The S^ndy Post
Editorial & Opinion
Von Braschler Publisher
Caroline DuH. Office Manager
Don Dillon Editor
Scott Newton News Editor
SANDY, OREGON THURSDAY. DECEMBER 23, 1982
R< .¿block to collar drunks
Cheers for the state and county
police! We speak not of the cheers
found in a bottle, but the good feel
ing in your heart from helping
another person.
State troopers and county
deputies expect to deter many
drunk drivers this holiday season
by scaring them off the road with
unscheduled road block checks.
State police are beefing up night
p a tr o ls and p u ttin g e v e ry
available trooper on the road in
the c o o p e ra tiv e e ffo rt w ith
Clackamas and Multnomah coun
ties.
T he y’ll put up appropriate
flares and signs to flag tra ffic
over in a line to check drivers for
licenses and sobriety. After work
ing one spot a couple of hours,
they’ll move to another spot, with
no particular pattern.
State police locally are more
concerned than ever with danger
strips like Highway 26 between
Boring and Rhododendron, new
station commander Lt. David
Quillan reports. New statistics
show secondary highways pro
duce more wrecks than freeways,
so th a t’s where emphasis has
been shifted. State police have
assigned 13 troopers to work the
road block program here.
Some 10 percent of all 1,937
county drunk driving arrests in
1981 involved under-age drinkers,
while nearly 40 percent involved
drivers 25-39 years of age. Sandy
Police Department alone arrested
56 drunk drivers last year.
Clackam as County S h e riff’s
Department crim e analysis sug
gests at least 9 percent of all
atalities or serious auto accidents
p rim a rily are due to alcohol. The
county’s also quick to note that
num ber m ay be low , since
deputies often are hesitant to at-
tritu te alcohol as prim a ry cause
of road accidents, for fear of prov
ing it in court. Also, the count’s
based on analysis of 445 random
serious accidents county wide.
If you want to dodge trouble on
the road this yuletide, the county
also has pin-pointed ’«hen serious
accidents occur he ■•?. The worst
single hour tim e turns out to be 8
to 9 p.m., while the worst day is
Saturday. Most common weather
condition for serious accidents
here, however, happens to be
clear and dry. Surprisingly, some
58 percent of serious accidents
here occur during daylight hours
So maybe there’s no way around
trouble.
H o p e fu lly, the road block
c h e c k s th is y u le tid e m a y
discourage drivers from one last
glass of party cheer or even at
tempting to get behind the wheel.
A crackdown by troopers in force
here in 1979 certainly slowed
drunk drivers.
Troopers in force then dogged
drivers who pulled out of bars and
handed out 23 D U II citations the
f ir s t week d u rin g the 1979
crackdown. The number of drunk
driving citations slowed to just
on** per day toward the end of that
campaign.
T heir new roadblock check
campaign should capture atten
tion of all party-goers here this
holiday season. D rive drunk here,
and they’ll pull you over for a
ticket—no m atter how well you
think you fake it. (VB)
Make your home yuletide safe
5. Old light strings with cracks
Christmas can be a warm time
of year with the fam ily cuddled in and frays should be replaced
side with the tree, lights and a
6. Unplug tree lights when gone
fire. Be careful things don’t get or sleeping
too warm, however, with tinder-
7. Be sure extention cords out
box trees, dangerous light fixures doors are designed for outdoor
and runaway fire.
use
The local fire d istrict and elec
8 Look fo r U n d e rw rite rs ’
tric company list the following Laboratory (U L ) seal of safety
guidelines for a safe and sane holi approval.
day season:
9 Let a irtigh t stoves burn free
1. Keep that tree dry with water with screen (not door) periodical
in base.
ly to burn off chimney buildup.
2. Candles should’t burn unat
10. Beware when burning wrap
tended or on a combustible base
ping
paper, because light paper
F ire Chief Bob Rathke recalls
burns
hot and fast
past fire here, due to unwatched
11. Radiant heat in wood stoves
candles
3. M iniature lights are best, w ill dry tree faster than before.
because they throw o ff less Unfortunately, too, people locally
seem to be putting uptrees earlier
dangerous heat.
4 D on’t put cords under each year, officials note Throw
carpets, since wear could lead to out tree when needles begin to
drop.
overheating
The Post gratefully acknowledges essays and w ritten opinions
from readers to appear on this page separate from the unbiased
news reports on other pages of this newspaper Your opinions
generally w ill be printed as letters to the editor, while ours
generally w ill appear as editorials Occasionally, we are able to
print guest editorials We attempt to print all signed letters of
good taste, legible form and reasonable length Our deadline is
noon on Tuesdays
L IF E S A V E R
Letter to the editor:
AuCoin explains Congress pay vote
I'm damned mad at the
way my vote in opposition
to the Congressrmal pay
raise has been distorted
and misrepresented by the
news wire services and
others I am w riting so
your readers can clearly
understand what happened
and why in the House of
Representatives
By law. all members ol
Congress would have been
given a *17.300 pay in
crease, if the House had
taken no action
As a
member of Congress op
posed to any pay increase.
