12
In Other Words
January 21
2021
Bridge Street Bits
By Karen Miller
WE THE VERNONIA SENIOR
CENTER BOARD would like to
wish all our Voice readers a
Happy New Year 2021.
SPEAKING OF THE BOARD we would like to
introduce our Board Officers for the New Year:
PRESIDENT Charles Kibben, 1 st VICE
PRESIDENT Carl Holsey, 2 nd VICE PRESIDENT
Pat Ray, SECRETARY Sandy Welch, and
TREASURER Tobie Finzel. Thank you for
serving and leading.
kitchen, thrift store and the Cabin in Vernonia.
Theresa’s Christmas Kid’s Shopping Event was
a big success. Watch this column or social
media for this year’s Kids Shopping! Marny is
our Officer Manager and is in the office at our
new building on Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays from 10 to 3. Phone number is (503)
429-3327
STARTING THIS WEEK YOU CAN WIN a brand
new Ninja coffeemaker in our mid-week
winter contest. Come in the store for details.
THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR PATRONS that
shop at our Thrift Store plus everyone’s
donations. Donations can be dropped off
Wednesdays and Saturdays starting at noon.
We wish to thank our volunteers who work to
clean, sort, and put things out.
FOOTCARE is available at the new building.
Call Joyce Jessi directly to make an
appointment (503) 753-7745
MEMBERSHIP DUES FOR THE NEW YEAR are
still $15. Members are welcome to attend our
monthly meetings on the second Friday of the
month at 10:00. All input is welcome.
WE APPRECIATE ANY DONATIONS to
our Home Delivered Meals Program, an
WE ARE STILL NOT OPEN FOR INSIDE DINING
appreciated service for those in need.
at our new building but hopefully things
Donations can be sent to Vernonia Senior
will be changing soon. Please check out our
Center, 547 Weed Avenue Vernonia OR
news on the Vernonia Senior Center Facebook 97064. PLUS we thank our volunteers who
page. Also keep abreast of happenings on
help deliver the Home Delivered Meals each
our Bargains on Bridge Street Page. Theresa
week, through rain, sleet, or snow!
Kilgore is our General Manager for the
SENIOR SIGN OFF: Wanting to say Hi on here
to my oldest brother Marvin who faithfully
reads the Voice from up in Gig Harbor,
Washington!
See ya’ around town…
Vernonia Senior Center • 547 Weed Avenue • (503) 429-3912
What We Need Now: Bridges, Ladders, Imagination continued from page 3
belief is an equally strong belief forged
from a different life experience and a
believer who is also misunderstood.
Ladders
Bridges are just one part of the
national and personal infrastructure
project we need — the other part is lad-
ders. When we accomplish something,
we have the choice to either carry the
ladder we climbed up with us, or lower
it for the folks behind us — our col-
leagues, our neighbors, the next genera-
tion.
What we each have or lack is
based on a complex set of factors in-
cluding history, luck, decisions and tim-
ing. If we are fortunate enough to find
ourselves with a good job, enough to
eat, a safe place to live — let’s don’t
draw up the ladder we climbed. Let’s
lower it for folks to rise with us. When
we get a new program at our school,
we can lower the ladder and help other
schools gain access too. When we get a
promotion at work, we can say, “there’s
no more room up here” or we can lower
the ladder and make space.
I think we can all find a hundred
ways people helped us get to where we
are, but even if you feel that you were
alone in your ascendence, you can still
drop a ladder and be the person that
helps others along. Glennon Doyle says
DM
D
Vernonia
Dental
an
Angel
Memorials
Headstones
I imagine that often we will
stomp off these bridges in rage or pain
and flee back to our own side — bridges
aren’t rainbows. But as author Glen-
non Doyle writes, “We need to learn to
withstand people’s anger, knowing that
much of it is real and true and necessary.
There are worse things than being criti-
cized — like being a coward.”
She also writes, “We can do
hard things.”
So let’s do the hard thing. When
we find ourselves saying, “I just can’t
understand …” let’s start looking for
bridges. If you can’t find one and you
can build one, do. We build bridges by
forging relationships with people who
come from a different place or class;
who we don’t work with; who we dis-
agree with but with whom we share a
kernel of interest.
If we count up our friendships
and relationships and don’t find people
who are different than us, well, maybe
that’s why we “just can’t understand”
things.
If we find ourselves misunder-
stood by “them,” let’s look for a bridge
where folks are waiting for us. They
want to be understood too because the
opposite of our strongly-held, “moral”
belief is not an amoral belief we “just
can’t understand.” The opposite of our
e rm
derstand that some wounds in America
are too deep and too wide for everyone
to cross now; I understand that some
folks will never cross bridges from “I
can’t understand” to “I want to under-
stand” or from “I now understand” to
“I’m sorry.”
But many people are capable
of bridge building and bridge crossing
now. Urban, western Oregonians: I’d
like you to find the bridge that will help
you understand why my rural Oregon
county voted to discuss changing our
county borders and “moving” to Idaho.
I’m ready to cross bridges too: which
bridge do you want me to be looking
for?
The bridges I want to build do
not ferry you from your opinion to mine
— they just span the chasm so we can
stop saying “I just can’t understand”
and start talking and working together.
I care about our schools and so do you.
Let’s start with raising money for the
volleyball team or the band or robotics
club and see where it goes.
When we spend time on bridges
in common cause (of which there are
many), we moderate each other’s ten-
dencies to see things as “us and them.”
And what more can we hope for than to
simply influence each other in positive
ways?
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971-344-3110
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Dr
ri
Ch
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to p
M
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622 Bridge Street Vernonia, OR 97064
phone (503) 429-0880 -- fax (503) 429-0881
“the miracle of grace is that you can
give what you have never gotten.”
If we all start lowering ladders
in our personal life and building an in-
frastructure of ladders for our nation,
we will narrow the division we claim to
abhor in income, class, race, gender and
more. A nation of more ladders is fairer
for everyone. If you lower ladders and
help make that the norm, you will find
more ladders to climb too.
• • •
The divisions we see in Amer-
ica today are upsetting and seem worse
than ever, but they were baked into the
founding of this country; into this exper-
iment. People in early America fought
like we do along lines of ideology, class,
race, gender, geography and religion.
That is not to say we’re doomed, but
that we descendant generations are, and
will always be, tasked with creating the
“more perfect union.”
As the Declaration of Indepen-
dence was debated by the Continental
Congress, Benjamin Franklin told fel-
low delegates that they must stand to-
gether or suffer separately at the hands
of the British.
As Black suffragists fought
and helped win women’s right to vote
100 years ago this year, their motto was
“Lifting as We Climb.”
Our forebearers knew the only
way forward is through, and the only
way through is together. It will take
imagination, bridges and ladders.
Nella Mae Parks is a farmer from
Union County. This commentary was
originally published in the Winter 2020-
21 issue of The Other Oregon, A Voice
for Rural Oregon. The Other Oregon
is a quarterly magazine and monthly
e-newsletter to address, from a rural
perspective, the issues, values, culture
and lifestyle uniquely important to
rural Oregon. Content focuses on key
areas, such as health care, economic
development,
water,
workforce,
transportation and education, along
with impacts from federal and state
legislation and the urban-rural
interface. www.TheOtherOregon.com