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OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2015 Remembering John Duncan Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager New future awaits legendary ship-rescue vessel Salvage Chief slated for educational mission in Columbia estuary A nyone who lived near the mouth of the Columbia River in the second half of the 20th century is certain to know of “the powerful tug Salvage Chief, famed savior of many a ship in distress,” to quote Paci¿c *raveyard, by James A. Gibbs. It’s exciting to learn that Salvage Chief LLC, a group headed by Pier 39 owner Floyd Holcom, and a related founda- tion have acquired this legend- ary workhorse and returned it to the estuary “as both a memorial to past crewmen and as an edu- cation tool for future seaman.” Salvage Chief worked not just in local waters, but was called XSRQWRUHÀRDWKXQGUHGVRIYHV- sels stranded along the U.S. West Coast between 1947 and 2008. As our Monday story noted, during its active career Salvage Chief employed many area res- idents, some of whom will play an active role in crafting a new set of missions for it. These for- mer crew members and support staff will be its most passion- ate supporters, but there is no overstating just how prominent Salvage Chief was in local news and community consciousness. By setting anchors, attaching winches and carefully maneuver- ing — often in dangerous condi- tions — Salvage Chief was able to redeem situations that would otherwise have been hopeless. The amount of property and en- vironmental damage thus avoid- ed must easily total hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of its storied career. This made Salvage Chief and its high- ly trained crew into celebrities in the maritime communities of the 3DFL¿FFRDVWZKRVHDFFRPSOLVK- ments were front-page news and the topic of countless coffee shop conversations. Vast improvements in navi- gation, nautical systems, com- munications, timely U.S. Coast Guard response and other factors mean fewer occasions for hero- ic maritime rescues now than when Salvage Chief was in its prime. But the ship nevertheless offers the opportunity to impart ¿UVWKDQGOHVVRQVWRQHZJHQHUD- tions of young people interested in careers on the ocean. Holcom hopes to form collaborations with Tongue Point Job Corps, Clatsop Community College’s Marine and Environmental Research and Training Station and the U.S. Army. Salvage Chief has an honor- able record of service. It’s good to see the possibility that it will remain intact and serve useful new roles here at the mouth of the Columbia. A rriving in the South County in May from the East was like landing in a different world. 2QHRIWKH¿UVWSHRSOHWRFDSWXUH our attention was John Duncan. :KR ZDV WKLV 6DQWD &ODXV ¿J- ure wearing short pants and orange Crocs? He sat at the Gearhart City Council meeting next to Mayor Di- anne Widdop and had the calm and placid demeanor of the Buddha. The topic was a fence ordinance. Everybody else wanted a fence or- dinance. Duncan didn’t see the need and said so. “We still have the inter- national building code. “We would have something in place.” He was not only one or two chess moves ahead, he was three or four. He said that an ordinance without a permit requirement made no sense. “Without a permit requirement in the city we have no way of tracking what is going on,” he said. “The original updated ordinance had a permit in it, and the council decided they didn’t like it and took it out.” In a subsequent meeting, he mas- terfully navigated a street vacation — a homeowner’s request to remedy a century-old surveyor’s error. They wanted relief from the city to help them set their maps straight. Duncan knew councilors needed to make things right, but he made sure the city didn’t give away the store. He pressed for an easement that would preserve city utility ac- cess and limit potential building size on the site — important concessions WKDWZLOOEHQH¿WDOOUHVLGHQWV He was among the leaders calling IRU D QHZ DQG VDIHU ¿UHKRXVH DQG emergency center in Gearhart, and volunteered to serve on a committee to make that happen. Duncan seemed to embody ev- erything we like about the state: big man, big heart, independent and love of the outdoors. Duncan — or “Dunc” as his old friends called him — hung out at WKH 3DFL¿F :D\ HYHU\ GD\ LW ZDV open, and he was glad to enlighten his audience, in a good way. When he said I wrote a good story in The Daily Astorian or the Seaside Sig- nal, it meant he had read every word and every punctuation mark. It meant a lot. In his spare time, Duncan led a small, homegrown crew to