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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 2017)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, October 21, 2017 East Oregonian Page 5A On the value of literature T he Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness was established along Idaho’s Salmon River in the early 1970s. At that point, the BLM and Forest Service burned several “unpermitted” cabins that existed on both shores of the Salmon. There were some interesting folks living in those cabins, like Rollie Hammel who logged the river for driftwood during peak flow with a chunk of rope from an open 12-foot fishing boat, and the extended Jones family at the bottom of Carey Creek who counted coup on bears with a switch in the old orchards, and Lum Turner, the gangly old loner, who was eventually killed by the river after 70 years of threading the trail to town on his monthly Social Security quests. I met Lum only once, in Summerville’s Bar in Riggins, on a Saturday night when our whiskey quests happened to mesh and when coincidence, or his cantankerousness, provided an empty stool at his left elbow. As soon as I ordered a double shot of Jim Beam, with a beer back, he waded into me. “Where you from, son?” “Well, I’m living up at Burgdorf.” “No, I meant where you from, son?” “Grew up in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Got here by the way of Massachusetts, Italy, Mississippi, Illinois, California and Montana.” “How do you make your living?” “Right now I’m rolling logs to the headworks in a houselog mill.” “Oh yeah, for Little Bill Mockwitz up on the school section. You can’t do that forever. What do you want to do when you grow up?” “I’m thirty-one-years-old with a kid and figure I’m just about grown now, but, if you really want to know, I’d like to make my living as a writer before I stop living.” “That’s a good one. Somebody’s got to put it all into words, I guess. I do some reading myself, but I never realized the true value of literature until the winter of 1953. Buy me a shot, and I’ll tell you the story.” I bought the shot. What follows is Lum’s assessment of the value of the written word: “I was wintering four mules, two of mine and two from the Owens’ ranch, in a little set of corrals behind my cabin 15 miles upriver. It was a heavy winter for this part of the world, maybe a foot and a half of snow at river level that stayed forever. I hadn’t got a whole lot of hay put up the summer before. “Sometime around Christmas I belled one of my mules and turned all four out to fend for themselves. The river is gentle and quiet in the winter months, so I could hear the bell real good. When the mules got too far away from my place, I’d ski out to find them, chase them back home, and hay them a little, just enough so they would remember the joys of civilization and not wander completely off. I worried about cougar, too. Just about every critter in the Salmon River country comes down to the river during the winter. “A month or so before the snows came, I had been in Riggins to pick up my government check and get a few supplies. I was out of hay, but not out of feed. Quick takes Pendleton to ban smoking in public parks How about dog crap in the parks? Can that be banned too? Nothing better than stepping in a fresh pile playing with your kids. Plus it’s unsanitary. — Paul Word If you are mad you can’t smoke at a park or on the levee, look it this way. Personally don’t care if you do or not. I can leave the area you are smoking. Children can’t. That’s the difference. These are areas designed for them. Please. Give them a chance to choose for themselves. — Cody Webster More petty crimes they can get a little revenue from because the police have nothing better to do than respond to new moms protecting their babies from the evil man who hits the vape pen then took a chew! — Malvin Jamison You all remember the movie “Demolition Man” right? That’s pretty much what the world is turning into now. — Kristina Ellis Wow! Such negative remarks! I see this as the city showing and caring for other people’s health and addiction plus the beauty of our parks. — ChrisTina Garner Susie Arroyo passes away Sounds like the world is a little bit better because of her. What a great story sorry to here about your loved one Arroyo Family. — Christopher Waine What a beautiful person inside and out. We are blessed to have you touch so many people with your love, joy and stories ... truly will be missed. — Tina Zuelich-Longhorn ODOT prepares new fleet of snowplows, salt for winter To think, that is as clean and shiny new as they will ever be! Have a safe season ODOT. Thank you for all the work you people do. — Jim Noise Definitely won’t be visiting there this winter. I’ve seen what even very limited exposure to salt can do to a vehicle. — Jett Seale Do not try to pass these plows on the right. Bad things will happen. — Buck McEntire New restaurants in Hermiston I want a place like Sweet Tomatoes in Portland. It’s a huge salad bar. You can make your salad however you like. They also have soup and bread. — Anne Waid Tankersley Although I am in Pendleton, I would LOVE to see more Mom n Pop types of restaurants, with good ol’ fashioned home cooked foods! So tired of