KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
ANDREW CUTLER
Publisher/Editor
ERICK PETERSON
Hermiston Editor/Senior Reporter
TuESDAY, NOvEMBER 16, 2021
A4
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Travel
safely this
holiday
season
T
he Thanksgiving holiday is just
around the corner and experts are
projecting that travel will climb to
pre-pandemic levels.
That’s good news in many ways but it
also presents a familiar problem that disap-
peared during the pandemic — safety.
The American Automobile Association
predicts that more than 53 million people
will travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, a
13% climb from 2020. In fact, the boost in
travel is expected to the biggest single-year
increase since 2005.
That means there will be a lot of traf-
fic on the roads and highways, and it also
means motorists will need to be cautious
and attentive.
No one sets out on a holiday trip to
get into a serious car crash. We pack out
things, get the family vehicle ready to go
and then head down the highway with high
expectations to meet family and friends for
the holiday.
Yet every year during Thanksgiving, or
Christmas or other major holidays — such
as the Memorial Day weekend — serious
or deadly crashes are reported.
The reason run the gamut from bad luck
to carelessness, but either way a holiday for
at least someone turns to tragedy.
Such accidents are not guaranteed. Driv-
ers can avoid such disasters by completing
a few simple tasks, and at the top of the list
is to pay attention.
Sure, a driver doesn’t have any control
over someone else behind the wheel, but
we can all take measures to avoid a terrible
ending to a holiday weekend.
That means getting plenty of sleep
before you get behind the wheel, and, if
the journey is a long one, sharing driving
duties. Tired drivers are apt to make poor
judgements or have slow reaction times.
Eight hours of good sleep is a small price
to pay and one of the best ways to avoid
ending in a serious crash.
While crashes on the highway seem to
be inevitable, they are not. Driving defen-
sively, paying close attention and sharing
driving duties are easy and simple ways to
avoid a tragedy.
The Thanksgiving and Christmas travel
season should be one of joy and anticipa-
tion. Neither holiday should include a list of
fatalities on the roadways.
Everyone wants to have a great time
during the holidays. We want to visit our
relatives and our friends but to do so we all
need to make sure that as we travel to see
our loved ones we take the necessary reac-
tions to arrive safe.
EDITORIALS
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East
Oregonian editorial board. Other columns,
letters and cartoons on this page express the
opinions of the authors and not necessarily
that of the East Oregonian.
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My own private Metropol
ALEX
HOBBS
PASTURES OF PLENT Y
F
or the past year and a half, I have
been roughly experiencing the
same day — day in and day out.
The alarm nudges me from sleep
around 6:30 a.m. This is promptly
snoozed in order to initiate the hour
of post-alarm slumber that, for some
reason, feels more rest-imbuing than
the entire night’s attempt put together. I
grind coffee beans, transfer them to the
coffee maker, crack open a book while it
drips into the carafe.
At the moment, it’s Amor Towles’
“Lincoln Highway.” The pot finishes
filling around three pages in. Thirty
minutes is what I generally allow for
this morning ritual. A cup of black
coffee descends into drinkable tempera-
tures after a single ice cube is plopped
in. Time is of the essence.
Over the summer I happened
upon another book by Mr. Towles: :A
Gentleman in Moscow.” On initial
consideration, a lovely story filled
with surprisingly poignant insight, but
almost saccharine in detail. Over time,
as it usually happens, the reader begins
to empathize with our nuanced hero
Count Rostov (a surname that is perhaps
a nod to one of my other favorite liter-
ary characters, Natasha Rostova of the
Tolstoy pantheon).
In it, the count, as part of the Bolshe-
vik purge, is sentenced to live out the
rest of his days confined to the filigreed
foyers of the Hotel Metropol in Moscow.
By force of circumstance, what
seems daunting at first glance morphs
into a life full of intention. Rather than
let himself become fortune’s fool, the
count realizes it is necessary then to
embrace the change. Or rather, embrace
the tedium.
Towles writes, “If a man does not
master his circumstances then he is
bound to be mastered by them.”
For a while, it was easy to focus this
column on external goings-on. Turning
inward, confined to my own headspace,
day in and day out, has proven to be
something more difficult to master. This
was an intentional pivot, however. One
has only so much bandwidth to divvy
up, after all. It is part and parcel of a
mother with young children who has
doggedly decided to craft every minute
detail of their homeschool journey.
Among life’s other circumstantial
tribulations. For example, I was recently
possessed by a demon who, out of all the
things a malignant spirit might influ-
ence, convinced me to join the board
of my Homeowner’s association. The
learning curve has been steep.
