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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2016)
COFFEE BREAK Saturday, January 23, 2016 East Oregonian Page 9C PARENTS TALK BACK OUT OF THE VAULT Reimagining the mother- daughter relationship Pendleton ends 1914 baseball season in true western style P erhaps you’ve heard the war stories from mothers who have raised teen daughters, told in the spirit of camaraderie, sympathy and encouragement. The drama subsides, they say. The quiet resentment or open rebellion is replaced by mutual respect and affection. It’s normal for these years to be fraught with tension and FRQÀLFWWKH\UHDVVXUH Conventional wisdom says the mother-daughter relationship nearly fractures in adolescence before it becomes whole again in adulthood. But it doesn’t Aisha always work that Sultan way, does it? Parents talk back Sometimes the distance breached in those years of struggling to create one’s own identity is too great. The adult relationship fails to recover the way we imagine it will; it falls short of what we hoped it might become. There’s a mother-daughter team challenging this narrative with a radical notion: The teen years can be the time when mothers and daughters thrive in their relationship. It’s when daughters need to keep their mothers close, argue Sil and Eliza Reynolds, in their book “Mothering and Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years.” It sounded a little pie-in-the-sky to me. I’m sure there are some mothers and daughters who are naturally gifted communicators, or emotionally intelligent savants, who breeze through the years so many of us struggle with. But how might one spot such unicorns, let alone join their ranks? Girls in the Know, a St. Louis- EDVHGQRQSUR¿WUHFHQWO\KRVWHGD two-day retreat led by the Reynolds mother-daughter duo to teach how this radical idea could be put into practice. I was curious to see what kind of practical tools they could teach that would deepen and calm the bond I have with my 13-year-old girl. When I told her we were going to spend eight hours over a weekend learning how to “empower” our relationship, she rolled her eyes at me. “Oh God. That sounds so cheesy,” she said. I hope the Reynolds are prepared for our enthusiastic participation, I thought. When we arrived and waited outside in the hallway with about 20 other mom-daughter pairs, my girl whispered to me: “There are so many other things I could be doing right now.” Well, this was going to be fun. To my great surprise, it was fun. And moving. And enlightening. The Reynolds kept our group together to explain some basics about emotional intelligence and effective communication skills, especially ZKHQWDONLQJDERXWGLI¿FXOWWRSLFV They used games to introduce FRQFHSWVVXFKDV¿QGLQJDQGWUXVWLQJ your intuition. Then, they separated the daughters and moms to give each group a chance to practice these skills among their peer group. When they reunited us, we had a chance to listen and respond to our daughters in a new way. One of their main points was DERXW¿QGLQJFUHDWLYHZD\VWRVWD\ connected during a time when the culture encourages us to push each other away. For example, a nightly check-in that might only take a minute: Ask your daughter to share three words to describe how she’s feeling, maybe when she gets home from school or before she goes to bed. Figure out one thing you enjoy doing together, whether it’s watching a TV show or cooking, and make it a scheduled priority every week. Create a journal that is shared back and forth on a weekly basis. There’s never a silver bullet to making a relationship work. It takes energy and patience — even more than many of us imagined, during the tumultuous years of rapid physical and emotional change. But the story that Sil and Eliza told, in which teen daughters see mothers as their allies on the path toward independence, was so much more compelling than that in which daughters view their mothers with disdain or disinterest as adversaries. Even my skeptical teen hugged me afterwards and said, “I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” There’s a payoff worth the eyerolls. Ŷ Aisha Sultan is a St. Louis-based journalist who studies parenting in the digital age while trying to keep up with her tech-savvy children. Find her on Twitter: @AishaS. T his week’s historical oddity came about thanks to a tweet by Tim Hagerty, a Triple-A baseball broadcaster, Sporting News contributor and