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.”