A4
THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, MAy 28, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
WRITER’S NOTEBOOK
Retirement — in three steps
‘S
o how’s retirement?”
I’ve frequently gotten that
question from friends and
acquaintances over the past two years.
There is an easy answer to that question
(good) and a more nuanced response that
I’ve dished out more than once — espe-
cially to guys.
My late father said to me that, “Retire-
ment is the hardest thing I’ve done.” He
said that work had been his life since he
was a teenager. While he
had seen his own retire-
ment approaching —
scheduled for 1988 — he
did not see a path beyond
that, until my mother,
with the assistance of
Marian Palmberg Soder-
STEVE
berg, set him up to men-
FORRESTER
tor students at Warrenton
Grade School.
In Portland, he continued that by
assisting immigrants who were studying
for the citizenship test. I had hoped he
would write a memoir of the long span
he had seen in Oregon politics, but he
had no ambition for that.
Having watched my own experience,
which began some two years ago, I have
identified three steps in retirement. Step
one is getting more sleep. Step two is
what I call “We could do that.” In other
words, we could play golf on a weekday.
Or we could drive to Portland to see that
movie that will never come to Astoria. Or
take Amtrak to Tacoma to see that leg-
endary automobile museum.
Step three is the big one. And that
is the need to discover new purpose. In
other words, a project.
I have been fortunate because writing
My LATE FATHER TOLd
ME THAT, ‘RETIREMENT
IS THE HARdEST THING
I’VE dONE.’
Liisa Penner collects and archives documents at the Clatsop County Historical Society.
There are several books waiting to be written in the materials of that archive.
has been my profession. And of course,
writing involves no heavy lifting. Retire-
ment has allowed me to pursue a book
concept that I had nurtured for some 30
years, but with no time to execute. Chet
Orloff, the Portland historian, was my
sounding board.
The theme of this prospective book
was “Eminent Oregonians,” modeled on
Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians.”
Chet heard me out on the idea in 1990.
Upon leaving daily journalism in 2016,
I renewed our conversation — this time
for keeps.
Before I give you an update, let me
share another element in the three-step
retirement program. It comes from Frank
Gehry, the architect. In a recent issue
of WSJ: the Wall Street Journal Maga-
zine, Gehry, who is 90, describes his lat-
est project, which is leading the reclama-
tion or refashioning of the Los Angeles
River. He tells the WSJ interviewer that
it is unlike anything he’s done. And
that, Gehry said, prompts “a healthy
insecurity.”
He adds a useful credo: “The only
reason you keep going is if you know
there’s something more to discover.”
When I recruited four writers to help
me create “Eminent Oregonians,” I did it
without the somewhat reckless buoyance
of a 25-year-old, but with the healthy
anxiety of a 70-year-old.
Researching my chapter, on the late
Oregon Sen. Richard Neuberger, has
been totally engrossing. There is joy
in hitting the jackpot in a box of musty
correspondence from the 1950s. I rec-
ommend research as a pastime. I fur-
ther recommend the archive of the Clat-
sop County Historical Society. There are
several books waiting to be written in
the materials of that archive. If history
is your fascination, Astoria is a mother
lode.
Women are no different than men in
their need to develop a post-working
career set of options. But men tend not to
talk about it. For The Wall Street Journal,
the humorist Dave Barry wrote an amus-
ing column about turning 70. He noted
that while women instantly share one
other’s problems, men do not. So Barry
concluded that the reason the NFL, the
NBA and the MLB were created was to
give men something to talk about.
And that leads me to the later-in-
life project I have not executed. As I
approached retirement, I told my wife
that I’d like to form a book group for
men. We would read only one book —
Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” That would
keep us going for years.
Steve Forrester, the former editor and
publisher of The Astorian, is the presi-
dent and CEO of EO Media Group.
LETTERS
Farm aid
, like not a few others, am most curious
about the money, some $28 billion to
date, President Donald Trump announced
he will give to American farmers impacted
by his trade tariffs on China.
Trump’s compensation clearly appears
to be an effort to shore up a wavering
Republican farm belt voter base, which
smacks of pure politics, at the same time
flaunting flawless socialism, while social-
ism is being weaponized against Demo-
cratic politicians.
The question begs: Where are all those
billions of dollars coming from? If they be
American tax dollars, it’s damned absurd,
because those billions used to be paid by
China to American farmers for American
products.
RD SMITH
Gearhart
I
Affordable housing
or those of us who can return home
to a warm, comfortable abode each
evening, the growing housing problem
seems remote (“New study examines Clat-
sop County’s housing crunch,” The Daily
Astorian, April 11).
This article mentions that affordable
housing can’t be built “without some kind
of public subsidy.” The piece doesn’t
happen to mention homelessness, how-
ever Clatsop Community Action stated in
2017 that the county has “more than 1,000
homeless people at any given time.”