So as the count calls upon the
Boyarsky each evening, looking
forward to his bottle of vin, so too must
I call upon the quiet moment with my
cup of black coffee. A granular, inten-
tional moment afforded solely to me.
To this end, I often find myself feel-
ing stuck inside of my own private
Metropol.
How simple it is to let the frustrations
of the moment take precedence over all
else. It’s only when those small frus-
trations have laid a foundation, erected
walls, and brought in furnishings that
we realize we’ve become the architect
of our own anguish. Happily, however,
it is never too late to plot our escape: To
gather around us friends, confidants,
and comrades who might aid us in such
an endeavor. To let intentional gratitude
of simple pleasures accrue instead: A
son who declares he’s “making waffles
for dinner,” a cocktail with my sister at
a restaurant whose roof is inhabited by
goats, a phone call to my Grams.
In other words, when we cannot
change our circumstances, it then
behooves us to lend them moments
of gratitude. Big or small — it makes
little difference. It just takes courage to
initiate the Rube Goldberg machina-
tions which will eventually lead to this
epiphany. That we can leave our own
Metropol. The pulling of a lever that
topples a teacup thus starting a chain of
events that ultimately end in us finding
our very own “willowy woman.”
In other words, master or be
mastered.
———
Alex Hobbs is a former educator
turned full-time homeschooling mom.
She has a degree in political science from
Oregon State University.
a deeper wedge in our community. I
encourage Mr. Henry to review the advice
from Jesus found in Matthew 7:1: “Do not
judge, or you too will be judged.”
Mathew Miles
La Grande
As a former volunteer working code
enforcement, I can see not much has
changed. The city council has an insa-
tiable appetite for approving city ordi-
nances to address blight, but no appetite
to approve the resources for adequate
enforcement. As the Pendleton Police
Department chief explained, the code
enforcement officer has the duty and
responsibilities of three people. The
committee and the mayor can only advise,
lacking any real authority to order the use
of city resources to address the issue. That
authority rests with the city manager who
has chosen not to act, content to main-
tain the status quo. The blighted condi-
tions visible in the Edwards Apartments,
and the infamous residence on South-
west Eighth Street (briefly discussed at
the meeting) are prime examples of their
reluctance to act.
So, what ended my status as a code
enforcement volunteer? The full-time
enforcement officer at the time put it
pretty plain when I signed up for the job,
“You’ll find this one of the most frus-
trating jobs you’ll ever have because of
the lack of support from city hall,” and
that sums up my experience. It’s pretty
obvious things really haven’t changed. If
you’ve visited the city of Portland lately,
it’s readily apparent that when city offi-
cials fail to act, the situation just gets
worse — much worse.
Rick Rohde
Pendleton
YOUR VIEWS
Name calling drives a
deeper wedge
I am writing in response to a column
by Matt Henry titled “So tell me: What’s it
going to be?” (Oct. 7, 2021).
Mr. Henry speaks of the
“uber-self-centeredness” and “selfish-
ness of anti-vaxxers” and implies that they
have a death wish for others and want to
“sacrifice everyone else on earth” due
to “childish obstinacy.” Mr. Henry even
goes so far as to suggest that unvaccinated
people cannot be “bona fide Christians.”
A key fact that Mr. Henry ignores is
that vaccinated people can and do get
COvID-19 and spread it to others. I also
know a number of people who have made
a choice to not get the COvID-19 vaccine.
None of these people made that choice
because they are self-centered or selfish.
Quite the opposite. Some chose to not
get vaccinated because they do not feel
comfortable with the vaccine, others for
personal reasons. And many others due to
their own deeply held religious beliefs.
Calling people names because they
have a different view is not what is needed
during these challenging times. Even
Grande Ronde Hospital, La Grande, has
stated it respects “our employees’ right to
make the choice whether to vaccinate or
not.”
Let’s tone down the rhetoric, be kind
to each other and remember that divisive
name-calling encourages fear and drives
The more things change, the
more they stay the same
Pendleton’s city management has
become over reliant on volunteers in an
effort to supplement paid employees to
maintain city functions. This was readily
apparent during a Housing and Neighbor-
hood Improvement Committee meet-
ing Nov. 2, when the discussion turned
to blight elimination. Several previous
programs were mentioned, some success-
ful, some not.
The recurring theme was that even
though some programs were quite
successful they were basically one-time
events using city resources whereas other
efforts were long-term relying on volun-
teers. The issue there being long-term
volunteers are few and far between; they
burn out quickly, find new causes to
support, or just plain pass away. Lack of
sustainability becomes the major issue
and programs simply fade away. If you’d
have attended this committee’s meetings
in the past where blight elimination was
the major topic, you’d say the discussion
in this most recent meeting pretty much
mirrored those in the past.