I had opportunities on two
consecutive votes to strike
a blow at the size of the in
crease and then try to kill
the whole kit and katxxidle
On the first vote the
choice was between *17.300
or *0,000 I voted to lower
the raise to the lower
figure, limiting the damage
i f —God fo rb id —the a t
tempt to kill the raise failed
entirely
The second vote was on
the question of killing the
pay raise or leaving it at
the *9.000 level I voted to
kill it, just as I've voted
against every pay raise
since I ’ve been in Con
gress. Unfortunately, that
attempt failed on a tie vote
of 208-20«
T hat's the chronology
and my strategy on the
votes If the wire services
can't understand that, then
they belong in a strait-
jacket More im portant,
the issue isn't over yet, and
I ' l l co n tin u e to w ork
against a pay raise for
members of Congress at
this time, when so many of
my constituents are out of
w o rk , ru n n in g out ol
unem ploym ent benefits,
and with so many others
living in fear of losing their
jobs.
Les AuCoin
Member of Congress
Personally speaking
Christmas magic ‘metered’
Sometimes Christm as gifts
take strange forms The unex
peeled gift, like a wild rose on a
trail, glows with a ra re beauty So
it is with people who surprise us
with such unsolicited gifts of love
Perhaps they give from love
overflowing, while the rest of us
give what's expected from an in
ner emptiness
I got a taste of the difference a
few years ago at Christmas My
w ife and I w ere try in g to
scrounge up enough nickles and
d im e s to buy e a c h o th e r
something special
It wasn't easy We were broke,
just starting out in the city Also,
we wanted the gifts to be uniquely
heartwarm ing We scrimped and
saved until it hurt
She had this deep dark secret
about what she was getting me.
saying only that it was precious
one-of-a-kind and something I'd
keep forever
To earn money for this g ift. this
very pregnant lady took a job
babysitting for a roughneck kid
on the other side of town She'd
walk through the city streets in
the dark and cold to catch an 4 JO
a m
bus Exhausted, she's
return home again in the dark
trying not to slip on the icy
sidewalk in her pregnant condi
Hon
I wasn t even that lucky in fin
ding a job I'd walk the streets in
a second-hand raincoat and silly
spaghetti tic. trying to pawn off
poor resume carbon copies at ad
agencies, pr firm s or any
newspaper that might hire me
M y only references were limited
schooling and a desire
by VON BRASCHLER
Somewhere along the street my
shoes gave out. and my desire
became hunger I settled on a
minimum wage job greasing cars
in an all night gas station mid
night to eight That didn't give
me much sleep when I came
home to cram for afternoon
classes and breakfast chat with
my bride We were almost too
much in love to where it hurt.
T h e s ta tio n w as a r io t,
though—literally a riot It was a
wild integrated neighborhood
where almost anything happen
ed My graveyard partner actual
ly rented out the tire loft or
women's John for professional
girls to use a few minutes or
lo nger depending on number of
customers What thev did in
there. I didn't want to know B u tt
had an idea
Then one n ig h t close to
Christmas a black dude and a
white neighbor fought over our
last bottle of 30-weight bulk oil on
the pump island The debate end
ed when one customers smashed
the quart ja r over the head of the
other
Putting up with all these antics
in fun city. I still couldn't save up
enough nickles and dimes to buy
m y young w ife so m e th in g
wonderful our first Christmas
together
So we ate maccaroni and
cheese almost every dinner and
simple coffee cake from a jiffy
m ix
e v e ry
b r e a k fa s t
to
economize Our average twice-
weekly sacks from the super
m arket then totaled only *4 in
m accaro n i and coffee cake
mixes Because I bought coffee,
she gave up milk Probably not
sm art for a pregnant lady, but
what did I know about that?
Toward the final countdown of
days before Christmas, a small
m iracle happened to me It was a
small thing with no explanation,
except it happened at Christmas
Because it saved me nickles and
dimes enough for a gift I wanted
almost more than anytfiing. I
didn t question the source I
chalked it up to Christmas magic
T h e p a rk in g m e te r th a t
devoured my nickles and dimes
in front of the downtown hotel
strangely stopped expiring In
fact, it never ran out Now that's
no small change, if you're broke
and dropping H O each month
down those meters just to have a
plaee to park
Every tim e I'd run outside in
the cold to plug the meter, there
was plenty of tim e remaining It
almost looked as though some
kind person was plugging the
meter for me, watching it all day
long that Christmas week
So on Christmas eve I beamed
to tell my young wife that I had
waited at the late minute to get
her some very special gifts up the
street I ran through the crowds
of last-minute shoppers to beat
closing time downtown
R e ally, it w asn't much I
brought back to her in a bag Only
I was proud, because the act of
giving her something had grown
so important to me So I gave her
a pair of nylons that lasted a
month or so. a bottle of cologne
that lasted until summer, some
candy she liked and a copy of the
Sunday paper—because she liked
it, and we usually had to swipe it
and read fast before our neighbor
got up
My wife, however, produced a
lovely white gold wedding ring
for me I almost cried Later
when we stuffed our dried fir tree
into the hotel's alley dumpster,
the ring slipped off my finger I
had held it only two hours
altogether
Then she almost cried, and
later got a bit angry at my
carelessness in wearing an unsiz
ed ring that was too large while
throwing out trash in the dark
She was right, of course Only I
was so proud and happy I
couldn't take it off that night
The real magic of the night,
however, came from the phan
tom do-gooder who plugged our
parking meter out front I know It
was Christmas magic, because
the next day the red flag started
popping up every four hours on
expiration without mercy.