A4
Opinion
wallowa.com
January 4, 2017
Wallowa County Chieftain
Promise
of another
new year
A
s we limped to the end of 2016, the promise
of a new year arrived.
The holiday is always a mix of nostalgia
and optimism, as we look back on another year
of getting older and look ahead to a fresh new
beginning. Hanging a new calendar offers us the
pleasing opportunity to start again with a blank
slate.
2016 will not go
down as the best
of slates. It was
marred by the most
Voice of the Chieftain
exhausting and debased
presidential election in recent memory. It included
the denouement of Syria’s civil war — which
showed us that inconceivable suffering can and
does exist in the 21st century. That war and others
in the Middle East contributed to a refugee crisis
that spread across much of the world, testing
governments, international charities and our own
hearts. The year was also scarred by an almost
continuous parade of dying cultural figures,
from David Bowie to Carrie Fisher. Each one
seemed slam the national bummer button harder
than the last. And the U.S. government was a
mess throughout — the Supreme Court spent a
whole session with an even number of judges and
Congress could barely be persuaded to pay the
nation’s bills.
Many of us were excited to see 2016 take its
place in the rear view mirror.
But this New Year’s Day was different than
many in recent years. For some, their optimism
is mixed with plenty of anxiety. A new U.S.
president is among the top causes of worldwide
heartburn, because he has shown himself to be
a man not prone to respecting political or social
mores. Perhaps there is a benefit to a new kind
of politician, but there are real concerns about
the continuity of the world order that have not
been present since the Cold War. The first year
of a Donald Trump presidency is bound to bring
significant change, and change is scary. Lord
knows it was for those who had to get used to
Barack Obama.
Good things can happen in 2017. Growth and
stability, promotions and awards and marriages
and births. Yet sadly we know will see another war
somewhere in the world, another genocide and
another terrorist attack. There will be blood. There
will be layoffs and divorces and deaths.
So much will be out of your hands in the next
year, but much will be in them. Nothing changed
on January 1 unless you did. So let’s make this a
year of personal responsibility, of personal charity
and kindness. Let’s do our best. Let’s hold our
leaders responsible for their actions, and to the
same code of decency we teach at home. Let’s
make a resolution to be better than we were.
2017 has arrived. And perhaps the most painful
and most comforting thought is that in the blink of
an eye it will be over, and we’ll be right back here
talking about the coming of another new year.
EDITORIAL
— TT
Attack of the cluster flies
Happy New Year, Wallowa County.
Should be an interesting one. Now let’s
talk about household pests. Cluster flies
are not an affliction I’ve been saddled
with at my own home, but I know peo-
ple. These folks have dark rings under
their eyes. Owners of cluster fly colo-
nies speak in whispers. Their eyes dart
around. You don’t understand, they whis-
per. The cluster flies. These people never
just say flies or house flies, it’s always
CLuster FLies. With a lot of emphasis on
the first syllables. Sometimes spitting out
the CLuster part.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of get-
ting acquainted with cluster flies, these
creatures are notable for riding out the
cold months by huddling next to Tyvek,
sheetrock, insulation or inside any crack
or crevice in houses, barns or structures
where they manage to survive by draw-
ing heat from the rage emitted by owners
they have driven crazy. Cluster flies ad-
here to the safety-in-numbers approach.
Great numbers. My first brush with clus-
ter flies was working on a house remodel
where part of the morning routine was
AND
FURTHERMORE
Jon Rombach
vacuuming, sweeping or shoveling what
seemed like whole cubic yards of fly
carcasses from the window ledges and
floors. The next morning it would be the
same. We pulled siding from a wall and
unearthed The Lost City of Cluster Flies.
It really is startling.
This little nature lesson on cluster flies
is just to set the scene for a recent Christ-
mas party where I ended up next to a
crackling woodstove talking with Chuck
Fraser, the blacksmith. I’d buy tickets to
hear Fraser discuss relative drying times
for various paints. He’s just that good
of a storyteller. So when Fraser started
in with, “I’ll tell you, these cluster flies
…” I got comfortable, put my chin in my
hand and settled in.
