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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 13, 2021)
A7 THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, MAy 13, 2021 CONTACT US ewilson@dailyastorian.com (971) 704-1718 COMMUNITY FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON CAROUSING CONDORS or the flocks of North Coast bird lovers: A woman’s property in Tehachapi, California, was recently besieged by a pack of 15 enormous (10-foot wingspan) endangered California condors, SmithsonianMag.com reports. The birds behaved like rowdy teenage hooligans, trashing and pooping on her back deck, knocking over plants and standing guard on her deck railings and roof. The homeowner, Cinda Mickols, was away for the weekend when the condors moved in. “They still haven’t left,” Mickols’ daughter, @Seana- Lyn, posted May 4 on Twitter. “It sucks, but also this is unheard of; there’s only 160 of these birds flying free in the state, and a flock of them decided to start a war with my mom.” Tongue in cheek, she has added “head of bird PR by night” to her occupations. Seana Lyn’s photos are shown. The condors circle the house overhead during the day. On May 5, they moved to the nearby trees. But by Monday, the “condor party” was back on the deck, add- ing the driveway and fence to their list of hangouts. And, it doesn’t look like they will be leaving anytime soon. Lyn’s mom is being an awfully good sport about the condor chaos. “She enjoys them on her property, just not being so destructive, LOL,” Lyn added. “But she knows she’s getting a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and soaking it up!” By the way, the Yurok Tribe announced in March that they plan to reintroduce condors to their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest. People with decks should probably take note. F GONE GOONIES TOMBSTONE TUSSLE letter to the Oregon Historical Society, dated June 7, 1979, recently rediscovered in the Oregon State Archives, concerns Oregon U.S. Sen. Edward Baker (pictured), the only member of Congress to die in a Civil War battle. The correspondence, from Phillip C’de Baca of the Pet’s Rest Cemetery, Crematory for Pet Animals in Colma, California, states that they have an historic Ore- gon “grief cover” honoring Baker in their barn, and that the gravestone had almost been chopped up to make pet cemetery memorials. However, the Oregon Historical Society could buy it back for $400 (about $1,500 now). Eventually the letter made it to the Oregon Legisla- ture’s historian, Cecil Edwards. He called and hag- gled the price down to $200 (which he didn’t have), then appealed to state Sen. Eugene Potts for help. Potts agreed, and drove his pickup down to Colma to pay for, and retrieve the gravestone. Edwards went along for the ride. A little history: Sen. Baker, a former law partner and friend of Abraham Lincoln, did not resign his Senate seat when he enlisted in the Union Army in 1860, mistak- enly thinking it would be a short war. He died after being shot eight times on Oct. 21, 1861, “killed while leading the forlorn hope at the Battle of Balls Bluff” in Virginia, the inscription states. Also pic- tured, “Death of Col. Edward D. Baker,” courtesy of the Library of Congress. Baker’s widow, who moved near San Francisco, had him buried in that city’s Lone Mountain Cemetery instead of in Salem. Nonetheless, Oregon provided a 7-foot by 4-foot marble tombstone. When the cemetery closed in 1940, Baker’s coffin was moved to the San Francisco National Cemetery … but not the monument. Many of the old cemetery’s gravestones wound up in San Francisco Bay but not Baker’s, appar- ently. C’de Baca found it 39 years later. Potts and Edwards drove the monument to the Baker County Courthouse, where it was supposed to be tempo- rarily installed. It’s still there. (bit.ly/BakerStone) A SNACKUS INTERRUPTUS ast week our staff naturalist Jenny W. found this stunning juvenile giant Pacific octopus in the tide pools at Haystack Rock and notified Education Coordina- tor Lisa Habecker,” the Haystack Rock Awareness Pro- gram posted May 4 on Facebook. A little research revealed that an octopus has three hearts, over 2,000 suckers on its tentacles, is as smart as a house cat and can squeeze through any opening big enough for its beak to get through. Full grown, they weigh from 70 to 110 pounds, and can reach almost 16 feet from tentacle tip to tentacle tip. Denizens of the North Pacific Ocean, the cephalo- pods swim in waters up to 2,500 feet deep, not far from shore, and live from three to five years. And, in case you’re wondering, the accepted plural is octopuses, not octopi, as the root word octopus is Greek, not Latin. (bit. ly/SeaGrantocto) “Likely, the octopus was hunting when the tide went out, leaving it trapped in shallow water,” the post explained. “Lisa was able to safely transport the vibrant cephalopod back out to deeper waters.” A screenshot from the video is shown. From the disgruntled look in the octopus’ eye, it was not pleased about its snack being interrupted. The poster added, “finding an octopus in the tide pools is, indeed, quite rare!” ‘L THEY’RE HERE n Bigfoot news, Oregonian