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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2015)
OPINION 6A 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 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2015 Life’s a buggy ride for Gearhart’s McEwan SOUTHERN EXPOSURE HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Wyden wins long struggle with NSA B Y R.J. M ARX O f all the things we can think about to be thankful for at this holiday season, it is the people in our lives who gives he best hope for a nation is that it may grow smarter. us love, support and friendship, Learning from the past — not making fatal errors — is especially new friends young and old. essential. Probably the oldest new friend Presidential campaigns often wake of the NSA announcement we met may be the oldest resident in have carried a measure of dema- last week, Sen. Wyden brought Gearhart. goguery. This year’s Republican the recent terrorist attacks on Most people think so. %ob Mc(- candidates are setting a record. Paris and Mali into the discus- wan celebrated his 93rd birthday this In the scramble to win the race to sion. “After every such attack, month, making him a living witness war against ISIS, Sen. Lindsay politicians who would play to to the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War and everything in Graham of South Carolina hit Americans’ fears call for liberty between. a home run by promising to to be sacri¿ ced in the name of He is a lifelong Oregonian and commit 20,000 ground troops security. I reject those calls. And has lived in Gearhart for more than a century. His buggy ride, drawn to Syria. Sen. Graham has a as long as Americans continue half by trusty donkey friend Pancho short memory. The physical and to demand that their govern- down Paci¿ c Way on Sundays and ¿ nancial cost of 8.S. occupa- ment protect both their security holidays, is famous up and down the tions of Iraq and Afghanistan and their liberty, I am con¿ dent North Coast. We have the privilege of knowing was huge and yielded relatively that our country can deal with Bob and Pancho, a delightful friend- little. So the senator thinks we these threats without sacri¿ cing ship if there ever was one. Pancho ought to do that again. our most cherished rights and is a Bethlehem donkey — not your common burro, that’s for sure. Pan- In the midst of such mad- values.” cho is blessed with the mark of his ness, it was refreshing to have In standing up for the breed, a cross along his back. He is news last week that the National Constitution and exposing the enormously social, intelligent and Security Agency will cease its NSA telephone records dragnet, he makes you want to own a donkey sweep of telephone records that Wyden emulated his legendary of your own. Bob, accompanied by his black began secretly in the wake of predecessor, Sen. Wayne Morse, Labrador retriever, Pearl, is a master the World Trade Center attacks. who opposed the Gulf of Tonkin of the rare art of carriage-driving. He came with his mother and The 8SA )reedom Act, which Resolution that led to escalation grandmother from Portland to Sea- became law in June, forced the of 8.S. involvement in 9ietnam. side, where she managed the Neca- NSA to shut down the operation. 8nlike Morse, Wyden has nicum Inn, “an old, old hostelry in Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden the collegiality to draw others to Seaside,” Mc(wan said on his birth- played a leading role over 10 his cause. That is why the 8SA day. His grandmother dabbled in real years to bring the NSA’s secret )reedom Act passed the Senate estate a little bit, he said, and she operation into the open. In the by a vote of 67-32. bought the Gearhart home he now T We can have freedoms and defend against terrorists Mitchum’s acts are a good example W illiam “Mitch” Mitchum was a prime example of the kind of passionate proponent Astoria has been so fortunate to attract and retain in recent de- cades. Mitchum was a walking ad- vertisement for the 8.S. Navy’s ability to recruit and nurture leaders. Retiring as a captain at Naval )acilities (ngineering Command in Norfolk, 9irginia, in the 1990s, he discovered Astoria and moved here to run the Public Works Department. )or Mitch and his wife, Toni, living here could have been a case of culture shock after ca- reers in the penumbra of the na- tion’s capital. Instead, they took to this place’s people and ways like salmon migrating to a pure Paci¿ c Northwest river. After spending 11 years as public works director, Mitchum reinvented himself again as the owner of historic properties. Our Monday story about him summarized some of these suc- cesses. Most recently, he was at work helping imagine a new use Mitch Mitchum for the old Central School site. Cyndi Mudge, a fellow com- munity supporter, summed it up: “I just think of Mitch being the ultimate cornerstone volun- teer in the community.” It can be said of Mitchum that his achievements will long outlive him. Perhaps his biggest legacy will be the ways in which he showed that one person, act- ing with enthusiasm and intel- ligence, can ignite long-lasting positive changes. Where to write • U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing- ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225- 0855. )ax 202-225-9497. District of¿ ce: 12725 SW Millikan Way, Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005. Phone: 503-469-6010. )ax 503-326- 5066. Web: bonamici.house. gov/ • U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313 Hart Senate Of¿ ce Building, Washington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-3753. Web: www.merkley. senate.gov • U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D): 221 Dirksen Senate Of¿ ce Building, Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone: 202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden. senate.gov • State Rep. Brad Witt (D): State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.