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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 2019)
A6 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 16, 2019 Morgan: Reiki is an energy therapy Continued from Page A1 Morgan moved to the N orth C oast fi ve years ago. He spent 25 years working in management for the state and then shifted toward so- cial and spiritual services. Born in Minnesota in 1941, Morgan and his fam- ily moved to Medford when he was 6 years old, where he grew up above the mor- tuary his family owned and operated. A s he got older, he started helping his dad pick up bodies from the hospital. The experience gave him the opportunity to deal with and become comfortable with death, he said. After graduating high school in 1959, Morgan went into the military to work with computers and data processing. Right before Morgan was scheduled to return home from the military, his dad died . Morgan, the only child, came back and sup- ported his mother . They sub- sequently sold the mortuary. Morgan married Marty, who he had known since grade school, and they had three kids together. While living in Portland, Morgan became a hospice volunteer after he and his wife helped care for some friends before they had died. He started working and vol- unteering at his local hos- pice to support patients with their spiritual and physical needs. Morgan also started studying Reiki, an energy therapy where practitioners place their palms on a patient to transfer energy to promote emotional or phys- ical healing. He eventually became a Reiki master. Morgan cared for his wife when she was diag- nosed with pancreatic can- cer and eventually died . In Morgan’s three part- nerships after Marty, he became a caregiver for each of them during their battles with cancer and eventual deaths . “I’ve had to come to an understanding of what death is that allows me to understand it and accept it and support it,” Morgan said. “That was the major turning point. When Marty died, I didn’t have that all together, so I spent the next couple years working on some of that.” You wouldn’t know Mor- gan experienced so much loss upon meeting him. He has a gentle demeanor and a joyful smile. Morgan said his expe- riences with death and his personal spiritual journey have taught him not to resist death, but rather view it as an opportunity to connect more to the universe and everyone and everything around him. Morgan described death as “letting go of our physi- cal body and moving into a relationship with the entire universe.” “It’s a gift if you can see it that way,” he said. Morgan serves as a vol- unteer chaplain at Colum- bia Memorial Hospital in Astoria and offers Reiki as an integrative therapy to patients at the Knight Cancer Collaborative. He also volunteers for Lower Columbia Hospice’s No One Dies Alone program . Each experience with death has taught Mor- gan to open up to the les- son it can offer, which has allowed him to be more present. That presence, just as in the Buddhist monk’s story about washing dishes, has allowed him to fi nd joy even in the hardest of times. R.J. Marx/The Astorian Some in the audience at Rep. Tiffi ny Mitchell’s town hall were critical of her vote for a cap-and-trade bill. Mitchell: ‘Oregon can’t let one company ... regulate our decision-making’ Continued from Page A1 “After the election of 2018, we realized we had the opportunity to do some amazing things, and I think we’ve done that,” said Mitchell, who is in her fi rst two-year term. She cited a drug take- back program for safe dis- posal, a $2 billion state school fund that helps career-oriented education, a plastic bag ban and lim- its on rent increases , among other legislative items. People in the a udience said passage of HB 2020 would have cost jobs and could have le d to the loss of local industry if companies moved out of the state as a result of tougher climate policies. “The closure of Wauna Mill would compound in the community,” Frank Stuhr, a Warrenton resident, said . “We would end up paying signifi cantly more than what the bill requires.” Georgia-Pacifi c, which employs 750 at the paper mill, did not say it would leave the state if the bill became law. But the union that represents mill workers warned about the potential for job losses and a closure. Mitchell defended her support of the bill. “I don’t think we should be argu- ing whether this multimil- lion-dollar company will be seriously impacted by an extra $500,000,” she said. “Oregon can’t let one com- pany, that is one of the larg- est polluters in the state, reg- ulate our decision-making.” One person in the audi- ence urged her to “listen to Clatsop County, not to Port- land,” to applause. Others questioned her votes for a plastic bag ban and housing protections for renters, including limits on rent hikes and evictions. “If I campaigned on those things and was elected on those positions, I think it stands to reason that the vast majority of the constituency support the things we’ve done,” Mitch- ell responded. Bob Shortman, the chair- man of Clatsop County Republicans, saw the town hall as a way to build enthu- siasm for the party’s base. “I would really like to thank you, because our membership is increas- ing amazingly,” Shortman said. “We’re having stand- ing-room meetings. We’re very looking forward to next year for a candidate, and spirited debates.” On that, at least, the two divergent sides could agree. “Spirited is a great term,” Mitchell said after the town hall. “After the lightning rod (HB) 2020 session, I think it’s a good thing to bring out people with different opinions. Polling shows there is a divide. The tenor of the dis- cussion would make you think the divide is much larger than it actually is.” Photos by Edward Stratton/The Astorian Coast Guard families gathered Monday to greet the crew of the cutter Elm. Cutter Elm: Ship traveled through Panama Canal Continued from Page A1 its life in the Pacifi c North- west and heads for Cordova, Alaska, after its own midlife overhaul. Buoy-tending tours often last a couple of weeks. But aside from a brief leave, the crew spent most of the past six months at the Coast Guard Yard preparing the ship for its new mission. They left early last month and steamed more than 6,000 miles down the East Coast, through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast to the Columbia. The crew aboard the Elm remains largely the same as the Fir, aside from the yearly transfers in and out. Brian Schneider, a chief warrant offi cer on the Elm, estimates about one-third of the crew turns over each summer. Mariners call in to the Coast Guard about bro- ken buoys. Fixing them can mean anything from replac- ing the lights to pulling out buoys weighing up to 9 tons. Rough winter weather can snap buoys free from their anchors and send Coast Guardsmen searching. “The ones in Puget S ound, they like to go to Canada for some reason,” Schneider said. “We kind of try to know where, roughly. You can fi g- ure out usually with the drifts where they’re heading. But usually the Canadian Coast Guard calls the U.S. Coast Guard and says, ‘Hey; we’ve got one of your buoys.’ We The Coast Guard cutter Elm, nicknamed ‘The Bar Tender’ for its role on the Columbia River, is responsible for maintaining about one-third of the Coast Guard’s large buoys, weighing about 9 tons apiece. go up and retrieve it and put it back where it belongs.” Along with navigational buoys, the Coast Guard helps government agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintain weather and tsu- nami detection buoys. It tries to keep navigational buoys in service for at least 30 years, pulling them out on sched- ules like its ships for main- tenance, Schneider said. Off- shore buoys gather starfi sh, mussels and other sea life crawling up the anchor chain and covering the underside. “We’ve pulled off almost 4,000 pounds of a buoy with the sea growth,” Schneider said. Driving a buoy tender is the favorite job of Haag, who has been in the Coast Guard for 19 years, including on four separate buoy tenders. He plans to retire after his current tour. “It’s dirty. I t’s hard work. I t’s exhausting. B ut when it’s done you go home,” Haag said. Haag’s engineering offi - cer, Chief Warrant Offi - cer Clifford Mooneyham, recently hit 20 years worth of time spent at sea on 10 dif- ferent Coast Guard cutters. Mooneyham keeps the Elm operational. From South Carolina, Mooneyham originally planned on spending sev- eral years in the Coast Guard before leaving to become a game warden. But he soon fell for the service, fashion- ing a 30-year career below decks in the engine room. He later gained his captain’s license from Clatsop Com- munity College’s maritime science program and became an offi cer of the deck. Mooneyham will be hon- ored next month as a master cutterman, a rare distinction for those who have reached 20 years at sea. “I fell in love with the sea,” he said . “I fell in love with the ships.” Timber: Some are tired of rural voices not being heard Continued from Page A1 Public opinion polls nationally show most people believe global warming is caused by human activities, with greater worry among younger people and peo- ple living in the Northeast and West. Oregon Demo- crats, who hold supermajor- ities in the House and Sen- ate, believe there is broad support across the state to reduce emissions and move toward cleaner energy. But some at the event in Warrenton said they are tired of rural voices not being heard. Many came from fam- ilies with ties to the timber industry and expressed fear that more government reg- ulation will hurt their live- lihoods and communities. Some talked about how their families have been affected by layoffs and mill closings. The event was originally scheduled to take place at Uptown Cafe, a Warren- ton restaurant that protested after Fort George Brewery’s co-owner, Jack Harris, pub- licly supported HB 2020. However, the event was moved to Warrenton City Hall to accommodate more people. The backlash against Fort George was an exam- ple of how the cap-and-trade debate created divisions that went beyond the details of the legislation. Fort George, Deschutes Brewery, Dutch Bros. Coffee and other busi- nesses withdrew support for Oregon Business for Cli- mate, a coalition that backed the bill, after being targeted. Andrew Miller, the CEO of Stimson Lumber, called for boycotts against com- panies that were part of the coalition. Miller also pro- vided $5,000 in seed money for #TimberUnity’s new political action committee. Lawmakers who drafted HB 2020 had sought to shield agriculture and for- estry, but farming and tim- ber interests were still con- cerned about the impact of higher fuel prices antici- pated from the bill. Many said work and fam- ily obligations keep them from staying up to date on everything happening in Salem, but the fi restorm on social media and the protests showed they are prepared to take sides. Erika Johensen, a log truck driver for Mike Gedenberg Trucking, said she didn’t know “HB” stood for House bill prior to the uproar over HB 2020. She thought it would be on the ballot and felt like she didn’t have a voice when she found out she wouldn’t have the chance to vote on the issue. Senate Republicans staged a walkout to block HB 2020 from advancing, and the Republican Party hopes to use the energy from the victory to rally voters against Democrats in next year’s elections. President Donald Trump, a skeptic of climate change, invited two members of #TimberUnity to a White House event this month on environmental leadership. Bob Shortman, the chair- man of Clatsop County Republicans, called HB 2020 a “wake-up call” and invited #TimberUnity to help Republicans in their effort to remove Rep. Tiffi ny Mitchell, D-Astoria, and undercut Brown. Mitchell voted for the bill. Ann Samuelson, a for- mer Clatsop County com- missioner who was recalled a decade ago over her sup- port for a liquefi ed natural gas project, said the #Timbe- rUnity movement has been “a long time coming.” Warrenton Mayor Henry Balensifer said he was sad- dened to see that more elected offi cials on the North Coast did not pub- licly oppose HB 2020. He encouraged the efforts of #TimberUnity. “I think certain members of the Legislature are hop- ing that this effort will fi zzle out,” Balensifer said. “That time will go, you’ll get back to your jobs because there’s only so much you can get riled up about until the next thing hits.” Long Beach Peninsula, Washington Peninsula Arts Association 1st Annual SUMMER OPEN STUDIO TOUR JULY 19, 20 and 21* from 10-4 A unique opportunity to visit local artists in their studios and creative spaces FREE! Maps available from Visitors Bureau, Ocean Park Chamber, and participating studios *Not all venues are open Sunday – see map for further details www.beachartist.org