Mike Bodewitz, of Springfield, has published four short videos on Tik- Tok of the critters, who are quietly watching him through the bushes out in the woods (tiktok.com/@mike_bodewitz). He doesn’t say exactly where the videos of these two separate April encounters happened, but they are all accompanied by the hashtag #OregonSasquatch. His close-up of a screenshot is shown. You can almost make out the eyes, and the nostrils are quite visible (see red arrows). A combined narrative from the clips of what he saw during the two incidents is as follows: “I was walking down in a ravine in the brush and then I noticed a Sas- quatch was watching me … “… A lot of people will say, ‘Oh, it’s a stump’ … but this is really high off the ground, it couldn’t be a stump. “I clearly saw it with my own eyes. It was a Sasquatch. I didn’t want to get any closer to make it nervous or any- thing … I felt that I needed to back away … and give it some space. “I’ve been watching these Sasquatch for many years. I’ve studied their behavior, I know their behavior. They’re not going to get up. They’re going to sit there and watch me and wait me out. “They know I’m here,” he added. “They know I’m here before I get there ... I mean, they’re here …” I disappointment is in store for “The Goonies” fans: The TV series about three student filmmakers trying to produce a faithful shot-for-shot redo of the beloved 1985 movie, which was under serious consideration by Fox, is out of the running, according to ScreenRant.com Fox is “not moving forward” with production of the series — even though the pilot episode was success- ful, and the show’s future looked positive, initially. The would-be drama was from executive producers The Jackal Group, Amblin (Steven Spielberg, producer of the origi- nal movie) and The Donner Co. (Richard Donner, origi- nal director). Why was the series stopped in its tracks? Fox decided on adding two dramas, “Monarch” and “The Cleaning Lady,” to the schedule instead. Disappointing, yes. How- ever, perhaps the show’s creators will shop the pilot around to other networks. After all, Goonies never say die! (Image courtesy of Warner Bros.) A REASONABLE TERMS nugget from The Daily Astorian, May 13, 1876: • The First Pianos — In a New York paper printed on Jan. 10, 1789, may be the first piano-forte advertise- ment ever published in that city. It reads: “I, Jacob Astor, at 81 Queen St., next door but one to the Friends’ Meeting House, has for sale an assort- ment of piano-fortes of the newest construction made by the best makers in London, which he will sell on reason- able terms. “He gives cash for all kinds of furs, and has for sale a quantity of Canada beaver, and beaver coating, raccoon skins and raccoon blankets, muskrat skins, etc., etc.” Note: Well, we know how one of this famous entre- preneur’s most well-known fur trading ventures began … with the founding of Fort Astoria in 1811. A JEREMIAH’S NOTE elancholy rerun: This is a lit- tle late for the anniversary of the Titanic sinking on April 15, but the Ear just found this little nugget: Did you know there was a message in a bot- tle sent from the Titanic? No, it wasn’t from John Jacob Astor’s namesake, John Jacob Astor IV, who died in the disaster. It was sent by 19-year-old Jeremiah Burke (pictured) of County Cork, Ire- land, the youngest of seven children, who was being sent to join two of his sis- ters, who were living in the U.S., accord- ing to IrishCentral.com (tinyurl.com/ BurkeNote). Strangely enough, even though the Titanic sank off the coast of Newfound- land, around 3,000 miles west of Ire- land, Jeremiah’s note came ashore a few miles from his family home about a year later. The message was short but sweet: “From Titanic, goodbye all, Burke of Glanmire, Cork.” A relative, Mary Woods, told the Belfast Telegraph that a few days after the bottle was found, “a person came up to (Jeremiah’s mother) and said ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ It was only then that she found out what had happened.” There was no doubt the note was from young Jeremiah, as once his mother saw it, she recognized his handwriting. And, the bottle it arrived in originally con- tained holy water; she had given it to her son when she saw him off. He used one of his shoelaces to tie up the note before tossing the bottle into the ocean. “(His mother) died of a broken heart within the year,” Mary observed. The note and bottle stayed in the family until 2011, when they were donated to the Cobh Heritage Centre in County Cork. (In One Ear, 5/19/2017) M WHERE ARE YOU, ASTORIA? heTravel.com had some flattering, albeit rather puz- zling, things to say about Astoria in its “These U.S. Movie Filming Locations Are Just As Amazing In Per- son As They Are On Screen” story. Calling Astoria a “seaside community” (has it moved?), the writer notes that “this seemingly ordinary, yet gorgeous, coastal town doesn’t seem like the place where major motion pictures would be filmed …” Gee, thanks. Icing on the cake? The story’s accompanying photo shows Haystack Rock in the background (courtesy of Expedia.ca). The story is filed under “Travel Writers Who Don’t Actually Travel.” T
