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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 10, 2018)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, March 10, 2018 East Oregonian Page 5A The necessity of vulnerability I ’ve been thinking about vulnerability. So have you, I’m sure. The cover story in last Saturday’s East Oregonian showed a barred security gate at Pendleton High School and included words like “fortress” and “securing the perimeter.” PHS students and teachers are planning a march to say they are tired of feeling vulnerable to school shootings, even as others argue against restrictions on firearms, insisting that guns make us less vulnerable. Arm the teachers. The one thing we agree on is that we don’t want to feel vulnerable. To a great extent, that’s what the #MeToo movement is about: women, and men too, saying no. No more. Yet there I was last week, joining students and community members who had gathered in a BMCC classroom for a conversation about creativity, vulnerability, and art. “What We Risk,” slam poet Jason Graham had titled his Oregon Humanities Conversation Project. We were there to share ideas about another kind of vulnerability. The necessary kind. The kind that makes us human. Not everyone takes the risks a creative artist takes — opening herself to criticism or misunderstanding, rejection, ridicule — in some places, imprisonment or death — but anyone who has held his child in his arms knows what it means to accept vulnerability. Opening our hearts to a partner means knowing we will have to face the eventual loss of that person. And — dogs. Do we do that for practice, I sometimes wonder? Devastated as we are when the dog dies, as they all do, we get another puppy. Or we head to PAWS, pretending that we’re rescuing a dog instead of being rescued ourselves. To come to the First Draft Writers’ Series is to accept this necessary kind of human vulnerability. You don’t have to be a featured writer or share at the open mic to experience it. All you have to do is listen. Sometimes the writer’s willingness to accept risk is obvious. “It’s been six years since Jennie died,” we heard the Osage writer Ruby Hanson Murray’s soft, steady voice reading last month, “and I’ve barely spoken about her death. I’m sharing my experience because I hope if we lighten the judgment and shame some people associate with domestic violence, overdose, or suicide, we can help each other.” Her fellow writer Dawn Pichon Barron was fearless, too; her chapbook Escape Girl Blues took us “under the bridge where we The kind of vulnerability that makes us human is what kept me in the classroom all those years. The Second Amendment’s misplaced comma L et me be clear. I like guns. I’ve bleeding and some bullet fragments. owned several. Including the I was looking at a CT scan of .22 caliber single shot rifle one of the victims of the shooting my father gave to me when I was at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High about ten. Trouble was I couldn’t hit School, who had been brought to the the broad side of a barn. However, trauma center during my call shift. one day I was down in our pasture The liver looked like an overripe and tried to kill a crow. But I soon melon smashed by a sledgehammer, learned that I could hit the living with extensive bleeding. How could Tom room wall of our neighbor. Never a gunshot wound have caused this Hebert saw the rifle again. And I have never much damage?” Comment The president and Congress had a defensive use for a gun. At should not deliberately overlook best I would shoot myself in the the fact that the use of AR-15 rifles is foot. the common denominator in many mass But, during my service with USO in shootings. Vietnam I inherited from some departing Yet, the National Rifle Association has Marines an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle (the labeled the AR-15 “America’s most popular murder weapon in the Parkland school) and rifle.” Yeah, right. Some facts from the an awesome Russian AK-47 Kalashnikov Center for Disease Control and Prevention: assault rifle. I never fired either one. Since 1968 more than 1.5 million I also had the opportunity to stare Americans have been killed in the U.S. down the muzzle of .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun (a Tommy gun). It had been in gun-related incidents. In one year on leveled at my chest by an angry Marine who average, more than 100,000 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, demanded that I sell him another hot dog or suicides and suicide attempts, accidents, or else he would shoot me. I was in this pickle by police intervention. because we had a snack bar rule that limited And in one year on average more than each Marine to two hot dogs. I had imposed 18,000 American children and teens (ages this rule because we received a limited 0-19) are also shot in murders, assaults, number of hot buns every morning from a suicides and suicide attempts, accidents, or Navy bakery and so, following the rules, a by police intervention. Vietnamese employee had refused to sell But, thank the Lord, we have those him another one. intelligent and savvy students from Marjory After his threat, I told the off-kilter Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Marine that if he killed me the Marines standing in line behind him would shoot Florida, to show us the way forward. him dead. Appreciating the reality of this he But, we adults will all have to come walked out the door. to terms with the fact that the Second I also owned a Ruger .38 caliber snub- Amendment—which the NRA has nosed revolver. During the Tet Offensive enshrined—is all about a misplaced comma. of 1966 I was living in an apartment in Congress ratified the Amendment Saigon. One night I heard some gunfire so on December 15, 1791. The first 10 I ran upstairs to the roof. Suddenly I was amendments form the Bill of Rights. The being shot at from two directions — a North Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Vietnamese sniper and a Marine sniper in a militia, being necessary to the security of a nearby hotel where some Marines lived. free state, the right of the people to keep and So, I did what any manly man would bear arms, shall not be infringed.” do. I ran back down the stairs and into my But most Constitutional scholars agree bedroom. But not before I grabbed a bottle that it has nothing to do with an individual’s of cognac and my Ruger. There I slept the right to bear arms. It’s really about well- night away clutching both. A month later I regulated militias like the National Guard up traded the worthless Ruger for 20 sheets of at the Pendleton Airport. Because in 1791, plywood. I still have the bullet the NVA had the federal government couldn’t afford to shot at me, which hit the stairwell. maintain a standing army to protect all 13 In 1966 an officer of the 1st Marine states so our founders encouraged local Division had already told me how much riflemen to form into well-regulated militias. damage just one of those bullets could wreak What the founders’ use of