VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, March 17, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 5A
An organic ski adventure
T
hirteen of us started the winter in
cabins that we had spent the summer
jacking back to level and chinking
from weather we knew would arrive at 7,500
feet up in the Salmon River Mountains.
I’d showed up with a mate
and a two-year-old daughter
in late July after spending six
months on the road wandering
across the West, stopping long
enough to work for gasoline
to nudge our old ex-telephone
truck home rolling another
hundred miles down the
highway.
The last job I held was on
the Blackfoot reservation as
a location scout for a bunch
of Hollywood buttheads who
were trying to cash in on the mountain-
man-meets-noble-savage theme. I quit when
one of them got nasty with a waitress in a
Browning, Montana, café as she tried to
explain that there was no wine to go with
their overkill steaks because it was a dry
reservation.
That night we palavered with a couple
who said that they’d spent a few days
in a wonderful hot springs town above
the Salmon River in Idaho. I’d fleeced
Hollywood for $500 so we climbed up the
grade from the River of No Return and
arrived in paradise during a spectacular
summer thunderstorm. The young folks
welcomed us, fed us supper, and I was
hooked for the next 45 years.
The $500 and some work at a sawmill
was enough to fill our cabin with cases of
canned goods, a large box of dried apricots
and 15 pounds of almonds. It began to
snow just after dark on Halloween, while
we were throwing an “Adios Civilization”
party. Big Al the Kiddies’ Pal covered “Teen
Angel” just before he and his entourage
cased up the guitars and headed back over
the summit to spend winter at
the fountainhead of pizza and
beer.
We didn’t have many
visitors that winter. A couple
of old friends spent three days
frostbiting their toes while
trudging in to visit. They left
behind a set of pure wool
itchy gray long johns that they
didn’t want to carry back out.
I was to mail them in spring.
By early March there were
five of us left in town. A flow
of 113-degree water doesn’t cure itchy feet
or cabin fever, so eight folks including my
kid and mate had hitched rides on snow
machines back to civilization. I kept on
soaking and smoking, drinking homebrew
and building furniture, and rejoicing that
my wallet was in the cupboard and that
chickadees landed on my hat brim.
In April it began to stay above zero some
nights. I was down to a diet of boiled potato
flakes, dried elk, peanut butter, apricots and
almonds, and decided that it was time to ski
32 miles for a piece of pizza and a couple
hundred gallons of real beer.
I owned cross-country skis, cheap poles,
and fake leather boots with less than five
miles on them, but how tough could it be to
ski into town? It was downhill, right?
So I packed up some apricots and
almonds, a couple of tins of Prince Albert,
a change of clothes, sleeping bag, and the
I headed
toward town
at daylight —
but it was not
all downhill.
wool long johns to take to the post office. I
headed toward town at daylight one Friday
morning.
It was not all downhill to town. By
three in the afternoon I was a mile over the
summit, laying alongside the trail. The south-
facing snow had heated above freezing point.
Wads of ice stuck to my skis. That’s when I
remembered that I had not remembered to
bring ski wax.
So I broke for lunch. While chewing a
cud of almonds and apricots I thought about
the situation and tried to recall what real ski
people had said about klister wax. I knew it
was a gooey substance.
Could I brew my own from spruce sap?
Should I wait for night and walk on the
crust? Maybe I should just sit right there
to be rescued, even though I hadn’t seen
another soul that day.
I was lighting my third home-roll when
the solution came. The apricots! I could turn
the apricots into impromptu klister wax. I
used a Buck knife to scrape off whatever
wax that got me that far, and then chewed
the dried apricots, two-by-two, into a fine
enough paste that I could apply a tin film to
the bottom of the skis.
It worked. The spit and the apricots froze
to a sheen when they met the snow, and I slid
along at a pretty brisk pace except for one
more heartbreaking uphill section. I spent the
night in the well of a spruce tree, beat and
cold, but after I wiggled into the itchy long
johns and scrunched down into the sleeping
bag, I actually got two or three hours of sleep
before walking the rest of the way to town
on the frozen crust. I kept those long johns
for ten years.
