A4
V IEWPOINT
Hood River News,
Saturday, February 7, 2015
O ur readers write
JOE PETSHOW
Publisher/President,
Eagle Newspapers, Inc.
CHELSEA MARR
General Manager
JODY THOMPSON
Advertising Manager
DICK NAFSINGER
Publisher, Emeritus (1933-2011)
TOM LANCTOT
Past President,
Eagle Newspapers, Inc.
Walden’s
two faces
KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
Editor
TONY METHVIN
Columbia Gorge Press Manager
DAVID MARVIN
Production Manager
Subscription $42 per year in Hood River trade area. $68 outside trade area.
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
ASSOCIATION
Printed on
OREGON NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
recycled paper.
Official Newspaper, City of Hood River and Hood River County
Published Every Wednesday & Saturday by Hood River News,
P.O. Box 390, Hood River, Oregon 97031 • (541) 386-1234 • FAX 386-6796
Member of the Associated Press
Danger Zone
Improvement or impairment?
T
he amenities and upgrades on State Street are
visible now that the Urban Renewal streetscape
project is done: new pavement, better and wider
sidewalks, underground utilities, landscaping,
and pedestrian plazas featuring benches, drink-
ing fountains, and more.
THE PROBLEM:
An unanticipated effect, however, is seen at 6th and
State, where southbound drivers come to the stop at
State from one of the steepest approaches in town — 6th
between Oak and State. It’s one of Hood River’s little
slices of San Francisco, and it can be tricky to stop
there under the best of circumstances.
The downward pitch of the street, compared with the
angle of State, has always created a visibility issue for
drivers stopped on the hill and looking west.
It’s considerably worse now with the plaza and its ele-
ments at the northwest corner of the intersection.
The Urban Renewal changes look and feel nice, but
what the city installed is more impairment than im-
provement.
A driver has highly limited visibility looking west,
even when pulling well into the east-west crosswalk, if
there are vehicles parked on the north side of State.
That blockage, combined with the railing, trash can,
and even drinking fountain, create a visual bulk that at
times makes it all but impossible to see what is coming
without entering the street itself.
Given that the plaza’s very purpose is to attract and
serve pedestrians, this creates an impediment for people
on foot, as well as for drivers.
THE FIX
You can’t undo the plaza, but at the very least the
trash can could be shifted, and a lower railing would
help. The drinking fountain should be repositioned, too,
and while there is a cost involved, it could be lessened if
done while the Crestline Construction crew is still work-
ing on the public restrooms at Third Street.
The immediate solution is to prohibit parking in at
least the two closest spaces. Yes, downtown parking is al-
ready a premium, but public safety should come first.
(There is no loss of revenue involved given that these
have been metered spaces for only a few weeks.)
Vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle traffic will pick up in
a matter of weeks. Actual congestion should not be ag-
gravated by visual congestion, which is what exists now.
Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea
THE VIEW from behind the wheel, southbound at Sixth and State,
looking west.
W HERE TO E-MAIL
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Chelsea Marr
General Manager
CMarr@hoodrivernews.com
Founded in 1905
419 State Street
Hood River, OR 97031
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Greg Walden is a really good politi-
cian. I attended his town hall meeting
where he took questions on Oba-
macare, climate change and immigra-
tion, among others. He told us he
thinks Obamacare is here to stay but
that he would work to improve it. He
implied that he understood climate
change was a problem by telling us he
drove two hybrids and is trying to
pass legislation to do more logging to
cut down on forest fires. He spoke of
his admiration for agricultural work-
ers, that immigrants have highly spe-
cialized skills and contribute to our
country.
Sounds reasonable to a Hood River
audience, but in Washington, D.C., he
voted for legislation that would undo
executive directives to provide tempo-
rary work permits to four million im-
migrants and gave relief to 600,000
dreamers. (Visit Causa Oregon,
Google, Walden on Immigration.)
He justifies his votes to hurt agri-
cultural workers by saying the Presi-
dent has no constitutional authority.
Yet, Walden and his Republican
party offer no solution to the immi-
gration issue. Say positive things to
the home audience and then vote to
ruin the lives of some of the people
you say you admire. Mr. Walden
seems like a caring, thoughtful guy.
So, it’s doubly disappointing when in
Washington he votes like a two faced
politician. Walden and the Republi-
cans voted to repeal Obamacare
again, which would deny me and my
family affordable health care.
Guy Tauscher
Hood River
me to add some reflections.
A s a ch i l d I w a s fo r t u n at e
enough to be vaccinated against
polio, which had claimed the lives
or mobility of so many in the gen-
eration just before mine. I had a se-
vere case of measles, however, and
am just plain lucky that it didn’t
result in lasting brain damage.
During my medical training, I
served in a pediatric ICU where
most of the infants and toddlers
suffered from a bacterial meningi-
tis and encephalitis (brain and
spinal fluid infection), which often
left the survivors hearing-im-
paired or otherwise permanently
impaired. Later, I hospitalized
adults for adult-onset chickenpox
(and treated many others in the
clinic), and saw three patients left
sterile from the mumps. Measles,
mumps and chickenpox vaccina-
tions, among others, became avail-
able since all of this, as has the “H.
flu” vaccine, which prevents the
very infection I mentioned in that
pediatric ICU.