(., H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state. or.us/witt/ (mail: rep.bradwitt# state.or.us lives in sight unseen. The home, built in 1908, was located on “just a cowpath in the trees,” he said. “8p here, between Cottage and Marion up to the main street, there was nothing there,” Mc(wan re- membered. “It was just that rolling sand dunes and grass. Where the golf course is now but from there to what they call Paci¿ c Way — it used to be Sixth Street — it was horse pasture. There were cranberry bogs in Del Mar.” Gearhart School was located where the Trail’s (nd Gallery on Av- enue A is now. As a teenager, he got a job work- ing at the Gearhart Hotel, when it was owned by Portland department store magnate Myron )rank. The hotel, now gone and replaced by condominiums, held conventions for 300, 00 people at a time, Mc(wan said. “I was the kind of mess boy in the help’s dining room … that seated about 50 people,” he said. “I set it up every day and cleaned off the tables and stuff. It was a big deal then.” A prankster, teenage Bob would ride the dumbwaiter — an elevator with a crank with a rope — from the third À oor down to the basement. “It was against the rules to get into that thing, but I always got in and rode myself down from one À oor to the next. ” His next job was working for the Gearhart )uel Co . “They sold wood, ice and coal on Gin Ridge and ev- erywhere,” he said. “I drove one of their wood trucks around when I was about 12. There were no streets square like there are now, just tracks. You could drive around — no traf- ¿ c, no police, no nothing. The big houses on what we call Gin Ridge, they’re just like they used to be, but there’s a lot more added in between.” Mc(wan drove milk trucks from the dairy in Seaside, delivering to Cannon Beach and Gearhart. The shelling of )ort Stevens took place in April 192, but Mc(- wan missed it. “My grandmother and I were here that night when that hap- pened,” he said. “In the morning she said, did you hear those awful explosions last night? “I said, ‘No, I slept right through it.’ “She said it sounded like some- body was blasting. It was that loud, R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian Bob McEwan travels in style with Pearl on the seat and Pancho at the lead. R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian Bob McEwan celebrates his 93rd birthday in Gearhart. ‘I decided this was the best place anywhere.’ Bob McEwan I guess.” When he woke up in the early morning to make his deliveries, there were already “extra” editions of newspapers on the stand, telling the Oregon Coast had been shelled by a Japanese submarine. That afternoon, he was up to see the shells, mostly at DeLau- ra Beach. “They didn’t come very close,” he said. “They were on the wrong side of the road.” The fort didn’t return the ¿ re be- cause they were afraid they would give away their position, Mc(wan explained. “They probably couldn’t reach it anyway because the range wasn’t as good as the submarine’s was,” he said. Soon after, he joined the Mer- chant Marine, and traveled around the world delivering needed sup- plies until the war ended in 1945. “I was most of the time in the Western Paci¿ c and the South Paci¿ c,” he said. “I was in the Persian Gulf and around the world. The Merchant Marine was a big operation, and they covered a lot of ground,” he said. “(verything that was hauled overseas, the Merchant Marines took it, so we went everywhere.” Mc(wan returned home to Gear- hart in 1945. Were you glad to come back? “Oh, yeah! I was all over the world, and I decided this was the best place anywhere,” he said. After the war, Mc(wan went to work with the county road de- R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian Pancho poses for his close-up. partment as an engineer for the bridge crew. Those were the days of timber-trestle bridges, before the advent of the concrete bridges built today. Part of his work was installing and replacing culverts. The county purchased a backhoe — “the ¿ rst one I’d ever seen or any- one had ever seen around here.” In the course of his work, he was made bridge foreman. The backhoe became his stock in trade. “I took over that thing and used it for the culverts, and ¿ nally a friend of mine convinced me to buy my own, and I quit the county and bought one. I started in 1956. … My son runs it.” Today, Mc(wan still wakes up and goes to work every morning at Laurelwood )arm. He harnesses Pancho to the cart and drives him around Gearhart every Sunday, with Pearl riding shotgun. As Bob Mc(wan blows out the candles on “93,” a hint of a tear forms at his eye. It’s a chocolate cake, his favorite — although his doctor tells him he can “only eat so much.”