By noon on Saturday I was bellied up
J.D. S mith
FROM THE HEADWATERS
OF DRY CREEK
to the bar, telling backcountry stories with
pizza grease in my beard. Three days later
Cayenne Ken and I drove the back way up
the Salmon River to the snow line and skied
the last twelve miles home by whiskey and
moonlight, before the sun got to the snow.
The summit opened again to vehicular travel
in June and our population returned to 13.
■
J.D. Smith is an accomplished writer and
jack-of-all-trades. He lives in Athena.
Farm bill an opportunity Keep the ADA’s teeth
to invest in community A
T
he original 1933 farm bill
water quality, less erosion, and less
helped pull us out of the Great
atmospheric carbon. These programs
Depression by addressing market
can’t be giveaways. They should
failures that decimated prices and made
prioritize projects that demonstrate
it unprofitable for farmers to move food
meaningful improvement. Let’s invest
to the cities where people were hungry.
in our future and stretch our federal
While we face different challenges
money by working with farmers to
today, the 2018 farm bill should still
create conservation that maximizes
provide solutions for farmers and those
effectiveness for everybody.
Jamie
needing food while sustaining our
We also can’t afford to ignore our
Mcleod-
natural resources.
Skinner changing climate. We must invest in
This is especially important for
climate mitigation research. Changing
Comment
our family farms, which have been
weather patterns are impacting the
evaporating like puddles on a hot day.
availability of water.
Tens of thousands of small and mid-sized
Don’t throw the little guy under the bus
farms — those with less than a thousand acres
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
— have been lost in the past few decades.
Program (SNAP) helps everyone by keeping
Some farm bills have focused benefits on huge, families healthy and boosting agriculture.
corporate-owned farms, leaving smaller farms
Farmers receive about $6 billion in annual
struggling to compete in an unfair market. To
revenue from SNAP. The recent White House
survive, smaller farms were forced to grow
proposal, which would change the program
commodity crops for overseas markets. The
to hand out boxes of food rather than allow
2018 farm bill should correct that imbalance.
consumers to choose for themselves, would
It should incentivize family farms to grow real
take us in the wrong direction. The federal
food. It should make it possible for carrots
government should not dictate what we eat.
and broccoli to cost less than a box of mac
The distribution of food assistance through
and cheese. It should be good for our family
a voucher system puts the responsibility
farmers and good for our health.
for getting food on the recipient, not on
Good for our family farmers
the government, and profits local grocery
We all have a stake in ensuring that small
stores and farmers markets — not one major
farms are not run out of business. We should
corporation who gets the contract.
strengthen their viability by:
Good for our economic engine
▪ Increasing reference prices (under the Price
Job creation in rural communities must be
Loss Coverage program) to account for the cost part of the new farm bill. It should include
of production.
financial incentives and other types of help
▪ Strengthening crop insurance, including
to start up local businesses that will process
whole-farm revenue coverage and expansion of and distribute locally grown food and link
insurance options to livestock.
producers with the specific markets they need
▪ Providing programs to give new, veteran,
to sell it. It should also reclassify farm workers
and diverse farmers and ranchers better access
in a separate category, not just “unskilled
to land and capital.
labor,” and make it possible for regional
▪ Providing assistance to transfer existing
sponsorship of those workers. This would
farms to new younger farmers.
provide protection for the workers and families
▪ Establishing a two year tax program for
who put food on our tables.
small businesses that rely on the weather, so
Preparing our next generation
that family farms don’t fold because of one bad
The 2018 farm bill should provide research
weather year.
and development, business assistance and
Good for our health
financing for transferring these profitable
We should support subsidies that help
businesses to new, younger farmers. Most
provide local food. We need to move away
U.S. farmers are nearing retirement age, while
from subsidies that make junk food cheap
young people who want to start up or buy a
and vegetables expensive. When we make
farm often cannot afford to.
it profitable to grow healthy food and sell
This 2018 farm bill should be good for all
it at local markets, food growers and food
of us, urban and rural,and preserve our proud
consumers will all benefit.
farming and ranching tradition.
