A10
East Oregonian
PEANUTS
COFFEE BREAK
Thursday, April 7, 2022
DEAR ABBY
BY CHARLES M. SCHULZ
Gay man wants to make
few straight male friends
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE
B.C.
PICKLES
BEETLE BAILEY
BY LYNN JOHNSTON
BY MASTROIANNI AND HART
BY BRIAN CRANE
perienced the constant fear of
Dear Abby: I am a 47-year-
disease, job loss and the pres-
old gay man. I’m well-educated,
sure to react to those stresses in
but there’s something I can’t fig-
prescribed ways that aren’t al-
ure out. Why do straight guys
ways easy.
NOT want to be friends? I nev-
I have a group of friends who
er hit on them, I enjoy a lot of
have not managed to do well
the same pastimes like games,
through it all. Previous issues
working on cars, etc. I want to
J EANNE
multiplied, and their lives have
be transparent, but when I tell
P HILLIPS
become pitiable messes. Early
them upfront, they disappear.
ADVICE
on in the pandemic, we attempt-
Sometimes it gets back to me
ed to keep moods up with week-
that they thought I was asking
ly Zoom hangouts. It helped a
them on a date if I invited some-
one to go to a ballgame, for example. I little, but because my mental status has
have plenty of female friends, but what I always been a little better than theirs.
As the world has begun to open up,
really want is a male best friend or, hell,
we have been able to see each other in
just a male friend, period.
Of course, everyone has their own person, and it has become obvious to me
opinions on what I should do — “join that I need to distance myself from them
a meeting, a group, social activities and to protect what I have worked so hard to
blah blah.” I have done all of those things, maintain. Do I owe them an explanation
about why I cannot be with them? I wor-
and I can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Any suggestions would be welcomed. ry that pointing out that things are not
good would drag them down further.
— Curious In Oklahoma
These are people I have known for
Dear Curious: The problem you’re
having with straight men may be that decades, but I don’t have the energy to
they are nervous about being perceived act as emotional support for them any-
as “gay by association” if they are friend- more. I’d like to leave them in the best
ly with you. Some may also find the con- shape I can. What should I say to them?
cept of being friends with a gay man to — Caring Friend In The East
Dear Caring Friend: Be less available
be threatening.
Taking part in group activities and when you are contacted. When you do,
outings is certainly a way to connect with your excuse should be truthful. Say you
others regardless of sexual orientation. need time to yourself to work on your
Eventually, you’ll meet people and form own mental health issues and therefore
will be less available. You do not have
friendships.
Dear Abby: This has been a rough to apologize for it, nor should you feel
pandemic for all of us. We have all ex- guilty for taking care of yourself.
BY MORT WALKER
DAYS GONE BY
100 years ago — 1922
GARFIELD
BY JIM DAVIS
The disbursement of fifteen million dollars,
most of which will be paid out in Oregon and
Washington during 1922, is one of the encour-
aging signs of returning prosperity. The Union
Pacific System is to add largely to its equip-
ment, to relay portions of its track with rails
of greater weight, to ballast anew its roadbed,
to replace wooden bridges with structures of
steel, and construct a steel bridge across the
Columbia River between Walla Walla and
Kennewick, this one project to cost $1,500,000.
An order for 4,500 new freight cars, to cost
$10,000,000, and for 2,500 refrigerator cars at
a cost of $8,750,000 was made public several
weeks ago.
50 years — 1972
BLONDIE
BY DEAN YOUNG AND JOHN MARSHALL
The Pendleton City Council decided Tues-
day to appeal the city’s airport tax case to the
Oregon Supreme Court. The Oregon Court of
Appeals on March 23 affirmed a ruling of the
Umatilla County Circuit Court that the city
must pay property taxes on airport property
leased to private individuals or businesses.
The city had claimed the property was exempt
because all the income went back into the oper-
ation of the airport. As of Jan. 1, the city owes
Umatilla County more than $87,000 in back
taxes, penalties and interest on the property.
25 years ago — 1997
Thanks to a boost from a few humans, a
great horned owl was reunited Wednesday
with his three siblings in a cozy nest about 45
feet above the ground. The young bird was a
victim of Sunday’s brief but ferocious wind
storm that whipped through the region. The
youngster was apparently blown from the nest
high in a tree next to the home of Paul Dani-
ello, who lives two miles past Holdman on
Highway 37. Daniello spotted “a little fluffy
thing” lying in his yard. It turned out to be a
great horned owl with an injured eye. He called
Lynn Tompkins, director of the Blue Mountain
Raptor Rehabilitators in Pilot Rock. The owl’s
scratched eye was treated by Pendleton veter-
inarian Dave Bowman. After a couple of days
of rehabilitation, Tompkins, in coordination
with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife,
decided the owl was ready to return to the nest.
That tricky maneuver was made possible by
the Umatilla Electric Cooperative, which sent
journeyman lineman John Carter and a large
bucket truck to Daniello’s home. The young
owl, snug in a kitten travel box, was placed in
the bucket and returned to its nest 45 feet up.
TODAY IN HISTORY
DILBERT
THE WIZARD OF ID
LUANN
ZITS
BY SCOTT ADAMS
BY PARKER AND HART
BY GREG EVANS
BY JERRY SCOTT AND JIM BORGMAN
On April 7, 1984, the
Census Bureau reported
Los Angeles had overtak-
en Chicago as the nation’s
“second city” in terms of
population.
In 1862, Union forces
led by Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant and Maj. Gen. Don
Carlos Buell defeated the
Confederates at the Battle
of Shiloh in Tennessee.
In 1922, the Teapot
Dome scandal had its be-
ginnings as Interior Secre-
tary Albert B. Fall signed
a secret deal to lease U.S.
Navy petroleum reserves
in Wyoming and Califor-
nia to his friends, oilmen
Harry F. Sinclair and Ed-
ward L. Doheny, in ex-
change for cash gifts.
In 1945, during World
War II, American planes
intercepted and effectively
destroyed a Japanese fleet,
which included the battle-
ship Yamato, that was
headed to Okinawa on a
suicide mission.
In 1954, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
held a news conference in
which he spoke of the im-
portance of containing the
spread of communism in
Indochina, saying, “You
have a row of dominoes
set up, you knock over
the first one, and what will
happen to the last one is
the certainty that it will go
over very quickly.”
In 1957, shortly after
midnight, the last of New
York’s electric trolleys
completed its final run
from Queens to Manhat-
tan.
In 1959, a referendum
in Oklahoma repealed the
state’s ban on alcoholic
beverages.
In 1962, nearly 1,200
Cuban exiles tried by Cuba
for their roles in the failed
Bay of Pigs invasion were
convicted of treason.
In 1966, the U.S. Navy
recovered a hydrogen
bomb that the U.S. Air
Force had lost in the Med-
iterranean Sea off Spain
following a B-52 crash.
In 1994, civil war erupt-
ed in Rwanda, a day after
a plane crash claimed the
lives of the presidents of
Rwanda and Burundi; in
the months that followed,
hundreds of thousands of
minority Tutsi and Hutu
moderates were slaugh-
tered by Hutu extremists.
PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN
BY DANA SIMPSON
BIG NATE
BY LINCOLN PEIRCE