Eugene weekly., August 08, 2019, Page 9, Image 9

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• Oregon has a Red Flag Law allowing
courts to take weapons away from
people who are at risk as a danger to
themselves or others. That’s better
than some other states, but still not
enough. We need to do more to stop mass shootings and gun violence.
Thoughts and prayers sure as hell aren’t working. Let’s start with limiting
the number of bullets in a magazine. Oregon Fish and Wildlife’s cartridge limit
for birds is three rounds, and large game is five. If you need more bullets than
that, you are either a terrible shot or looking to kill a lot of people.
• What we’re reading: Opening piece in the Aug. 15 issue of The New
York Review of Books is a long review by Alan Weisman of two recent books:
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells and
Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? by Bill McKibben. Not
especially fun, but important reading for all of us.
• The world is a bleaker place
after the death of Toni Morrison
was announced Aug. 6. The
Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning
author died at 88 after a short
illness, according to a note from
her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.
When she won the Nobel Prize in
Literature, the Swedish Academy
wrote that Morrison was an author
“who in novels characterized by
visionary force and poetic import,
gives life to an essential aspect of
American reality.”
• After news of GateHouse and
Gannett merging to become one
megapower newspaper company,
concern over whether the sale of
the Bend Bulletin and Redmond
Spokesman would go to an out-
of-state corporation can be cast
aside for the moment. On July
WIKI COMMONS / © JOHN MATHEW SMITH 2001
29, East Oregonian Publishing
purchased the two Oregon newspapers for $3.65 million. Also known as
EO Media, the company publishes 10 newspapers in Oregon and one in
southwestern Washington. We hope GateHouse-owned The Register-Guard
also has a happy ending.
FAMILY SPONSORED OBITUARY
• It’s 2019, but it’s feeling like 2020 with election fever hitting the U.S.
And Eugene isn’t safe. Campaign contributions, according to the Federal
Election Commission, show Eugeneans are active in donating to presidential
candidates. Eugeneans donated $35,487 to President Donald Trump and his
political action committee, $21,981 to Sen. Bernie Sanders and $12,662 to
Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
• The little “Choose Kindness” signs around Eugene seemed
oddly incongruent after the terrible shootings in El Paso and Dayton, but
maybe they’re even more important. How about “Choose Kindness” signs
around the White House or Trump Tower or Mara Lago? Not that the
inhabitant or his blind followers would understand choosing kindness over
racism and bigotry, but it might be worth a try. Incidentally, a Choose
Kindness Celebration will be held Nov. 3 at The Shedd in Eugene.
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
Bokim Youm
1956 - 2019
Bokim Youm, née Lee, of Eugene, Ore., died
of liver failure at age 62 in Springfield, Ore., on
Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019.
Bokim was a junior in college in South Korea in
1978, when she took a calculated risk on her class-
mate Kyu Ho Youm as a campus sweetheart. Kyu
Ho, a poor, first-generation college student, had
big dreams of going to the United States, the land
of freedom and opportunity, to fulfill his academic
ambitions of studying journalism and freedom of
the press.
The pair were united in marriage in Seoul in
May 1980. Bokim joined Kyu Ho in Carbondale, Ill.,
six months later during the Thanksgiving week.
Her unflagging support enabled Kyu Ho’s fulfilling
life in America, first as a grad student from 1980 to
1985 and then as a college professor from 1985 to
the present.
Bokim was the pillar of the Youm family: Kyu
Ho, husband, of Eugene, Ore.; Harry, the Youms’
older son, of San Francisco, Calif.; and Eugene, the
Youms’ younger son, of Portland, Ore. It was Bokim,
above all, who made the Youms a loving family
throughout the years—this, among other things, so
impressed Sherry Chen that she accepted Harry’s
proposal in early 2018 with alacrity.
To her husband, who tends to be absent-mind-
ed at home, Bokim was a smart, detail-oriented,
family-first wife, although she immensely enjoyed
working at the Tempe Public Library in Tempe, Ariz.,
and the University of Oregon Library for more than
20 years. Throughout their married life, Bokim was
a constant source of bliss for Kyu Ho. When asked
about the happiest moment of his weekdays, Kyu
Ho unhesitatingly replied, “My 10-minute drive
back home from my office. That someone I love is
waiting makes me always look forward to going
home after work.”
To her children, as Harry posted on Facebook
on Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, Bokim was “definitely the
best Mom in the world”: a caring, dedicated, and
determined mother.
Bokim’s joy in life was to see Harry and Eugene
fully living up to her expectations. Beyond academ-
ic hopes for her sons, Bokim always wanted Harry
and Eugene to grow up with a sense of goals and
service. One of her finest achievements was raising
Harry and Eugene to be accomplished, wonderful,
decent human beings in America.
Bokim’s “gamble” in the late 1970s paid off with
a loving husband and devoted children who valued
her role as Kyu Ho’s truly exceptional wife and the
first-class mother of Harry and Eugene and the
mother-in-law of Sherry.
Her family’s everlasting memory of Bokim as
someone special is encapsulated by Harry’s Face-
book posting: “Eugene, Dad, and I were lucky to have
you and will always love you. Sleep well, Umma.”
(Umma is the endearing Korean term for Mom.)
Kyu Ho, Harry and Sherry, and Eugene wish
to express their special thanks to the committed
doctors and nurses and others at the intensive
care unit of the PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical
Center at RiverBend in Springfield, Ore.
The funeral service in celebration of Bokim’s
good life is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 9, 2019, at
10 a.m. at the Korean Central Presbyterian Church,
3360 Game Farm Road, Springfield, OR 97477
(https://centraleugene.church/).
A U G U S T
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