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About The Chronicle : Creswell & Cottage Grove. (Creswell, Ore.) 2019-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2020)
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2020 THE CHRONICLE — 9 COMMUNITY WEDDING continued from 1 on Middaugh back then, but he was so shy he never even spoke to her. Middaugh admits she didn’t even remember Gedeon at the time. Flash-forward 40-some years to about five years ago — after marriages to other people and children born and raised for each — their paths crossed once again. Gedeon made up for lost time after that first date at Sylvan Winery; according to Middaugh, it has been a courtship like no other. Gedeon may have been shy when he was a teenager, but he became very creative in winning the heart of his lady, Middaugh said. Gedeon planned surprise dates each week, and the only thing Middaugh was allowed to know about them in advance was whether she needed to dress warm, casual or dressy. They went to plays, Christmas bazaars, day trips to the mountains or the beach, with each date planned especially for her. Middaugh said her very favorite surprise date was the weekend he told her to dress warm. They drove for a few Jim Gedeon places the ring on Michelle Middaugh’s finger Saturday. MIKE NORDTVEDT/LIFESLICE PHOTOGRAPH hours and Gedeon pulled onto a pullout on the side of the road. They got out and walked to an observation area and Middaugh suddenly realized she was looking out on Crater Lake. “I started crying the moment it came into view,” she said. “I had never seen VIEWPOINTS BY MIKE PETERS BY MIKE SHELTON it before. It was absolutely beautiful.” After taking in the scenery, the couple went to see a lodge that had been remodeled in the 1980s. “When we stepped into the lodge, I could not believe the size of the amazing fire- place and as I approached it, I heard a woman say, ‘Can I help you?’ followed by Jim’s reply, ‘Yes, we have a reser- vation,’” Middaugh said. “I can’t tell you how I felt at that moment because it was crazy. I couldn’t talk; I was crying and trying to make words come out. I had none. Whether it was an evening out, a day trip, or a weekend away, every one of the dates have been so special.” A proposal wasn’t long to follow, and the couple soon began to plan for the wedding. Their respective mothers were “bitin’ at the bit to see us finally quit livin’ in sin,” Middaugh said. They ordered 150 folding chairs, table runners and rhinestones and were well on their way to their ideal wedding. Then COVID-19 happened. “Somebody never learned to cover their mouth when they coughed so now we’re all grounded,” Middaugh said, putting a touch of humor on the situation.“ It’s kind of like when my brother, Robert, ate all the mara- schino cherries, but we all got in trouble for it.” It only took a week to orga- nize. Gedeon’s son, Jimmy, a trucker, arranged the use of a big semi with side curtains to serve as the stage to set up decorations, and a micro- phone to say their wedding vows. Middaugh’s son-in-law, Aaron, and her daughters, Shauna and Jenny, provided palm trees to use for decora- tions; David Wooley stepped forward to perform the cere- mony; Kay Lee Bevans took photographs; Jim Breitz agreed to be the DJ; Carolyn from the Broadway Grill in Veneta baked a wedding cake; and friend Carolyn Wooley made Middaugh’s dress. A worrisome weather forecast loomed on the hori- zon. “The skies were churn- ing more than my stomach after eating 10 pounds of spaghetti,” Middaugh said. Within minutes of the beginning of the cere- mony, however, the wind quieted, the rain stopped and managed to stay clear through the entire ceremony. After the ceremony, the newlywed couple wandered through the parking lot while Gedeon’s son sang the same George Strait song, “Give It All We Got Tonight,” that Jim sang to Michelle as they danced in the craft aisle of Walmart on one of their first dates. “I was not crying ... I’m a big burly truck driver in allergy season,” Gedeon said. Some things are just meant to be. “God bless the broken road that brought us back together,“ Gedeon said. TRACKING continued from 1 In accordance with privacy measures, new methods will list the age range and no longer the gender. Cases will be listed as “less than 10,” with cases thereafter being listed in real-time, Davis said. “We can get much more localized with lockdowns,” through these measures, too, Davis said. “If there were to be a couple of cases in a nurs- ing home facility in Creswell, we could lock down that whole facility to potentially contain the spread to just that building.” Testing is being more widely distributed in general, Davis said. On average, 150 people are tested a day in Lane County, with as many as 250 a day in the higher end. PeaceHealth recently began processing tests for all staff and for all patients admitted to the University District and to RiverBend locations, Davis said. PeaceHealth and McKenzie-Willamette hospi- tals are also giving the county 50 tests each to be adminis- tered to at-risk public health populations and settings, Davis said. The unhoused populations at the memorial center in Springfield and at Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene are being tested, Davis said, and the county next week will focus testing in nursing homes and long- term facilities, followed by the Latinx population. The county will collect the samples and take them to a lab for testing. “Targeting populations and potentially affected COVID- 19 work settings first will help us understand how this virus is moving through our “We can all come together on the fact that we have the knowledge to prevent the spread.” – Jason Davis populations and how it is moving through the county in general,” Davis said. The method of testing the same sample twice also changed this week, Davis said. In order to be listed as a case in the county, tests previously needed to be double-tested, once locally and again by the Centers for Disease Control. Davis said tests do not need to be validated through the CDC and that cases will now be listed as confirmed and as presumptive, he said. “Now, if you have a known link to a COVID-19 case and have symptoms, you will be listed as presumptive and will need to self-isolate for 14 days,” Davis said. Davis said drive-up, door- to-door and mobile test- ing, or “shotgun testing,” is not a proper use of testing resources for Lane County. “It is not a tactic that is going to help us understand how the virus is working through the community with the resources we have available,” he said. “It will not help identify the virus reservoirs to stop the spread. That kind of testing is a shotgun smattering of one or two cases here and there. We will have no drive-thru testing resources here in the near future.” The Institute for Disease Modeling ( I DM) in Washington and OHA collab- orated on a working report on COVID-19 trends in Oregon identifying implications for interventions. In the report, IDM predicts that there have been approximately 9,200 cumulative infections in Oregon, of which 2,300 had been diagnosed by April 23. OHA information indicates that that number represents a drop of more than 40% from the 156 reported hospital- izations on April 8, the first day state officials disclosed active hospitalizations for confirmed cases of COVID- 19. By press time Tuesday, Davis said there were zero COVID-19-related hospital- izations in the county, a trend in the county for over a week. The drop-offs suggest that stay-home interventions have dramatically reduced transmission rates and IDM modeling suggests that phys- ical distancing has prevented more than 70,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,500 hospi- talizations in Oregon. However, relatively small increases in transmission levels in the community could cause an increase in infections. As Oregon plans for loosening orders, IDM recommended other public health control strategies first, like expanding contact trac- ing, and the aggressive miti- gation strategies be loosened incrementally to prevent any large increases in cases. “We can all come together on the fact that we have the knowledge to prevent the spread — washing our hands, keeping physical distance, covering our mouths when we cough — so let’s do that, and it will allow us to keep going down the road of a somewhat relaxed environ- ment,” Davis said.