VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, August 12, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 5A
Bridging the urban/rural divide
B
ridging the urban/rural divide was
the goal of the people gathered in
my friend Molly’s Portland living
room last month. Many such small groups
have been meeting to share ideas, to talk, to
search for ways to understand each other in
an increasingly polarized
society. This one has been
finding ways to listen to
eastern and central and
southern Oregonians.
Since I was in town for
our Side Porch Poets
monthly workshop, they
asked me what life is like
in Pendleton.
The first thing we
noticed was connection.
One man in the group
had counted my
daughter-in-law’s late
uncle Mike Farrow as
a friend. The woman
leading the group is close
to Bobbie Ulrich, who
wrote “Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and
the Columbia River.” I had met Ulrich at
the Fishtrap Writers Gathering in Wallowa
County.
I wasn’t surprised. Much of the
polarization in our society, the kind we hear
about in the news and find on Facebook and
Twitter, springs from over-simplification —
the source of so many stereotypes.
I talked about life here on the East
Side — medical care, transportation,
education, shopping. Our concern with both
environment and income. The way we check
road and weather conditions rather than
traffic. I bragged a bit about our art galleries,
the Oregon East Symphony, Tamastslikt
Cultural Institute, the First Draft Writers’
Series, yoga, our bird club, the best T’ai Chi
anywhere. And the beauty
of our region, how much
we love it here.
Of course not all
rural Oregonians agree
on the big issues, I said.
One reason many of
us were so upset at the
takeover of the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge
headquarters is that the
people of that community
had spent years building
consensus, making sure
all voices were heard. Not
everyone here is against
the re-introduction of
wolves, I told them — the
Tribes, as well as quite
a few individuals, are not — but many who
are seem encouraged by the prospect of
managing the packs. It seems to me, I told
them, that the rural/urban issues stem from
not feeling heard, and that with improved
communication, that problem is growing
smaller.
I hadn’t heard a “Portland hunter” joke
for years. “Am I a Portland hunter?” one
woman wondered. She had filled her deer
tag here for the past five years. This led to
a discussion about guns. Complexity again.
The rural/urban
issues stem
from not feeling
heard. And
with improved
communication,
that problem is
growing smaller.
And stories: What do you do when your
across-the-fence new neighbor invites his
friends for frequent shooting parties that
terrify your border collie? After an initial
confrontation, a poet from another part of
rural Oregon said, you invite him to dinner
and work things out. After all, you need each
other.
But truth be told, we all need each other,
wherever we live. Sometimes, when our
experiences are different or we disagree,
we forget that. First Draft brings Northwest
writers to Pendleton because stories connect
us, let us step inside each other’s skin.
Remember what it means to be human.
It’s not always easy. When four teens
broke into a Foster Farms chicken barn near
Fresno and brutally killed 920 chickens,
Amy Miller, one of two Ashland poets who
will be featured at First Draft on August 17,
was upset.
“I wish I could show you / how we saved
him,” read the first lines of her poem “For
Those Who Would Kill Chickens.” “Named
him / Steven, stupid name / for a chicken ...”
Because, as she told Rattle Magazine,
“what I wished for these kids was a time
capsule to take them back to some place
where they could make a connection with
an animal, just one, to know it in their bones
and carry that feeling to that later fork in
their lives, when maybe they would have
made a different choice. ... There’s a lot of
talk right now about whether empathy is
overrated. But I think empathy is our gift as
a species, one of the best uses of our unusual
brains. We simply haven’t used it to its fullest
B ette H usted
FROM HERE TO ANYWHERE
yet; we haven’t evolved enough to live up to
it. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.”
Listening. Complexity. Learning to live
up to empathy. Kudos to those folks in
Portland for working on all three.
■
Bette Husted is a writer and a student of
T’ai Chi and the natural world. She lives in
Pendleton.
Why don’t American Volunteer firefighters are the
guardians of the rural West
men dance anymore?
