VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, April 15, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 5A
The invention of pork roast
I hit the caffeine wall in late afternoon
last Thursday, that time in every addict’s day
when the morning’s intake erodes from one’s
nerve endings and all remaining brain cells
are swamped by secretions from the glands
of laziness.
“Oh, go ahead. Flop on the couch and
sleep,” whispered my imp of the perverse,
but there were novels to write and floors
to clean and peach cobbler to cobble so,
in the spirit of modern
problem solving, I elected
to consume more drugs.
I poured the slush from
four abandoned mugs into
my ducky cup, popped
the concoction into the
microwave, selected
a minute’s worth of
radiation, and opened a
women’s clothing catalog.
When the time’s-up
bell dinged, I retrieved
my afternoon fix from the
bowels of the machinery
and tested its temperature
with my right index finger. It was hot. While
standing there with my finger in my mouth,
staring at a contraption that had produced
lava in less time that it took to study the
fit of an underwire bra, I was transported
back through the decades to Miss Craig’s
demonstration of how folks discovered
cooked food.
Miss Craig was my third, fourth and fifth
grade teacher. I don’t know why we called
her Miss Craig. She was married to a hog
farmer. She was built close to the ground,
dressed in black and wore stockings rolled
down into dark brown donuts at mid-calf.
She had actually seen New York City during
the Depression as lead soprano in a women’s
choir. A person wanted to be about ten paces
away when Miss Craig launched into “In the
layund of the freeeeeeeeee, and the home of
the brave” I don’t remember ever knowing
her first name.
She was a brave person
who, in the course of
digging farm kids out of
the cultural dirt, taught
evolutionary theory in the
fundamentalist hickwaters
of western Nebraska. She
was normally a proper
and reserved person, but
when she addressed the
subject of how blind luck
and natural selection had
driven us humanoids
from way back there to
clear up here, she became
a silent film actress, the Faye Wray of
the Sandhills. I was privileged to witness
three performances of her “Cave Woman
Discovers Pork Roast” act.
According to Miss Craig’s theory of the
evolution of cuisine, a cave-dwelling woman
from the Cro-Magnon region of present-day
France was out walking her pet pig on a
mountainside one day about 20,000 years
ago. (Miss Craig climbs a pretend Alp in
I was
transported back
to Miss Craig’s
demonstration
of how folks
discovered
cooked food.
Quick takes
Wallowa Co. man allegedly
poached dozens of elk
Needs to spend 12-years minimum in
prison.
— Judith Henderson
Seriously, I would’ve been happy to
dress and transport. And eat.
— Shawn Boethin
Pendleton Penney’s to stay
open another month
What a pity, the Pendleton store is where
I found out I was “husky” nearly 50 years
ago!
— Robert J. Humphreys
I really hope they change their minds on
closing JCP in Pendleton. It’s always busy
and we just don’t have a store to fill the void
that’ll come from closing it.
— Warrine Terpening
Data centers, 160 jobs
headed to Umatilla County
Bring on the outside workers or hire
locals? This influx can really change a
community, Prineville is a good example.
More urbanites, environmentalists, liberal
leaning, crime will increase.
front of the blackboard, pausing now and
then to stroke the friendly but invisible hog
at her side.) The cave woman and her pet get
caught in a sudden, ferocious storm. (Miss
Craig cowers behind her desk, beckoning to
her faithful porker to join her.) Devastating
lightning, wind, and rain ensue. (Miss Craig
is on top of her desk, making broad zig-zag
sweeps with her arms, little fluttery rain
motions with her fingers, her hair buffeted by
gale force winds from the forced-air heater.)
The pig gets struck by lightning. (Miss Craig
also plays a cameo here and is thrashing
and twitching on the floor.) A general
conflagration results from the storm. (Miss
Craig is behind the map stand, shielding her
face from the heat.) The fire passes. (Miss
Craig peeks out from behind the maps.) Cave
woman discovers that Porky is inanimate.
(A tragic wringing of hands accompanied by
silent sobbing.) A ray of hope shines in the
forest. (Miss Craig approaches the invisible
pig and tries to nudge it to life with an index
finger.) A recently roasted pig is hot. (Miss
Craig puts her finger in her mouth to cool it
off.) Mmmmmm ... you know, pet pig tastes
pretty good after being hit by lightning and
burned in a forest fire. (Miss Craig looks at
the sky, looks all around at the remains of the
stone-age barbeque, then repeatedly pokes
the pig and puts her finger in her mouth.)
Pork roast has been invented.
In the final act of this drama, Miss Craig,
as brand-new Cro-Magnon carnivore,
looks at the sky and tests the wind while
leading another pig up the same classroom
J.D. S mith
FROM THE HEADWATERS
OF DRY CREEK
mountainside. She smiles, whistles and
carries a stubby little finger-length stick
about the same length as the spoon I now use
to test the temperature of microwaved tea.
■
J.D. Smith lives in Athena and is a grant
writer for the Pendleton Center for the Arts.
A good walk spoiled on the golf course
A
s a teenager caddying at
fungicides and herbicides spread by
a restricted country club,
the irrigation water all harm complex
I resented the bigotry but
ecological systems on land and at sea.
accepted the tips. I learned to
So critics like me are happy that
play golf myself and eventually
the game’s popularity is waning.
got fairly good at it, but now I
According to the
hate the game. Let me tell you
National Golf
why.