The biggest winners from Presi-
dent Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law were
non-Hispanic white households in the top
1 percent. And now Trump’s fiscal year
2020 budget proposal would cut the U.S
Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) by an astounding $9.6 billion, or
18 percent below the already underfunded
2019 enacted levels. Homeless assistance
programs would be cut $34 million less
than the 2019 levels.
Congress must now decide what parts
of the fiscal year 2020 budget proposal to
reject or amend. We can call or email our
members of Congress and tell them to sup-
port low-income housing.
DONNA SCHINDLER MUNRO
Bremerton, Washington
F
Unrecognizable GOP
n response to U.S. Rep. Greg Walden’s
request for donations to the GOP:
Until such time as President Donald
Trump is out of office, and the Republi-
can Party begins to support the values and
beliefs this country was founded on, I will
not be donating any funds, or supporting in
any way, any Republican candidate.
I do not recognize the shape of a party
I have belonged to for years. I am totally
flummoxed at the Republican senators
I
and representatives who have failed to
support the rule of law and hold Trump
accountable.
Is he a convicted criminal? Not yet.
Should the American people be informed
of the facts? Yes. Should be Trump held
accountable? Yes. We deserve to know
the truth. Whether it be good or bad for
Trump, it is still the truth.
Please do not hesitate to contact me
for financial support after Mr. Walden has
publicly gone on record at the minimum
supporting testimony from Robert Mueller,
Don McGahn and anyone the Ways and
Means or Judiciary committees subpoena
under their constitutional requirement of
oversight.
Mr. Walden’s, and Trump’s, assertion
that we focus totally on some arguable
benefit of the Trump presidency may have
some value, but I will not support any pol-
itician who will not stand up for the values
and beliefs of our heritage.
I spent three years in the Marine Corps
(1964-1967), and I will not be a participant
of the destruction of our democracy, and
those beliefs and values.
The ball is now in Mr. Walden’s court.
PAUL DUEBER
Cannon Beach
No war with Iran
am opposed to any war with Iran. A year
ago, President Donald Trump pulled the
U.S. from the nuclear agreement that took
10 years to build. Just because he could.
Like a spoiled child with a toy.
There have been no real new threats
from Iran. Remember our mistakes in
I
Iraq? A holocaust. Trump has taken jealous
delight in demolishing much of the good
created during Obama’s presidency.
This war escalation must stop. John
Bolton and Mike Pompeo came to the
White House as hawks, and that attitude is
what brought them there, and what keeps
them there. Conflict.
We don’t need to start another war in
the Middle East. Iran has its own prob-
lems, and doesn’t need one, either. We do
need an educated diplomacy from the State
Department. And with Pompeo, that’s not
happening. That education and under-
standing is what builds alliances, trust and
a future for all children.
The cost of just sending gigantic war-
ships and armaments to the Persian Gulf
must have been a pretty penny. Enough to
feed the children who are starving in this
country.
Iranian people are not so different than
we are. They want a house and a car and a
chicken in the pot on Sunday. The Iranian
culture is thousands of years old. Strangely
enough, in general, Iranians like Ameri-
cans. Go figure.
We must learn to live in a world with
differences. Nothing is served by another
war in the Middle East. If this war hap-
pens, will Don Jr. and Eric Trump be
going? I hope so.
MARY TANGUAY WEBB
Astoria
No champion of women
n response to “‘Lysistrata’ revisited”
(The Astorian, May 23): Read the his-
tory of the play “Lysistrata,” and you’ll
I
see that Aristophanes is no champion of
women, but instead a classic misogynist.
As a literary method, he uses the Athe-
nian/Spartan war to show how mediocre
men kill off their gender/kin/sons in con-
tinued wars, while juxtaposed with women
stopping it by holding off the act of sex as
a peace weapon.
Aristophanes hated the “war machine,”
and used this play to speak his politi-
cal sentiments loudly. He used women as
a foil for the weakness/brutality of men.
Although a classic for over 2,000 years,
this play continues to be misinterpreted
wildly.
In “Lysistrata,” he portrays Spartans
and Athenian women as enemies, uniting
to become political allies. They do this by
holding a successful sex strike, sequester-
ing themselves off in a tower. (Remember,
no women held any political power during
this time.)
Unfortunately, though seemingly con-
temporary, this was not a feminist strata-
gem; instead, it was seen by Aristophanes
as a way to diminish the current political
powers of men by showing that even lowly
forces (albeit women), could hold domi-
nance, sway politics and humiliate them.
This 2,700-year-old literature doesn’t
give credence to women as equals. During
that era, women were unable to hold any
political office, let alone simple leadership.
Today, we still do not have equal rights.
Misinterpretation shows ongoing injus-
tice to women’s intelligence. It is a com-
ical fiction showing women successfully
stopping the killing in wars, and men feel-
ing slighted by not being as able.
MICHELLE BRIGHT
Astoria