Most of my younger colleagues
have never seen a patient with
measles, mumps, chickenpox or H.
flu meningitis — just as I myself
saw only two cases of polio when I
practiced medicine. We should be
deeply grateful to the scientists
and public health professionals
who have worked so successfully
on immunization against pre-
ventable suffering and disability.
It takes all of us together to
carry out the vision — to think of
the collective good, to immunize
our own children in order to pro-
tect not only them but other chil-
dren and adults, to get our own im-
munizations on time and apprecia-
tively. Here’s to prevention and
community immunity! (I propose a
bumper sticker with that rhyme to
remind us all.)
Tina Castañares
Odell
Community
immunity
Dr. Charles Haynie’s Feb. 4 let-
ter about immunizations prompts
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Running into the ‘what-if motif’ and
trying not to nickel-and-dime the odds
By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
A
News editor
recent visit to Eugene
took me to some interest-
ing intersections, figura-
tively and literally.
I drove to the Universi-
ty of Oregon to see my first Ducks
basketball game with son Delaney
and take him to dinner. I had a lit-
tle time to spare so I had decid-
ed on a whim to detour from I-5
over to Corvallis to see my broth-
er; that led me down Highway 99W
and a different route to UO than if
I had taken the direct route to Eu-
gene via the freeway.
It was one of the day’s detours
that by early evening, led me to
wonder:
■ What if I had not gone that
way, and not happened into our
friends Mark and Sophie from
Hood River, who had just parked
their car a block or so away?
■ What if I had left my coat in
the car? It was a warm day and
would be warm in the arena but I
wore it anyway.
I got to Delaney’s residence hall
and we talked awhile in his room.
(“How are classes going?”) It
would be my first time at Matthew
Knight Arena, and not knowing
the lay of the land, one thing I
wondered was the likelihood of
my sitting with him in the student
section. Should I just buy two
seats or take a chance since he got
in free? We decided to just get the
one ticket.
■ Did something cause us to
pause a few more minutes before
heading to the arena? It’s just a
block from his building, so no
rush.
■ Once we left, did something
make us run into Mark and Sophie
again, and stop and talk for a few
minutes — “How are classes
going? — before heading to the
ticket booth?
Somehow we were in the right
place at the right time when, a mo-
ment after arriving at the window,
a stranger approached Delaney
News:
Kirby Neumann-Rea
Editor
HRNews@hoodrivernews.com
and said, “I have a
ticket I don’t need —
you want it?”
It saved me buying
a ticket. Weirdly
I had even taken a
slight detour when
I thought I saw a
gate employee
beckon me. Total
fake-out. Had I
not taken that de-
tour or had any
of these pauses
taken longer, ei-
ther way, the
free ticket
would have
gone to someone else.
We get inside the arena and the
13th and Olive student housing
complex is handing out “Go
Ducks” towels, and we each take
one. Thousands of people ended
up with those towels; more on
them later.
We watched the game and left
the arena and immediately decid-
ed that even though it’s not quite
4, since we were both hungry we
would head downtown for dinner.
We come to a stoplight at Oak and
I decide to take the right. I signal.
The light turns green and — bam!
A cyclist runs into my right
front panel, and hits the pavement
hard. We jump out to see about the
guy, along with four passersby:
one 40-something and a trio of col-
lege students heading to party
with a couple of six-packs. Medics
and police arrive a few minutes
later. Guy is bleeding but alert.
Someone gives the bicyclist
their 13th and Olive towel, and it
comes in very handy. Without it,
we would have figured something
out, but how lucky were we
that we had these towels, and the
one guy had the presence of mind
to hand his to the cyclist? There
was a fair amount of blood, but
his helmet probably saved him
from serious head injury. It rattled
me, and I have to say I was glad
Delaney was there to calm me.
Trisha Walker
News/Features
TWalker@hoodrivernews.com
(The bicyclist
walked away, push-
ing his undamaged
bike, after medics
turned him loose.)
■
I can doodle all
month in the “what
if ?” motif: Would it be
different had I done
this or not that done
that, or done this at a
certain time, as opposed
to “what if ” I had done
that in a certain other
place five minutes earlier,
or had done so later.
On that Saturday after-
noon, I wondered what if:
would I have collided with
that cyclist if Delaney hadn’t had
to go up to his room to retrieve the
coat I never needed, or if we had
chosen to go another direction to
dinner. Of course, the loosey-
goosey sci-fi premise naturally
suggests, well, something ELSE
might have gone wrong — or right.
Like, say, encountering Marcus
Mariota who’d run out of gas and
needed a ride to practice ...
These kind of space and time
associations are the stuff of Rod-
denberry and myriad time travel
movies and TV shows. Moments as
they match up with experiences
are not like players-to-be-named-
later in some great trading game.
You take them as they come and
don’t concern yourself with some
parallel universe.
Does everything happen for a rea-
son? We are not talking about coin-
cidence here (oh, I’ve had my share
of those), but it’s like a cousin to co-
incidence. And it’s probably about
as worth my time as comparing the
weight of 10 dimes against 20 nick-
els. They amount to the same thing
and get you just as much in the end.
No matter what way you go in life,
Buckaroo Banzai, well, there you
are. It’s all how we respond to the
moment, no matter what way the
coin flips. And sometimes fate
throws in a towel.
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Archivist
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News/Features
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419 State Street
Hood River, OR 97031
P.O. Box 390
Phone: (541) 386-1234
Fax: (541) 386-6796
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(541) 386-1234
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