reclaim the city’s beloved Ridge Path, the former Indian trail crossing through backyards and side yards. No matter how old you are, you feel like a kid on the Ridge Path. From its earliest days, the path was a shaded cross-through from town to Little Beach. The path was over- grown in places, impassable, even. Despite ill health, Duncan and his presidential candidates squirm. Jeb Bush, a Catholic, virtually disclaimed the pope’s credential IRU RIIHULQJ VFLHQWL¿F DGYLFH WR the world. The truth is that politicians are the last people we should EH ORRNLQJ WR IRU VFLHQWL¿F RU moral guidance. Or apparently for guidance on pressing mat- ters such as climate change and immigration. What most of the Republicans running for presi- dent know best is the politics of fear. There is little hope in their messages. Rachel Donadio makes a useful observation about the se- lection of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires as pope. Noting that the Italians who dominate the Vatican press corps did not see his elevation coming, she says: “It was out- VLGHWKHLU¿HOGRIYLVLRQ,WZDV RXWVLGH DOPRVW HYHU\RQH¶V ¿HOG of vision.” We long for a national lead- er who will move our politics away from the congressional cycle of anger, resentment, ret- ribution and procrastination. That is not likely to happen. And that’s why we anticipate Pope Francis’ American visit with enthusiasm. SEEN FROM SEASIDE B Y R.J. M ARX Submitted Photo John Duncan volunteer army traipsed through mud, brambles and elk poop with loppers and saws. He worked so long and with such pride that other volunteers would have to plead fatigue to convince him it was time to quit for the day. He was out working on the path two days before his death, and at the Gearhart Homeowners Association luncheon the day before. No irony ever lost on Duncan, the homeown- ers association themselves had con- ceived and nurtured the path. Gearhart needed John Duncan. He was elected in 2014 in the midst of a growing political clash leading to a failed recall election of Mayor Dianne Widdop. When no one else had the an- swers, he did. Widdop, councilors, the city’s manager Chad Sweet looked to him for guidance and so did the city attorney. 7KH ÀDJV ZHUH DW KDOIVWDII LQ Gearhart this week, and that was ap- propriate, for his loss doesn’t only bring sorrow to his family. It makes us all too aware of what we as a com- A ‘PATH’ TO HIS MEMORY The city of Gearhart has set up a memorial fund in honor of City Councilman, John Duncan. The proceeds of this fund will be used to complete the extension of the ridge path through the wetland areas. Councilman Duncan used his engineering skills and the help of volunteers over the past several months to make this dream of former Mayor Kent Smith a reality. If you would like to make a donation, checks may be made out to the City of Gearhart, P.O. Box 2510, Gearhart, OR 97138. Please reference John Duncan on the memo line. munity have lost as well. R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s South County reporter and editor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach *a]ette. The Republicans play loser’s poker suggested that vaccines while others lost their homes to foreclosure. caused autism. Still, Fiorina tried her :LWK&DOLIRUQLDRQ¿UH hand at loser’s poker, with ou can’t out-crazy Donald nobody onstage acknowl- a seemingly heartfelt ac- edged the need for urgent Trump. count of how Planned Par- action on climate change. You can’t best him in half-truths And with the Middle East enthood sells fetal body that sound plausible just because you DÀDPHLQDQRWKHUZD\WKH parts. The problem, as say them with forceful bluster. fact-checkers have point- front-runners vowed to You can’t be scarier to Latinos be anything but Reagan- ed out, is that the video than the man who threatens to round esque in talking with our she described was most- Timothy them up like stray cattle. ly a fabrication — on her enemies. All but the noble Egan part. And you can’t offend half the failure of Sen. Rand Paul Dr. Ben Carson, who looks like population more than the puffer- were ready and eager to give war a KHFDQ¶W¿QGKLVJODVVHVDIWHUZDNLQJ ¿VKIDFHG SOXWRFUDW ZKR GLVPLVVHV chance. less-attractive females as “fat pigs,” The media stampede now is for up from a long nap, also threw a few while bragging that he used to sleep Carly Fiorina. She’ll get a sizable chips in the Trump game. While not with “the top women in the world.” poll bump and lots of favorable press calling for the police-state roundup No, Trump is a singular force, im- in coming weeks. She showed digni- of immigrants that Trump