8 Fall 2011 Applegater
TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS
Sunsets and new sunrises
BY rauno Perttu
Our lives don’t flow smoothly. We
live our lives in periods of status quo, where
the activities of the days and the years are
so similar that each period gives the false
impression of long-term stability. Abruptly,
events change our lives dramatically, and
a new status quo begins. I’ve just ended
a long happy life with my wife Jan. Now
Jan has started the last phase of her life as
a resident of an advanced Alzheimer’s care
center. I’ve also started a new phase of my
life, with many decisions to be made and
with the hope of a return to a happier time.
I’ve donated most of Jan’s clothes
except those she may still need, and
those clothes attached to memories that
are still too strong. I handed down her
jewelry to our daughter. I’m left with a
small clutter of items that are reminders
of her days, and with the proverbial
photographs and memories. It seems
like such a small collection for such a
special life. Her ski trophies from races
past rest on the piano beside photographs
of loved faces. The spoon collection she
started when she was young now hangs
tarnished on a rack on a dining room wall.
She bought the spoons in countries that
she and we visited over the years. Jan’s
most important legacy is the memories
her family and friends hold and cherish.
As I sit in the back yard, listening
to music, and watch the sun edge toward
the hills across the river, I think of our
lives and the dramatic changes that
are occurring. My years as a geologist
expand my thoughts into a historical,
then a geological perspective. In these
perspectives, our lives are tiny portions
of a much larger flow of time, life, and
events. I apologize if this sounds harsh,
but most of us live, love, die and are
quickly forgotten. Over a longer time,
the same is also true for the most famous earth. Barring unlikely catastrophe, life
among us, and for countries and societies. on earth will continue for a very long
Time is a great equalizer. To me, rather time. Depending on whose projections
than being a harsh perspective, there’s you choose to accept, life will continue on
a mysterious beauty in the realization. earth for another 600-million years, to as
Our lives allow us a brief view into an long as 5 to 7.5-billion more years. That’s
astoundingly long flow of life and time. long enough for our children to retire and
In this larger perspective, we can piece take a vacation. The shortest projections
together historical views of the world as it are based on the calculation that natural
was during the Middle Ages, Rome, Greece processes will absorb most of the carbon
and Egypt, but this only takes us back dioxide in the atmosphere somewhere
some 3,000 years. How many of us know after 600-million years in the future,
anything of the world
first killing plant life,
of 10,000 years ago?
and shortly thereafter,
er ski trophies from races
Even historians and
past rest on the piano beside animal life. The
archeologists struggle
longer projections
photographs of loved faces.
to learn much about
are that people, or our
events that long ago.
future replacements,
Although 10,000 years seem like an will be able to adapt to changes and
eternity ago, even historically, when viewed adjust things to continue living on earth
in geologic time, 10,000 years is the blink until the expanding and warming sun
of an eye. It would take 6,500 of those chars the planet about 5 to 7.5-billion
10,000-year blinks to reach back to the years from now. Optimists assume our
asteroid impact that ended the reign of descendants will have moved to other
the dinosaurs. It would take 25,000 of planets or moons by then. Even the
those spans to reach the beginnings of pessimistic 600-million-year projection
the dinosaurs. They roamed the world is such a staggeringly long time that I
for 185 million years, which makes don’t lose any sleep worrying over it.
man’s reign to date seem laughably short.
In thinking about this, I have to
Fifty-seven thousand of those 10,000- comment on an aspect of humanity’s future
year spans, or 570 million years ago, is that fascinates me. While civilization has
the commonly accepted beginning of been around for several thousand years,
advanced life on earth, which was a key we have only very recently developed the
point in the long journey that has led to means to record the images and sounds of
us. The earth slowly became more life- the world around us. This new ability to
friendly for some four-billion years to preserve events, voices, thoughts, music,
reach that point where complex life spread and places will have an enormous effect
across the planet. It’s been a long journey on future societies. Can you imagine if we
to our current lives in the Applegate. could actually view the voices and events
With apology to those who wait for of Rome, Greece or Egypt? How would it
the world to end soon, I am also awed affect our thinking if we could actually hear
by the long journey that is still to come Plato teaching, watch the Romans feeding
for society and humanity, and for life on the lions, or listen to an interview with
H
Applegate Valley Artisan Bread:
Thinking outside the pan
BY ron sherman
Dennis and Pat Larson, owners of
Applegate Valley Artisan Bread, resource
their organic and whole-grain ingredients
locally. Among these suppliers are Butte
Creek Mills and Rogue Creamery.
Founded in 2003, the company sells
through local retail outlets such as Ray’s
Markets, Pennington Farms, Medford Food
Co-op, Ashland Food Co-op, Whistling
Duck, and Fox Run Farms. They also sell
directly at the Williams Growers Market.
You can also order directly via www.
applegatevalleyartisanbread.com and
they will entertain custom orders, with
timely customer service also provided
online. Gift lines are also available.
Originally from San Rafael, California,
Dennis Larson attended the San Francisco
Baking Institute, whose business
philosophy emphasizes product quality,
customer service with a personal touch,
and “thinking outside the pan.”
Utilizing Alan Scott Brick Ovens,
the baking process is a surrounding heat
source, yielding breads with an outside
crust and inner softness.
Breads are shaped by hand, allowing
custom items, with the regular line
featuring batards, rounds, and baguettes.
Varieties offered include Country
French, Sour French, Whole Wheat, Rye,
and Sunflower Flax. Other options are
Kalamata Olive, Focaccia, and Cranberry
Walnut, as well as pairings with Rogue
Creamery that include Blue Cheese
Walnut, Smokey Touvelle with Garlic, and
Rosemary Touvelle.
I had the opportunity to sample the
wares of Applegate Valley Artisan Bread at
the recent grand opening of the Medford
Food Co-op, where Pat Larson explained
their business motto and the details of each
bread offered.
Appropriate qualities that come to
mind are savory, deliciously aromatic,
mouth-watering, flavorful, and just plain
yummy.
I gotta go back for more. And you
should try some, too—resistance is futile.
I know.
Ron Sherman
541-326-1522
rasherman1107@aol.com
the founder of a
major religion?
Those were
events over the
Rauno Perttu
past 2,500 years.
Now imagine that some future
ancestor may be able to watch the events
of our time, when our time is a million
years in the past. In the complexity of
intervening events, we and our world will
be almost as foreign to that ancestor as are
the dinosaurs to us, but he will actually be
able to watch us go about our lives, and
watch our wars, achievements and disasters
in a time and place unimaginably distant to
him. We may actually look very strange to
him because, accept it or not, we continue
to evolve despite having become civilized.
Our descendants now have the
potential to actually record the slow changes
of environment, plants and animals, and
the slow changes of geology that will wear
down our mountains, build new peaks,
and drag today’s continents into collision
to form a new supercontinent in the area
of today’s Southeast Asia approximately
300-million years from now. To us, those
events are in an unimaginably distant
future, but the earth has time and patience.
As I see the sun set behind the
western hills, I feel part of a very long
and colorful flow of events and history
and wish I could see all the events still
to come. Very recently, Jan sat across
from me during similar evenings. Sadly,
Jan is nearing her sunset. I hope for
another sunrise before my sunset. All of
us and the world we know will have our
sunsets, but there will be interesting new
sunrises for a very long time to come.
Rauno Perttu
541-899-8036
jrperttu@charter.net