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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 3, 2018)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, March 3, 2018 O East Oregonian Page 5A Riding the old train line nce a month I have the good fortune of dining with a group of distinguished local citizens who convene in order that they may discuss (or occasionally debate) important issues of the day. This jovial assemblage represents a true cross-section of local luminaries who are part of a club formed in 1933. At our last gathering, one of two special meetings a year when spouses are invited to attend, I was presented with an envelope from one of our more experienced members which contained a hand- written recollection of bygone days when the train connected Pendleton to the Walla Walla Valley and Wallula on the Columbia River. I have a personal interest in the aforementioned subject because it is not only intriguing local history, it is also what brought my maternal ancestors to the Helix area more than 130 years ago. My great- great grandfather helped construct the rail line which, for approximately one hundred years, ran through Vansycle Canyon. He then took up a homestead claim near Ring Station (formerly “Canon” according to my 1893 “Arnold’s official map of Umatilla County”) and began growing wheat, an activity which my son and I and several other of J.P. Dorran’s descendants still pursue. The railroad was an absolutely vital link to the world beyond Umatilla County in 1880s and for several decades thereafter. Grain and livestock from the area were shipped out to market while farm equipment, household goods, building material and too many other things to list were shipped in. It is also important to note that passenger transport was an important role played by the railroad. My grandfather used to tell about riding the train to town to visit relatives, purchase goods, or go to the doctor. Sometimes they would even take advantage of a sympathetic crew and board the train at a rural siding such as Ring Station without the official process of purchasing a ticket. The Great Northern Railroad served a number of places, particularly grain elevators, which are mostly forgotten these days. After departing Wallula and traveling through the Touchet Valley, one could have enjoyed a scenic trip up Vansycle Canyon passing through places such as Ring, Vansycle, and Stanton. At Killian Junction a “Y” (or split) in the tracks presented an opportunity that Yogi Berra (who was quoted as saying “If you come to a fork in the road — take it”) would have appreciated. Turning east would mean you were headed to Athena via Hillsdale (later called Duroc), Grandview and Waterman — where the steam engine could, not surprisingly, The railroad is what brought my ancestors to the Helix area more than 130 years ago. There’s crazy, then there’s gun crazy W e’ve all had abundant hunted with my dad, though I never time to think about gun hunted as an adult because I didn’t laws, gun violence, dead need or want the meat. children on schoolroom floors, and Several guns I once owned have the Second Amendment. Who can been stolen. That’s a thing that even keep track of the number of happens with guns. times we’ve been asked to send One high-priority item on the our prayers out to the victims and Republican “to do” list has been survivors of the ongoing carnage? to expand open-carry laws state Jaime No American mass shooting O’Neill by state, normalizing dangerous would be complete without tendencies throughout the nation. Comment reminders from the National Rifle I recently saw a testimonial to that Association that the problem in madness in the parking lot at our this country isn’t guns; it’s mental illness. local Lowes. “Live to carry, Carry to Live” Mental illness exists everywhere in the was emblazoned on the back window of an world, of course, but mass shootings do not. oversized truck. “Live to carry”? Really? In this country, however, they have become That sounds like a fragile reason for getting so commonplace that our response to more up in the morning. As for carrying to live, death is almost ritualistic. everyone should know by now that the After every mass killing, we keep chances of dying go up dramatically when hearing this blather that you’re packing heat, or amounts to “Nothing can when you’ve got a gun be done” from Paul Ryan, in your house for “self- Marco Rubio and other protection.” elected representatives. We My congressional hear it almost before the representative here in echoes of the gunfire have Northern California is faded. We heard it after Doug LaMalfa, a rice Columbine, Sandy Hook, farmer and major recipient Las Vegas, and now after of government subsidies. the Parkland day of death All cowboy hat, boots and in Florida. The difference no cattle, he’s a devotee of this time is that classmates the NRA, a Trump loyalist of the dead teenagers at on every issue, and he Marjory Stoneman Douglas resists any and all sensible High School are saying restrictions on guns. He loudly and clearly that gun violence must does not agree with me that a nation that be stopped. includes heavily armed men who “live to Doesn’t it seem clear that anyone who carry” offers little prospect of safety for feels the need for an AR-15 is already anyone. displaying abundant evidence of disordered The history of the West includes images thinking? If you are paranoid enough to of guns, mostly those muzzle-loading rifles think you need so much firepower for home carried by trappers or explorers like Jim protection, that’s more paranoia than sanity Bridger, Kit Carson or Jim Beckwourth. A can contain. powder horn and a Hawken rifle are part of If you say you need an AR-15 to go the romance of that storied past. deer hunting, that’s preposterous. And But those simple guns fired one round if you think that you and your patriotic at a time before requiring reloading. And buddies, armed with a small arsenal of the reloading process took even a proficient semi-automatic rifles converted to full-auto shooter several seconds to complete before with bump stocks, can resist an American he was able to shoot again. There is no government supported by the U.S. Army, record of any of those mountain men Navy and Air Force, then that’s clear engaging in a school shooting. evidence of lunacy. Anyone who sincerely believes he needs I grew up playing with toy guns, a semi-automatic weapon has already shooting other kids “dead” with caps or revealed enough muddled thinking to be sound effects, dramatically acting out my denied possession of one. Killing many own death countless times whenever they people quickly is the true purpose of these “got me” first. I graduated to a single shot guns, and that has nothing to do with the .22 rifle when I was 12, and then to a .410 Second Amendment’s “well-regulated shotgun when I was 13. As a grownup, I militia.” bought my first pistol when I was in my It is long past time for Congress to once mid-20s. again ban the sale of these weapons that As the years advanced, I