author of “Root for the Home Team: Minor League Baseball’s Most Off-The-Wall Team Names and the Stories Behind Them.” The tweet included a photo of the 1914 Pendleton Buckaroos, champions of the Western Tri-State League, wearing rodeo attire with the comment “Class D Pendleton Renee Buckaroos actually took the Struthers Out of the vault ¿HOGZHDULQJ these hats.” The city of 3HQGOHWRQ¿HOGHGDPLQRUOHDJXH baseball team between 1908 and 1914. The Pendleton Pets were part of the Inland Empire League in 1908, and when Pendleton joined the new Western Tri-State League in 1912, the team changed its name to Buckaroos, honoring Pendleton’s singular rodeo and western heritage. The league also boasted teams from Boise (Irrigators), La Grande (Pippins/Spuds), Walla Walla (Bears), Baker City (Golddiggers/ Miners) and North Yakima (Braves) during its three-year existence. Pendleton won the 1912 pennant with a .622 percentage, but dropped to the bottom of the pack in a 1913 season that split LQWRWZRKDOYHVGXHWR¿QDQFLDO GLI¿FXOWLHV(YHQEHIRUHSOD\ started in 1914, there were rumblings that Pendleton might be dropped from the league for lack of funds, but the Buckaroos UDOOLHGDQG¿HOGHGDWHDPWKDW Oregonian photo, Aug. 9, 1914 ended at the top of the standings for the second time in three years. Pendleton’s last game of the 1914 season was played at Round-Up Stadium against North Yakima. Because Pendleton had already sewn up the pennant race, neither team felt the need to perform to the highest of baseball standards. And, according to the July 27 East Oregonian article, the fans weren’t expecting high quality play either: “Baseball as she is not played was the way Pendleton and North Yakima showed up yesterday in the great American game but despite the comedy of the contest a good gallery of fans enjoyed themselves immensely. Nobody wanted to see a good game, it seemed, but were pleased to watch the antics of such prominent comedians also both teams presented who succeeded in keeping the grand stand in roars most of the time.” Though the EO didn’t print a photo from the game, a team photo showed up in the Oregonian on Aug. 9 showing the league champions decked out in the best rodeo wear: cowboy hats, neckerchiefs, and fuzzy chaps a la Jackson Sundown. The caption states the team “was photographed in uniforms slightly different from the conventional EDVHEDOORXW¿W´DWWKHFRQFOXVLRQ of the game. There was no mention of any non-standard garb worn by the Braves. In 1915 the league failed to raise enough money to operate and was disbanded. League president R.W. Ritner claimed the failure was due to the North Yakima and Walla Walla clubs not wanting to work together. Three players from the various Pendleton rosters went on to play in the majors: Homer “Howie” Haworth played seven games at catcher for the Cleveland Indians during the 1915 season; Don Rader played shortstop for the Chicago White Sox in 1913 and ended his career with the Phillies in 1921; and Ed “The 0LGJHW´0HQVRUSOD\HGRXW¿HOG for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1912-1914. Ŷ Renee Struthers is the Community Records Editor for the East Oregonian. See the complete collection of Out of the Vault columns at eovault. blogspot.com &DWWKDWSXOOHGYDQLVKLQJDFWZLOOUHWXUQWRRZQHUVE\MHW RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A cat named Hemi, who vanished without a trace in 2011 and reappeared just as mysteriously last week, will soon make a jet ÀLJKW KDOIZD\ DFURVV WKH FRXQWU\ to rejoin the family that never stopped missing him. “It’s pretty crazy,” said Jennifer Connell, who adopted Hemi in 2009 in North Carolina, but now lives in Bismarck, North Dakota. Hemi was a kitten when Jennifer and her Marine husband, Robert, found him curled up on their car’s engine block at their home in Havelock near Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. They weren’t going to keep him, but then they fell in love with the gray kitten with an unusual curl at the tips of his ears. His time under the car’s hood won him the name Hemi. But when Robert Connell deployed in 2011, and his wife and their two children moved to base housing at Cherry Point, Hemi disappeared. “He kept looking for my KXVEDQG DQG FRXOGQ¶W ¿QG KLP´ Jennifer Connell said. “And one day, he got out, and we were never DEOHWR¿QGKLP´ She called the shelter daily Bill Hand/Sun Journal via AP In this photo taken Jan. 15, Hemi, an American Curl mix cat, is shown at Craven