chain locations with no imagination to their foods. — Pam Peterson 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. While I was there a lady friend forced me to take darn near a cord of her old used Readers Digests back up the river to my place. I didn’t want them in the first place, but I was taught to accept gifts gracefully, so I hauled them home and stacked them in boxes beside my bed. “Along about January I got lonely and bored enough to read one. It was a Sunday morning, a pretty nice day, and I was sitting at my table with the window open, a pot of coffee and one of those magazines. The more I read, the more disgusted I got. The one that really torqued me was an article about this guy named Raymond L. Ditmars who was working to save the American rattlesnake. I’d lost two dogs to snakes the summer before. I pitched the book out of the window, out into the slop and snow of the mule corral. “A couple of cups of coffee later I decided it was time to get to some sort of work, so I went out to bell the mules and let them wander for feed. While I was out there I got to thinking that it would be just my luck that this would be the day that the lady friend would come to visit and find one of her books out in the corral, so I’d best retrieve it. You know, I could not find that Readers Digest anywhere. And when I opened the corral gate, the mules just stood there looking at the cabin, didn’t want to leave. “That’s when I discovered the true value of literature. Those mules had literally digested the Readers Digest, and were waiting for more reading material. That bunch of literature solved a lot of my problems that winter. I was out of hay, but not out of feed. Didn’t even have to bell the leader anymore. Once every morning until the snow melted, I’d pitch a wad of Readers J.D. S mith FROM THE HEADWATERS OF DRY CREEK Digests out into the corral and watch the mules shred them into fodder. They’d come home every night. I don’t know whether it was the ink or whatever, but all four of them shed off early and were plenty slick and fat by mid-March when the grass started growing again. Yep, you go ahead and become a writer. You never know when a book is going to come in handy.” ■ J.D. Smith is an accomplished writer and jack-of-all-trades. He lives in Athena. Wolf and livestock coexistence is a delusion I livestock often results in t is a popular notion among the social displacement and some conservationists that abandonment of the area by the way to win acceptance native ungulates such as elk. for predators like wolves is to If one assumes that work with rural communities and elk select the best habitat ranchers. Gaining their support for their needs, then certainly helps wildlife managers displacement to other lands justify killing packs or individual reduces their overall fitness. wolves whenever they prey on cattle. And we cannot forget that on But these control tactics have many public lands, the vast limited application. At best, they majority of forage is reserved reduce conflicts in targeted areas and allotted to domestic and have no significant effect livestock, leaving only the on the distribution or survival of leftovers for native wildlife. native predators. At worst, they If we assume that one of the limiting factors for add to the delusion that widespread native wildlife is high- co-existence between predators and quality forage, and that less livestock is possible. nutritious feed means fewer The killing of seven members Courtesy of Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife of the Profanity Peak pack in The wolf designated as OR14 was captured and GPS-collared elk, deer and bighorns, then Washington illustrates how a wolf by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in the Weston we are literally taking food pack paid the ultimate price for Mountain area north of the Umatilla River on June 20, 2012. out of the mouth of our merely trying to eke out a living in OR14 weighed 90 pounds and was estimated to be at least native predators. When there is a conflict a place where unfenced domestic 6 years old. between private livestock livestock had been released to grazing public lands and the graze. public’s native wildlife, such as grizzlies, Hundreds of cattle were released on the coyotes and wolves, just which animals allotment, and salt blocks used by cattle should be removed? That is a question that were placed near the den site. That led to “collaboratives” never ask. It is always wolf depredation on cattle followed by the assumed that if predators are causing killing of pack members. problems for ranchers, the predators, not the A growing body of scientific research livestock, should go. now shows that killing problem wolves This assumption adds up to direct and often begets yet more conflicts. Whether indirect subsidies for the livestock industry. the killing is done to protect livestock or for As long as the dominant paradigm is that “sport” by hunters, it tends to skew wolf a rancher’s livestock has priority on public populations towards younger animals less lands, we will never fully restore native skilled at hunting. Loss of individual pack predators to our lands. That is why we need members can also result in changes in a to reframe the