promotes, mune to the normal rules that punish ty when asked to respond to Trump’s he advocated “turning off the spigot a buffoon. Trump has the charlatan’s put-down of her looks, and she that dispenses all the goodies so we gift of using superlatives to cover showed a basic mastery of detail that don’t have people coming here, in- the lack of detail. His opponents do anyone who spends a day Googling cluding employment.” What’s he talking about? By turn- not. In trying to embrace ignorance, world events could acquire. make things up and then act offend- But she will not wear well; she’s ing off the spigot, does he mean forc- ed when someone calls them on it, a terrible candidate in the age of in- ing other people to make the beds in they just look smaller and less pres- come inequality and a battered mid- hotel rooms, to mow the lawns in idential. dle class. Mitt Romney was pum- suburbia, to pick the apples in farm It’s a game of loser’s poker, to use meled for investing in companies country? All Carson did with this Trump’s favorite put- that close U.S. plants non sequitur was give Democrats down. And for a party and ship jobs overseas. further evidence to show Hispanics By that desperately needs Fiorina, as chief exec- that Republicans treat them like dirt. Jeb Bush tried to play by Trump’s to expand its appeal in a of Hewlett-Pack- Trump’s utive general election, exactly ard, went him one bet- rules as well. Responding to the hit the wrong tack. WHU ² ¿ULQJ WKRXVDQGV that he’s low energy — read, low rules, By Trump’s rules, of people, while being testosterone — he said his Secret facts will get you no- facts will rewarded for failure. Service nickname would be “Ever- where. Don’t bother She is the embodiment eady — it’s very high energy, Don- get you with a plan. And cer- of the unfairness, the DOG´6QDSS\%XWWKHQKHORZ¿YHG tainly don’t reach out to rigged game that hurts Trump’s extended palm, bro-joining the majority of Ameri- nowhere. so many average work- the hand of the one who has emascu- lated him. If only he had a little Irish cans who are not afraid ing people. of undocumented immigrants, or Sen. Barbara Boxer of California or Sicilian blood in him. Bush did expose Trump for think that abortion should be safe destroyed Fiorina on this point in and legal in most cases, or prefer di- 2010, a bad year for Democrats, in what should be his greatest weak- plomacy to war. a race that Republicans should have ness, something that’s been largely So it was at Ronald Reagan’s done better in. Trump, who makes overlooked by the surface-obsessed presidential library in the Republi- his living “playing to people’s fan- press. The guy is a casino opera- can debate, where the sunny opti- tasies,” in his words — casinos, tor. He made a lot of money sepa- mism of the Gipper was nowhere gold-plated apartments, gaudy ho- rating suckers from their money. to be found. Instead, we heard dark tels — was the wrong person to car- And then, through his bankruptcies, stories of auctioned fetus brains, a ry this line of attack. Joe Biden, with he eventually failed at that — one world falling apart, and promises his Everyman, Uncle Joe demeanor, of the most rigged schemes in the to kick people off health care. And could paint the dour Fiorina as the world. He lost in his own game of that was before the leading candidate boss who slipped away with millions loser’s poker. By TIMOTHY EGAN New York Times News Service Compared to Congress, Y Pope Francis glows T he phenomenon of Pope Francis is summed up by an American journalist who covers him at the Vatican. On Sunday, Rachel Donadio of The New York Times wrote: “In the two short years since his election, Pope Francis has man- aged an unusual feat: He has become as beloved by the in- ternational news media and the secular intelligentsia as by his RZQÀRFNRIELOOLRQ´ This week, the pope is in Cuba and he comes to Washington, D.C. On Thursday, he will speak to a joint session of Congress. Francis’ arrival during a sur- real presidential campaign sea- son is most welcome. The sequence of Cuba, fol- lowed by the Washington ap- pearance, makes a certain point. The motivation for secret talks between Cuba and the U.S. came IURP WKLV ¿UVW 6RXWK $PHULFDQ pope. That led to a resumption of diplomatic relations between WKH WZR FRXQWULHV DIWHU ¿YH GH- cades of a Cold War dynamic. The pope made a broad dec- laration on climate change and the damage it brings to the poor- est, in his encyclical Laudato Si. That made some American Betty Smith/The Daily Astorian Hundreds of friends and mourners came to Gearhart last week to re- member John Duncan.