commas on a human body. reveals was what they really meant to say A Florida radiologist wrote about his was “Because a well-regulated militia being experience with AR-15 killings in the necessary to the security of a free state, the February 22 Atlantic magazine’s website: rights of the people to keep and bear arms “In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose shall not be infringed.” almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration So, Google away. through an organ like the liver. To a ■ radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, gray Tom Hebert is a writer and public policy bullet track through the organ. There may be consultant living outside Pendleton. hide … nowhere to go but the river.” Often the risk isn’t so obvious. But the thing all writers risk, and their readers and listeners risk too, is the possibility of connection. We are like Walt Whitman’s “noiseless patient spider” casting our fragile filament into the universe hoping the gossamer thread will “catch somewhere.” It might not. But when it does, when you hear a poem that says exactly how you feel but couldn’t have put into words — didn’t know anyone could — well, there it is, that shiver of human recognition. And you never know when you’ll hear it. High school students reading from their phones can open doors you didn’t know were there. One night an open mic reader sang a poem about domestic abuse — a combination no one expected — that stunned everyone in the room. “We talk about the vulnerability of sharing our work publicly,” photographer John Paul Caponigro acknowledged. I don’t think we talk enough about the real vulnerability involved in making art; if we truly engage the process we are changed by it.” As a writer, of course, I agree with him. I think what he said is true for readers, too, and for those of us who are fortunate enough to get to hear writers read directly to us. This belief in the kind of vulnerability that makes us human is what kept me in the classroom all those years, helping people connect with stories and learn to tell their own. And now? What stories will we tell B ette H usted FROM HERE TO ANYWHERE as our children practice hiding in their school classroom closets? It’s an important question. And it’s a reason artists know they must risk everything. ■ Bette Husted is a writer and a student of T’ai Chi and the natural world. She lives in Pendleton. Feeling seedy as spring approaches A s the newest crop of seed peas are for the frolicking kids to catalogs arrives in the mail, eat, while the grownups appreciate my thoughts turn to next the basil, radicchio and cucumbers. summer’s garden and to the words All of these can be ordered from a of Tim Cahill, the adventure writer: seed catalog and planted directly “I am a man who sits around at without having to be grown home reading wilderness survival inside. Climbing plants like beans books the way some people peruse should also be ordered, as well as seed catalogs or accounts of classic plants for them to climb on, like Ari chess games,” Cahill wrote in sunflowers. As soon as the ground LeVaux “Jaguars Ripped My Flesh.” can be worked, plant a handful Comment As a compulsive peruser of of peas and beans. When they seed catalogs, I think it’s a fair come up, plant the rest, and your comparison. All three of these pursuits sunflowers among them. can occur in one’s socks or slippers, over I recommend a large bag of basil, to be seeded in every blank spot in the a cup of tea. They all invoke issues of survival, but gardening requires the most garden. They can be the exception that gets integrated of skill sets, combining the started indoors, and they are much more strategy and foresight of a chess master forgiving than tomatoes are. Or you can with the survivalist’s intimate knowledge of sow the seeds outside around the time you landscape and the ability to adjust on the fly transplant tomatoes. For me, that’s about to changing conditions. Memorial Day. Growing a garden is a glorious way of Those who take the time to fill their dancing with the forces of nature, with the freezers with ready-to-go foods can enjoy bees and the flowers and the butterflies, meals in winter that practically qualify while eating and sniffing and generally as fast food. In fact, there was a meal I digging the scene. used to cook in college that made me a It’s a place for whimsy and relaxation, minor celebrity on the dorm block that though it’s important to be clear about year. I called it PastaPestoPrego, and it expectations — especially now, when you leveraged the fact that one needn’t choose have a bunch of seed catalogs spread out between pesto and red sauce, as they go before you. great together. On top of that, this recipe One easy rule of thumb is to rule out manages to push most any button that a any plants that need to be planted inside 20-year-old guy might possess, delivering and in pots. I don’t care if you have a noodles, cheese and quantity. sunny windowsill. Unless you have a real But it wasn’t just the satisfaction it grow space and the proper gear, growing delivered that made the meal legendary. your own starts is a losing proposition. It was the sheer speed with which I could Unless you really know what you are prepare it. And if the proverbial pesto and doing, your tomato seedlings will probably Prego are in place at your place, you can be an embarrassment compared to the too: greenhouse-grown beauties you can PastaPestoPrego purchase at the farmers market. Big pot of boiling water I’ve got a small stable of growers from Half an onion, minced whom I buy tomato plants, farmers who Two garlic cloves, pressed, grated or grow big specimens of interesting varieties minced that produce delicious, eclectic crops Red sauce through the summer. These are not the Pesto tomatoes with which I make the sauce that Cheese, such as Parmesan or Romano fills my freezer. Those tomatoes I’ll buy Ground meat (optional) months later, also at the farmers market. When the noodles are done to your Because my garden isn’t for filling the liking, drain them and toss with olive oil, freezer. It’s a net for catching some fleeting, and then minced garlic. This, right here, is lovely moments of summer. the most important trick you need to know While students of chess and wilderness about pasta: The garlic will cook in the hot survival look to history for guidance, noodles and the house will smell amazing. readers of seed catalogs tend to look Then stir in the cheese and pesto. Finally, forward, focused on what is new. Pineapple toss in the red sauce. Add more grated strawberries? Sure. Or we seek out things cheese, if you can, and proceed to eat until that are less available on the open market, it hurts. ■ like radicchio. Ari LeVaux is a contributor to Writers The only thing I grow in large enough on the Range, the opinion service of High quantities to store and replant is garlic. Country News (hcn.org). He writes about The rest of the garden, I plant to eat. The blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and food and food politics in New Mexico.