acquired a .12 are so frequently the guns of choice for gauge pump action shotgun, a .50 caliber murderers of children. breech-loading Sharps carbine, a .45 caliber ■ Hawken, and several handguns, mostly Jaime O’Neill is a contributor to the single-action Rugers or Colts. As a boy, I opinion service of High Country News. A powder horn and a Hawken rifle are part of the romance of the West’s storied past. take on water. My nonagenarian friend recalled that a good number of hobos would have opted for this route in search of work in the pea harvests around Athena, Weston and Milton-Freewater. If the traveler of yesteryear opted for the southern route, then you were headed for Pendleton via Helix, where for many years it served a flour mill, thence Warren (now called Myrick), McCormach, Fulton, and Saxe — whereupon the track paralleled Wildhorse Creek on its way to Pendleton and the depot now occupied by the Historical Society Museum. Over the years, I have collected or witnessed a number of things which recall the era of steam-powered trains. I have a book of blank grain warehouse tickets for Ring Station in which the date reads 191_ (the blank to be filled in by the warehouseman, namely my great- grandfather.) While working on a neighbor’s shed I spied a packing crate marked with a destination of “McCormach Station.” I have a photo of Helix, circa 1914, with a wooden boxcar front and center labeled “Northern Pacific.” Examinations of windmill towers in the county reveal numerous places to which they were originally shipped including Ring, Vansycle and Nolin. Havana is not only the name of Cuba’s capital city — it was also the moniker given to a grain elevator once located between Adams and Pendleton. I have a friend who has a Coca-Cola vending machine which came out of the Duroc Elevator. While riding the Sumpter Valley railroad a few years back, I briefly lamented that I was born in 1969 instead of 1869. However, M att W ood FROM THE TRACTOR given my inability to avoid manual labor, I probably would have just ended up shoveling coal or stacking sacks of grain and fighting with a hobo over a cup of soup from some gurgling, crackling cauldron in some train yard. ■ Matt Wood is his son’s hired man and his daughter’s biggest fan. He lives on a farm near Helix, where he collects antiques and friends. The bravery and eloquence of the Parkland students O n the morning of February 22 I and instead of grieving for our was having breakfast in Dave’s dead classmates and teachers, we 12th Street Food Mart and are out here advocating for change. gas station here in Pendleton, which Some of you said it was too soon has a breakfast menu including great to talk about gun control ... If we burritos. This while waiting for my wait until then your children might pickup to be repaired at G & R Truck become a victim too.” and Auto Repair. Dan Linden: “We’ve had Sitting in a booth I could watch enough of thoughts and prayers ... Tom the news on a big TV screen hanging we are coming after every single Hebert from the wall. Soon I realized that Fox one of you and demanding that you Comment News (which never in my born days take action, demanding that you have I watched) was live covering the make a change.” students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Delaney Tarr, she of the big black glasses, High School in Parkland, Florida, who were said on Vox: “We are lucky enough to come holding a kind of news conference. But it was from a very affluent neighborhood. We go so much more than that. to an amazing school that’s been giving us About 10 survivors of the so many opportunities to learn killing ground came before about government, to learn about the camera with a handheld policy, to learn about social microphone to make these issues. We have so many clubs absolutely thoughtful and and classes dedicated to this type insightful statements about the of thing, so we know what we’re massacre of 17 students and talking about. And we’ve always faculty. Some had written out been ready to speak out about it, their comments, while others but this has hit so close to home just said what needed to be that we have to speak out about said. After I listened to about this, right now. We are still, of five of them I began to tear — Delaney Tarr, course, grieving, and we do lash up — something that older men Student at Marjory out at moments, but ultimately, often do. Stoneman Douglas we are not making this a partisan issue. We are making this a These kids were so eloquent High School life-or-death issue.” and powerful I will never, ever As a result of this hard-edged forget what they said. They thinking, under the rubric of #neveragain, spoke from the heart but also with much the survivors are organizing the March 24 political savvy and knowledge about what March for Our Lives against what the NRA had happened to them on February 14 and the ins and outs of gun control. And, I was so has done to America, its schools, and its children. According to a mission statement proud of them. From online articles: for March For Our Lives, students across the Parkland student Alex Wind: “In country will converge on Washington next Newtown the students were so young they couldn’t stand up, but trust me, we are going month to say the nation can no longer wait to tackle issues of school safety and gun control to be the change. It is absolutely insane that reform. a 19-year-old cannot purchase alcohol but As it happens, most Americans are on can walk in and buy an AR-15, a weapon of their side. A February 23 CBS poll found mass destruction.” that 65 percent of Americans now say David Hogg, the apparent leader of the laws covering the sale of guns should be student group: “Would American patriots stricter — an eight-point increase from try to buy our elections and our children’s lives by lobbying for lax gun laws even after December. The rise has been primarily massacres? To Congress, you have the power among Republicans and independents, with a large increase among Republicans from last to change this and if you don’t, then we will December. Democrats remain in favor. change you. We may be too young to vote, A Politico Morning Consult poll released but soon we will be able to vote and we will on February 28 shows support for stricter vote you out.” gun laws among registered voters at 68 Then, during an appearance on ABC’s percent, compared to just 25 percent who “This Week” on February 25 he let loose oppose stricter gun laws. on the NRA: “Honestly, it’s disgusting. I don’t know if a parallel march will The NRA acts like they don’t own these happen here in Pendleton, (a Western politicians, but they do. They’ve gotten gun gun-toting town) but if a march is organized legislation passed before in their favor, in I’ll be there. favor of gun manufacturers. The NRA is an ■ organization that’s completely broken.” Tom Hebert is a writer and public policy Florence Yared: “Instead of returning for our studies, instead of preparing for exams, consultant living outside Pendleton. “We are making this a life- or-death issue.”