I
W
alking out of the Hermiston
“We have identified specific
Cinema in 2006 after
movements within men’s dance that
influence women’s perceptions of
seeing Antonio Banderas’
dancing ability. A ‘good’ dancer thus
dancing movie “Take the Lead,” I
displays larger and more variable
found myself exiting with a group
movements in relation to bending
of three young women. I asked,
and twisting movements of their
“Say ladies, what do you think about
head/neck and torso, and faster
the fact that American men have
bending and twisting movements.
stopped dancing?”
Tom
“We suggest that such movements
Immediately, one woman spoke
Hebert
may form honest signals of male
for all three: “We’re disgruntled!”
Comment
quality in terms of health, vigor or
The other two agreed. So, I
strength. This suggests that females
asked, “When is the last time you’ve
prefer vigorous and skilled males. Such cues
had a chance to dance with your boyfriends
are derived from male motor performance
or husbands?” Two months for one, a year
that provides a signal of his physical
for the other. The third: “I can’t remember
condition and so form honest signals of
when.”
traits such as health,
As we hit the sidewalk,
fitness, genetic quality and
I mentioned that when I
developmental history.”
see women dancing they
With even science
usually have to dance with
making its case for dancing,
other women.
at the moment there’s no
“You got that right!”
place in Pendleton where
they said.
one can regularly dance.
But despite the fact that
Yet, as recently as the
women everywhere want
1980s there were several
to dance, several decades
places with live bands
ago American men stopped
every weekend. One of the
dancing. As a result, a kind
few jukeboxes in Pendleton
of blandness has seeped
is at the Rainbow Café. But
into our social lives. But,
its dance floor is given over
if American men started
to a pool table.
dancing again, both they
But back to the question:
and American women
Submitted photo
Why don’t American men
would see love, romance
and fun percolate back into Author Tom Hebert kicks it dance anymore? Beats
their lives. And, with places up in this photo from his me. With so much media
1956 high school yearbook. focus on professional
to dance and meet friends,
athletes, they now represent
our communities would
manliness?
become more livable. Oh, yes, children love
But your grandparents and parents grew
to dance.
up with romantic songs and sensibilities like
All this is important because we now
Frank Sinatra’s 1959 “Come Dance With
live in the first society in human history
Me.”
that doesn’t delight in dancing. Ladies and
When I was kid growing up on a small
gentlemen, I ask you: Since American men
island near Seattle, every year at the
have mostly stopped riding horses and
Strawberry Festival there was a street dance
dancing, how are women supposed to pick a
where most everyone, including our parents,
mate?
stepped out to dance.
As it happens, I just turned 79. But I am
Since we have a fine Friday afternoon
in good health, and if there was a place to
Farmers Market, how about an annual
dance in Pendleton, I could still dance like
Saturday evening street dance in Pendleton?
there’s no tomorrow. Or better, ‘til the cows
If enough Pendleton women made it
come home.
known that they wanted to dance more, I
Happily, there’s scientific research about
think a public effort by Travel Pendleton to
the importance of dance.
From the July 2010 issue of Evolutionary market Pendleton regionally as a good place
to dance could eventually put Pendleton on
Biology, male dance moves can do more
the map — perhaps the national map.
than catch a woman’s eye:
Because then we could say: Pendleton
“Male movements serve as courtship
rocks!
signals in many animal species, and may
■
honestly reflect the quality of the individual.
Tom Hebert is a writer and public policy
Attractive human dance moves, particularly
consultant living on the Umatilla Indian
those of males, show associations with
Reservation.
measures of physical strength and balance.
f the universe wanted to
By about 8 a.m., at the site of the
challenge volunteer firefighters,
fire, the crew had felled a burning
it would arrange for a fire
tree and dug a perimeter around it.
emergency right smack in the
The plan was to monitor the blaze.
middle of a small town’s annual
Lacking much water, they hoped
festival, when fire crews are busy
that the tiny but volatile fire would
helping run the parade and other
sputter out from lack of fuel and
events.
lack of wind.