County Animal Control in New Bern, N.C. The cat has spent the last four years wandering Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Cherry Point, N.C., but thanks to a microchip, his owners have been tracked down to their current home in North Dakota. to see if Hemi turned up, and returned to their old home several times a week to look for the cat. “He was my husband’s cat,” she said. “And I had to tell him Hemi ran away.” In 2013, Connell left the Marines for a job as a train engi- neer, and the family moved to Bismarck, still heartbroken about Hemi. Then last week, a woman called the Craven County, North Carolina, animal shelter about a cat that was hanging around her house. Shelter staff found a microchip on Hemi and called the number. “Are you missing Hemi?” animal control supervisor Trinity Smith recalls asking Jennifer Connell. “She cried when we called her.” No one but Hemi knows where he’s been since 2011, and Hemi isn’t saying. The Connells’ former baby sitter, who now works for an airline, plans to pick up Hemi RQ 0RQGD\ DQG À\ ZLWK KLP RQ Wednesday, Jan. 27, to Bismarck, Connell said. The family has set up an account to raise money to pay for +HPL¶VSRUWLRQRIWKHÀLJKWDQGWR reimburse the friend for associated costs. Any extra money will be donated to the Craven County animal shelter, Connell said. In the meantime, a veterinarian will check out Hemi for free and make sure he has a clean bill of KHDOWKEHIRUHKHÀLHV6PLWKVDLG “Getting Hemi home is our operation,” Smith said. “We’re happy that we can reunite a much- loved cat with a very deserving family.” As for Robert Connell, “he’s trilled he’s getting his cat back,” his wife said. “He can’t believe it.” ODDS & ENDS would have given him a better wig if I had known.” Middle-aged man dresses as old woman IRURI¿FLDO¶VSKRWRRS CRANSTON, R.I. (AP) — A FLW\RI¿FLDOZKRZDQWHGWR include an elderly woman in a photo op about a snow shoveling program persuaded a middle-aged man to dress up in a wig, earrings, lipstick and a dress. The man stood next to the mayor of Cranston at a news conference touting the program and wore a name tag that said “Cranston Senior Home Resident.” WJAR-TV uncovered the ruse in reports this week. ,WLVXQFOHDUZK\RI¿FLDOV decided to use a stand-in for a woman during the Jan. 5 news conference, which was held at the senior center where the man worked as a van driver. Sue Stenhouse, the city’s director of senior services, orga- nized the news conference. She resigned last week, according to Rob Coupe, the city’s director of administration. Stenhouse, a 2006 Republican nominee for secretary of state, did not return messages requesting comment. Runner embarking on quest: 7 marathons, GD\VFRQWLQHQWV WJAR-TV via AP In this Jan. 5 still image from WJAR-TV video, Sue Stenhouse, left, executive director of the Senior Enrichment Center, speaks alongside a man dressed as an elderly woman, right, during a news conference in Cranston, R.I. Coupe refused to explain what happened, saying it was a personnel matter. Two city councilmen told The Providence Journal they believe the stunt was meant to deceive the public. City Council President John Lanni said he would ask the mayor for an explanation. Meanwhile, a hair salon owner told WJAR-TV that she unwittingly supplied the wig for the caper to David Roberts, the van driver who transports seniors to the salon. Roberts did not immediately return a message left at his work. “He says to me, ‘Elaine, do you have a wig that I could borrow? I have to get dressed as a senior,”’ Elaine Mancuso told the station. She later realized why he wanted it. “I said, ‘Oh, my God. He wanted it for that.’ I probably BELMONT, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman is poised to kick off her quest to run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. Becca Pizzi, of Belmont, is heading to Antarctica this week. On Saturday, she’ll take on the ¿UVWRIKHUEDFNWREDFN mile races. Then, on each of the ensuing six days, she’ll run marathons in Punta Arenas, Chile; Miami; Madrid; Marrakech, Morocco; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Sydney. The 35-year-old day care center operator is vying to be the ¿UVW86ZRPDQWRFRPSOHWHWKH World Marathon Challenge. Pizzi is one of 15 competitors from around the globe attempting the feat. She told The Associated Press last month she plans to tap the endurance she’s developed from the 45 marathons she’s run in 27 states.
