4_______
H- ie Q ac I< amas P rìnt
Wednesday, October 28, 1998
Prestigious writers share for Authors’ Night
JEREMY STALLWOOD
Feature Editor
Three multi-award-winning au
thors shared their work last
Wednesday evening in the Gre
gory Forum for this term’s Au
thors’ Night entitled “War and its
Fallout.”
Milena McGraw’s After
Dunkirk has received national at
tention for the story of an eighteen
year old who joins the Royal Air
Force during WWII. McGraw, an
Oregon City resident who works
at the Multnomah County Library,
drew from her experiences while
living under Communist rule in
Czechoslovakia.
Last week in the Oregonian,
Milena was misquoted. She said,
“If it wasn’t fqr the second World
War, I might have been a pacifist.”
The Oregonian quoted her saying,
“If it wasn’t for the second World
War, I might have been a fascist.”
The Oregonian will run a retrac
tion.
Tracy Daugherty, who teaches at
OSU. read from his book, What
Falls Away, a look into the impact
of an economic structure whose
dependencies revolve around the
Cold War. During the Cold War,
the past decade has been prosper
ous for the small town in Nevada.
The Cold War ends, and the town’s
resources are threatened. If the
defense industry departs, the eco
nomic backbone of the town de
parts as well. Complete with a
strong central character and poetic
descriptions of the effects of ra
diation, Daugherty’s reading was
touching.
Marilyn Bowering’s The Visible
World, was a character-based
novel which backtracks through
the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, but she said
that “it’s not terribly directed to
war.”
Bowering has also written a
play, Grandfather was a Soldier,
TIMOTHY A. BELL / Clackamas Print
Marilyn Bowering, left, answers the audience's questions after reading during last week's
Authors' Night. Tracy Daugherty, fellow Northwest author, looks on.
which was produced on BBC ra
dio and acted by the Royal
Shakespeare Company in London.
In addition to her plays and nov
els, Bowering has plans to release
two volumes of soon.
“I love changing genres,”
Bowering said. Writing with tun
nel vision can be “the kiss of death
to creativity.”
An interested audience noticed
that both of the female authors
wrote from a man’s point of view.
“The character came to me,”
McGraw explained. “It depends
on who is in my head.”
Added Bowering, “Characters
set their own agenda.”
Beauty in Oregon’s ‘ordinary’ foliage in the Native Garden
SLADE SAPORA
Contributing Writer
There are many plants in nature
for which most of us pass by ev
eryday without even a second
glance. Mainly, they are the ones
without vibrant blooms and simply
lack any interesting or unusual
qualities. It is for these very rea
sons that we often go about our
lives blind to the incredible-obvi
ous, and the spectacular-common
that are all around us. It’s not for
lack of sight that we do not see
these things; it’s for lack of under
standing that we do not recognize
them.
What am I getting at here? Well,
Red Alder, Alhus rubra, is one
such wondrous plant that is all too
often ignored arid disregarded as
just another ordinary Oregon tree.
Red Alders can grow quickly, up
to 20 feet in their first five years.
A serene red alder towers near the pond in the Native Garden.
M-Th 7am-8pm • Fri 7am-4pm • Sat 10:30am-7:30pm
Grilled
Jh
<ents
Expired November 18,1998
.
« '
RRIovember18,1998
They usually only live to be around
50 years old though, and so rarely
exceed 75 feet in height. In the
Native Garden we only have one
Red Alder, and it’s not too terribly
difficult to locate. It’s the large tree
with smooth, gray bark growing
directly alongside the pond.
Before European settlers ar
rived, Red Alders only grew along
stream banks and in other very
moist, non-heavily-wooded areas.
Logging, and the overall clearing
of land, has given the Red Alder a
new niche and expanded its range
and habitat in recent times.
Red Alders are very important
plants to the environment in gen
eral, and specifically to their own
eco-systems. The main reason for
this is that they fix nitrogen, and
lots of it! To be more exact, Al
ders themselves do not actually fix
nitrogen; microscopic bacteria,
called “frankia”, live in their root
systems and do all of the nitrogen
fixing. The Alders simply provide
a home for these little buggers.
Now why islhis so important to
the environment? Well, for start
ers, all plants require nitrogen to
live. Without it they absolutely will
not grow. Luckily, nitrogen is the
most abundant element in our at
mosphere. Unluckily, plants can
not access or metabolize atmo
spheric nitrogen; they can only ac
cess nitrogen through the soil via
their root systems. Here is where
Alders and their little bacterial
houseguests come into play. The
bacteria take the nitrogen from the
atmosphere and process it into a
form that is accessible to all the
surrounding plants, including the
Alders themselves.
Red Alders are the first stage in
the long and purposeful cycle of
natural succession that we should
all learn to recognize. Red Alders
can be equated to the paramedics
that fly in to repair the damage af
ter a disaster has occurred. Alder
colonies hold and repair the soil
and allow for other plants to get
established.
These plants are followed by
sapling trees such as Douglas Firs,
which are able to tolerate some
exposure and sunlight. As these
trees grow up and succeed the Al
ders, a denser layer of shade is pro
vided. Trees such as Western
Hemlock and Western Red Cedar,
which will not germinate and grow
in direct sunlight, can then become
established. This takes hundreds
of years to unfold and is an intri
cately evolved system that is in dire
need of our understanding.
This isn’t the end of the story
though. Red Alder has an amaz
ing inventory of historical and
modem uses. The name Red Al
der is derived from one of the ways
in which Native Americans used
this plant. The bark is gray on the
outside, but is blood-red on the in
side and was frequently used as a
dye. The dye was made by boiling
the bark in water, which was pri
marily used for coloring fish nets,
making the nets “invisible” to fish.
Red Alder wood was, and still is,
used for fish smoking, and it was
also used in the carving of eating
utensils, ceremonial masks and
other crafts.
The bark of Red Alder serves a
number of medicinal purposes on
top of everything else. Taking it
internally, Native Americans used
a bark solution as a general tonic.
More specifically, the bark was
said to be a very strong and reli
able form of medicine for any type
of respiratory distress. Also, a bark
and leaf “tea” was used as a skin
wash for cuts, bums, inflamma
tions, rashes (poison oak) and in
sect bites. Betulin and Lupeol are
two of the compounds found in the
bark and have shown to be prom
ising in recent studies for suppress
ing the growth of cancerous tu
mors.
This is truly a tree that deserves
more recognition and respect from
us. Have a look at our garden’s
Red Alder before fall sheds all of
its leaves and puts it to sleep. It
may not wow your eyes, but hope
fully, after reading this little tale, it
will wow your mind. Enjoy.