In this case, lightning started a
They’d carried in 15 gallons of
Maddy
fire sometime between Saturday
Butcher water weighing 125 pounds, along
night and Sunday morning during
with fire shelters, tools, first aid
Comment
Mancos Days, a July celebration in
kits, and the chainsaw. They rested
this town of 1,400 in southwestern
briefly before picking up hoes and
Colorado. Five members of the 15-member
Pulaskis to resume their work.
Most members of this crew are married,
Mancos Fire and Rescue crawled out of
with children, and have been responding
their beds and responded when the wildfire
to calls for years. They are a busy bunch,
was reported at about 5:30 a.m. on Sunday,
attending training sessions every Monday
July 30.
and handling calls almost
As if to test their mettle,
every day. Last year, they
smoke was coming from a
handled 340 calls within a
hard-to-reach cranny of a
district that spans about 200
canyon, with steep terrain full
square miles.
of scrub oak, cedars and pine
They were the first
at an elevation of 7,800 feet.
responders to the Weber
The blaze was also close to
Fire five years ago, and they
homes and less than a mile
from the harsh remnants
stayed on it for 10 days. They
of the devastating Weber
responded to a nine-alarm
Fire, which burned 10,000
fire at the Western Excelsior
acres and caused dozens of
mill this spring and to a
evacuations five years ago.
recent double-fatality caused
Massive fires tend to
by a motor vehicle accident.
dominate the headlines. But
After a man and his son died
people often forget that even the biggest
on Highway 160, firefighter David Franks
conflagration starts out as a flicker, and
realized that the pair, along with the rest of
that the first sighting is often responded
their family, had been part of a tour he’d led
to, not by helicopters and Hotshots, but
earlier of the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde.
As the sun climbed, the crew began
by local volunteers with day jobs. Before
dissecting the dead tree to locate its hottest
sunup in Mancos that Sunday, the crew
segments. They split the wood and doused
headed east up Highway 160 in three Type
the embers with water. They extinguished
6 brush trucks, specially outfitted pickup
any persistent flames and relayed
trucks loaded with 200 gallons of water
information on their radios. Sometime after
and many yards of hose. They continued as
noon, they gathered their equipment and
far as they could on private gravel roads,
headed back to the trucks.
and got closer in an all-terrain vehicle
Meanwhile, at the Mancos Days festival,
driven by a local resident. Then they
the Water Fights, an annual contest between
bushwhacked for 30 minutes to get to the
local fire departments, were underway.
fire, according to Mancos Assistant Fire
Firefighting teams from the towns of
Chief Ray Aspromonte, who was on the
Mancos, Dolores, Lewis-Arriola and Rico
crew. Aspromonte, who works in town as a
diesel mechanic, was joined by Gene Smith, competed, and the Mancos women’s team
triumphed. Though there’s only one woman
a machinist in a local lumber mill; Tavis
in the fire department, other firefighters’
Anderson, a welder for a local construction
wives joined her to complete the team. The
company; David Franks, a park ranger
men’s team fell to Lewis-Arriola in the
at Mesa Verde National Park; and Drew
Simmons, a planner for neighboring LaPlata finals.
It’s unlikely that many spectators knew
County.
about the volunteers who’d been up before
Of the approximately 30,000 fire
dawn to fight a nearby fire. “I’m sure there
departments nationwide, nearly two-thirds
are some who don’t care,” said Aspromonte,
are run solely by volunteers, according to a
but “most people seem to think we do
2017 study by the National Fire Protection
good.”
Association, a Massachusetts nonprofit
■
established in 1896. In communities
Maddy Butcher is a contributor to
with populations under 2,500, more than
Writers on the Range, the opinion service of
90 percent of the fire departments are
High Country News.
all-volunteer.
People
often forget
that even
the biggest
conflagration
starts out as
a flicker.