value of the stock, bond or security at the time of
the donation, not the lower amount that you paid
for it originally.
According to an article in Fidelity
Viewpoints this is one of the most advantageous
tax strategies available to people who include
charitable giving as part of their financial
planning.
The Vernonia Education Foundation has
established an account to accept donations of
stocks and bonds directly, making the process
easy and quick.
According to Fidelity Viewpoint,
donating assets that have appreciated over the
long term is a highly effective tax strategy for
eliminating capital gains taxes, especially for
people with investments that have increased in
value over time.
As an example, suppose you purchased
$20,000 worth of stock in a company 20 years
ago. Today those shares are worth $50,000,
meaning a $30,000 taxable long term capital gain.
continued on page 6
Like Deer, We Run
Life is a search for that which we thirst
By Paul Pastor
The hoof prints were fresh. Tracks
of three deer, come down to Rock Creek
to drink. They were only an hour or two
old, their delicate edges barely eroded
by the rain. They looked like dozens
of hearts, stamped in crossing lines to
the water. They had walked single-file,
favoring the tree line, then leaped from the safety of the
winter trees onto a rock spit jutting into the deep stream.
I, barely 16, followed the tracks onto the bare stones.
The water ran dark and frigid around the pile of rock. It
undercut roots of the leaning trees, making hollow pumps and
gurgles, drums and watery voices underground.
I stood until I was soaked and shivering, staring as
rain endlessly whispered into the rushing stream.
***
As I wrote last month, the people and places of
Vernonia shaped me, body and soul. But in spite of the
influence it had in my life, I technically only lived in town
for three years; formative years, though—15, 16, 17. I ruffle
a box of old photos, looking for snapshots of these years.
From half my lifetime away, I see a search, sometimes even
frustration in my teenage eyes.
There were seven of us in my family, stacked like
tinned fish into a 600 square foot mill house at 348 C Street.
It sat on a hillock above Rock Creek, almost in view of the
river. I walked down to it every day, often for hours. “A boy’s
will is the wind’s will,” Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “and
the thoughts of youth are long, long, thoughts.” My will was
windy, my thoughts were long. The water brought many of
them, and carried many more away. How often I wished to
follow them.
I felt sometimes (in spite of all the water) that I lived
in perpetual thirst. Thirsty for new sights, new ideas, new
experiences. A thirst for meaning, for adventure. For great
things. I think most big kids from small places can relate.
Who hasn’t felt that thirst as a young heart, wondering what
might be waiting for us in some other there, some other then,
some other how?
continued on page 13