Good for our land
■
The next farm bill should add acreage
Jamie Mcleod-Skinner is running in the
and funding for the Conservation Reserve
Democratic primary for Oregon’s Second
Program. This program gives farmers a
District. She, along with other candidates, will
financially viable path to conserving land,
participate in a forum Friday at 7:30 p.m. at
while giving everybody the benefit of better
BMCC in Pendleton.
s an attorney with a
months, a business could still
mobility impairment, I
ask for additional time without
have a guilty secret: My
fully fixing the barrier. This
favorite weekly brunch spot is
means that, even after giving
likely out of compliance with the
more than adequate notice of the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
problem, people with disabilities
For the past several months, the
could still be excluded from
automatic door opener displayed
businesses that choose to ignore
prominently outside the entrance Matthew the law. Particularly in small
has been non-functional.
where there may be
Denney towns,
The door is extremely heavy,
only one option for each type
Comment
so heavy that even wait staff at
of business, this would create
the restaurant have a hard time
barriers to shopping, eating
opening it. I use forearm crutches to get
at restaurants, watching a movie, and
around, and such doors pose problems
being active in the community. And,
for me because I have to balance with
businesses that follow the law will
one arm while leveraging my weight
suffer if people with disabilities limit
with the other arm to get a door open.
their spending because they fear being
The wait staff have been extremely
turned away due to experiences at other
apologetic, but so far no action has been
businesses. The law and society will
taken to fix the door opener.
revert back to the expectation that steps
The barriers posed by such doors
and doors are a problem for the person
have been a constant theme in my life. I
with the disability to deal with.
was born with cerebral palsy, and being
Many businesses have made great
a child with cerebral palsy involves
strides in making sure that people
hours upon hours of physical therapy
with disabilities have equal access to
meant to prepare you to try and survive
restaurants, businesses, theaters, and
in the world around you.
stadiums. The ADA today is crafted
When I was in elementary school I
in a way that we don’t have to choose
preferred to use a wheelchair rather than between the civil rights of people with
crutches, and I was bluntly told by my
disabilities and thriving businesses.
physical therapist that if I didn’t learn to
It embodies a thoughtful consensus
go up and down stairs on crutches then
that unites the interests of the business
I would never be able to access all the
community with the interests of people
places I wanted to go.
with disabilities.
The same applied to doors. Even
The ADA also provides tools and
though I started school two years after
support to businesses that seek to
the ADA passed, I was told to never
comply with their legal requirements.
expect doors to have an automatic
Federal agencies are required to
opener, and to learn to open them
assist businesses in understanding the
myself — this even applied to the heavy requirements of the law at no cost to the
metallic doors of the public school I
business.
attended.
I still need to write to the
However, in the 28 years since the
management of my favorite restaurant
ADA passed, much progress has been
to let them know that they need to fix
made towards making society accessible. their door. For now, I at least know that
Under the ADA, I currently have the
they’ll be legally required to take some
right to ask my favorite restaurant to
action. I’m sure that both the wait staff
fix its barrier to entry, and this right
and anyone using a stroller or carrying
can be enforced by a court. However,
heavy bags will be grateful. A door that
under legislation that the U.S. House of
nearly requires two arms to open is an
Representatives passed last month, those obstacle for everyone.
rights would be severely restricted.
However, if the Senate passes H.R.
H.R. 620, misnamed the “ADA
620, it would allow the restaurant and
thousands of other business owners who
Education & Reform Act,” would
aren’t following the law to do nothing.
neutralize enforcement of the ADA
The U.S. Senate must reject it so that
and make it harder for people with
public places remain accessible to
disabilities to enforce their rights.
everyone, and so that people disabilities
The bill would require people with
can feel confident that they won’t be
disabilities to give businesses three
turned away at the door.
months written notice to fix a barrier to
■
access. The adequacy of a notice could
Matthew is a staff attorney with
then later be challenged in court by
Disability Rights Oregon. He grew up in
business owners who simply don’t want
Ontario.
to comply with the law. And after three