Foundation, a high
The ecological and aesthetic
Michael of 30.6 million
harm caused by most of the
Baughman golfers in 2003
world’s 34,000 golf courses
had been reduced
Comment
— 45 percent of them here in
to 24.7 million by
the United States — is widely
2014. The number
acknowledged today. Natural habitats have
of golfers between ages
been disfigured and destroyed to create
18 and 34 has declined
highly organized, artificially watered and
by 30 percent over the
unarguably fake nature. Some people find
past 20 years.
golf courses calming and beautiful, but that
Millennials are apt to find the game far
beauty comes at a price.
too slow — five hours or more to finish 18
Since 1982, the United States Golf
holes — for their 21st century tastes. They
Association has funded efforts to conserve
are also typically more open-minded than
water through improving irrigation
their elders, and therefore tend to be turned
technologies, planting grasses that require
off by the racism, sexism and snobbery that
less irrigation, and using recycled water
have long been associated with the country
from sewage treatment facilities.
club scene. The ultimate result is that more
Despite these commendable efforts,
than 800 courses across America have
precious water is still being squandered
closed in a decade. Some of these courses
in places like California’s Coachella
have become housing developments, others
Valley, which includes Palm Springs and
parks, and a few landowners have taken
Palm Desert, where, despite a severe
advantage of tax breaks by donating their
drought, golf courses continue to use
properties to nature trusts.
about 37 million gallons of water a day.
One of the reasons for this change
In drought-stricken Arizona, Phoenix-area
had been explained succinctly in Forbes
courses routinely use more than 80 million
Magazine: People simply can’t afford
gallons per day. The pesticides, fertilizers,
to play golf anymore. I find that easy to
believe. In 1958, a friend named Bob and I,
both of us college students, reserved a tee
time and paid $8 apiece to play 18 holes
at the famed Pebble Beach course on the
Monterey Peninsula.
We talked about
natural beauty during
our round and agreed
that the land, sea and
sky we saw that day
would have been far
more beautiful without
the intrusion of the golf
course we played on.
For a similar tee time
today, however, Bob and
I would be required to stay a minimum of
two nights at the Pebble Beach Lodge or an
affiliated property, and the 18 holes would
cost us a minimum of $1,835 apiece, carts
and caddies not included.
Mark Twain may or may not have said
(the quotation’s origins remain murky):
“Golf is a good walk spoiled.” But even
that isn’t true anymore, because very few
golfers still walk. Most climb in and out of
motorized carts whose costs aren’t included
in Pebble Beach’s exorbitant greens fees.
The only virtue the game ever had —
moderate exercise — is gone forever.
■
Michael Baughman is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, the opinion service
of High Country News. He is a writer in
Oregon.
The number of
young golfers has
declined in the
past 20 years.
— Sherrie Henry- McClain
Good that new things are coming to
Umatilla County.
— Woody Rennison
Finding the creator in creative writing
By DORYS GROVER
As you grow please remember to add
constructive things for teens to be involved
in and keep it affordable. There needs to be
more than sex, drugs and alcohol for their
weekend fun.
— Ginny Heard
Larry Lindsay celebrates
50 years at Port of Morrow
Thank God for Larry Lindsay! And
thank God for the Port of Morrow! Very
impressive..
— George Hicks
A true gentleman, and a great ambas-
sador for the agriculture community.
— Mike Yutzie
One of the finest men I know!
— Arne Swanson
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
A
pril is National Poetry month, and
when I read colleges across the
United States are seeing a boom in
demand for courses in creative writing I
thought how many people expect to make a
living with a bachelor’s degree in creative
writing.
I taught creative writing at my university
and it was a disaster. I was assigned the
course because I had received several
awards for publishing poetry and short
stories. Not a very good reason for the
assignment. There were 20 students, mostly
18 to 20 years of age. Several thought they
were writing the great American novel. I
sent them to read John Dos Passos. Some
sought self-expression in poetry. I sent them
to Walt Whitman.
Have you read any of the poetry
published today in leading magazines or
college creative writing journals? Many
want to write their memoirs, and at age
18 how many have had life experience
long enough to attempt a memoir? In a
three-credit course of study a professor
expects some kind of results from
instruction. Certain elements are required:
plot, character, action, time, site and theme.
Creative writing is self-expression. The
diversity of personalities taking such a
course is challenging. The major drawback
I found in the students was their lack of
reading, especially in the classics. I found
more creative writing when teaching a
folklore class.
Writing is a way of life, of being aware
of others, of nature, of death. The quiet
voice of a poem can change one’s world.
Keats tells us poets are the legislators of the
world. Poets open and explore the world.
They bring insight and understanding of
ourselves, others, of nature, animals, of
dreams.
They are significant pathways of a life
and are a search for truth. A poet’s personal
values come forth in self-expression in their
response to life. Poets are well-read and
profit from what they have read. They have
lived lives of meaning and have learned
how to express them.
Poets can express the beauty of dunes of
sand heaped by wind and wave, the sound
of a bird’s song, the whisper of aspens in
the stillness of a forest, the rush of water
down a mountain stream, the cry of a
coyote, or the danger in the black eyes of a
rattlesnake.
Mostly, the poet reaches inside the heart
to find peace. The life of a poem, as T. S.
Eliot wrote, is its past, present and future.
It is the poet’s wilderness. In a poem titled
“Glimpses,” William Stafford writes,
“Walking along, any time,/I find clues to
tomorrow —” Larry McMurtry in “Literary
Life: A Second Memoir” writes “The best
part of a writer’s life is actually doing it,
making up characters, filling the blank
page, creating scenes that readers in distant
places might connect to.”
The first book I published, I was
relieved. I was tired, as I had read and
reread page proofs. I was glad it was done.
It was not a best seller. A writer’s life is
lonely. So why write? Something inside
won’t let you rest if you are really a writer.
There must be something in this generation
of college students that drives them to
self-expression, abysmal as it often is.
Maybe it’s the pathway to sanity.
■
Dorys C. Grover, of Pendleton, is a
member of the Academy of American Poets.