narrative and recognize that pack’s ability to hold a territory, pushing domestic livestock are the “problem” for the animals into new areas where they that are being exploited by ranchers. Cows, our native wildlife. are less familiar with native prey. Both not native to the West, have preference. Next time one of these collaboration outcomes often lead to livestock getting If I were to harass elk on a winter range, groups asks for your money, consider killed by wolves. force bald eagles away from their nests or giving your funds elsewhere. Look for Even “predator-friendly” operations in other ways harass our wildlife, I would harm native wildlife. When ranchers likely risk a fine. If I were to go out into the organizations that challenge the dominance of livestock on public lands through grazing use noisemakers like boat horns or midst of a herd of sheep grazing on public allotment buyouts or that promote the firecrackers, shoot at predators to scare lands and start shooting guns or firing off notion that public predators have priority on them, or otherwise harass wolves and other firecrackers to stampede the herd, I would our public lands. predators, this hounding and stressing of risk imprisonment. But when it comes to ■ our wildlife is considered legitimate. But harrying wolves, somehow this kind of George Wuerthner is a contributor to why should conservation organizations pay harassment has become legitimate. Writers on the Range, the opinion service for range riders or organize volunteers to The negative impacts of livestock on of High Country News. He is an ecologist harass public animals like wolves to protect our native wildlife go even further than who has studied predators and published someone’s private livestock? harassment or lethal control — something 38 books, including Welfare Ranching: The In effect, these groups are saying that that none of the “collaborative” groups Subsidized Destruction of the Arid West. He wolves, coyotes and other native wildlife ever mention to their membership or the lives in Bend. do not have a “right” to live on public lands press. Just the mere presence of domestic When there is a conflict between private livestock grazing public lands and the public’s native wildlife ... just which animals should be removed? Every day our choices show what kind of person we are T he choices we make every parking signs, in driveways, loading day say a lot about our view zones, etc. — and those who don’t of others, the world, and our believe Round-Up magically place in it. It’s overly simplistic, dissolves the social contract of I know, but in many ways the old politeness, adherence to safe saying is true, “there are two kinds practices and considerate actions. of people in the world.” • People who are empathetic For instance, there are: toward the poor, and those who • People who ease off the pedal think only lazy or dull people are Hal to let a fellow motorists merge with McCune poor. traffic and those who consider such • People who will give a buck Comment politeness a weakness. or two to a panhandler, calm in the • Drivers who zip in and out of belief that a good deed is its own traffic to save a few seconds and those who reward regardless of what the “gift” is used realize calm and safe driving makes the trip for, and those who sneer at the thought of much less stressful and only slightly longer. sharing their good fortune with someone • People who hold the door for others they are certain will just waste it on booze and those too unperceptive or self-absorbed or drugs, is lazy and should get a job, owns to bother. a Mercedes parked a block away or just • Shoppers who faithfully take their cart panhandles because it’s fun and easy. back to the drop site and those who leave it • Those who will circle the parking lot to clutter the parking spaces. relentlessly to get two spaces closer and • Those who park in no parking areas those who figure a little walking or rain and fire lanes because “they’ll just be a won’t hurt them. minute” and those who think “no parking” • People who smile with understanding means just that. and tolerance at a parent combating a tired • Round-Up revelers who will park and unruly child at the store and those who anywhere — next to fire hydrants, no scowl and mumble judgments. • Those who think professing religious belief makes them better than people who don’t, and those who consider religious belief a potential avenue to fulfillment but hardly a ticket to be preachy or smug. • Those who believe people have the right to make their own decisions regarding their body, and people eager to tell others what they can and can’t do. • Those who smile at others, including people they don’t know, and those who think smiling should be reserved for when you win the lottery. • People who like bagpipes and those who don’t. • Those who consciously choose to enjoy the moment — the conversation, the food, the sunset, the music in the background, the walk – and those who choose instead to concentrate on a hand-held screen. (I appreciate my little phone/computer like everyone else. But come on. Look up, listen up, enjoy the real world and the people around you). So, what kind of person are you? ■ Hal McCune is a longtime Pendleton resident.