Before we get to Fraser’s cluster flies,
I want to throw in a quick note about heat
tape on plumbing. It sometimes quits on
you. I can report this with absolute au-
thority. Yeah, my heat tape went to a bet-
ter place, peacefully and in its sleep, right
when it was super-duper cold during one
of those eleven-below-zero nights. The
pipes froze in the kitchen, but, hey, no
big deal, that’s why they invented hair
dryers. The very next morning one of
the steel hinges on my woodstove door
broke. Very poor timing. Again, no big
deal as long as you have a nice neighbor
with a welder. Thanks again, Gene. Fro-
zen pipes, busted woodstove … I’m not
saying winter was beating me, but it did
have me on the ropes just a tiny bit.
We now rejoin Fraser and his cluster
flies. Chuck said he knew at least one
good thing about real cold winters like
this. When conditions are just right, with
temps well below freezing and lots of
sunlight outside, he cranks up the forge
in his blacksmith shop until it gets a ba-
zillion degrees inside. This sets the stage
for what he calls Fraser’s Revenge.
See ROMBACH, Page A5
County’s winter a reason to read
During the blazing summer of 2013, I
worked as a trail guide for the Tram, tak-
ing visitors around the top of Mt. Howard
and telling stories about Wallowa County.
One group of women from San Francisco,
about my age, huffed and puffed along.
At one break, one woman asked me,
“Where does everyone go in the winter?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where does everyone go when they
evacuate because of the snow?”
A picture of what this would look like
flashed through my mind, and it was all I
could do to keep a straight face.
“Well, we don’t leave. We put on more
clothes, make sure we have good tires,
and we’re good to go.”
The five women stared at me in dis-
belief.
One exclaimed, “I could never do
that.”
I thought to myself, “You’re probably
right.” But I said, “It’s doable.”
With two feet of snow outside my win-
dow, I buck up by repeating “This place is
WALLOWA
GAL
Katherine Stickroth
not for sissies, that’s for sure.”
Yet winter in Wallowa County is more
than dealing with snow. We build extra
time for shopping at Safeway, because
we’re sure to run into someone we know
which leads into an hour long conversa-
tion. Amid bananas and potatoes, with
people walking around us, we catch up on
any kind of news, grateful to see a differ-
ent face, to hear a different voice.
And activities continue to draw people
out of their snow burrows, such as Fish-
trap’s The Big Read event. This year’s
book selection, “The Things They Car-
ried” by Tim O’Brien is a work of fiction
about Vietnam. Snowbound, I’m reading
it now and quite frankly, I find there’s a
lot of truth in his words. I’ve heard sim-
ilar stories from my husband Richard
and other Vietnam vets I’ve met over the
years.
As a member of The Big Read com-
mittee, I appreciate the sensitivity I’ve
seen by other members and find it re-
markable that decades beyond the Viet-
nam conflict, the topic continues to raise
emotional responses. What I enjoy about
The Big Read is that with so many locals
reading the same book, conversations are
generated that might not take place oth-
erwise.
“Where were you during Vietnam?”
Some people were in combat there.
Some were parents anxiously awaiting
word from their sons. Some were wives,
wondering if their husbands would make
it home. Some were children, confused
because their father didn’t act the same as
before he left. Some were hippies rebel-
ling against The Establishment.
See WINTER, Page A5
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Contents copyright © 2016. All rights reserved. Reproduction
without permission is prohibited.
Volume 134
Voters must heed wake-up call
The good news in Oregon for those of
us who have grown weary of one-party
control is that Republican Dennis Rich-
ardson will be our new Secretary of State
for the next four years. The voters of
Oregon also saw through the agenda of
the public unions and defeated Measure
97. This measure would have made the
people of Oregon $6 billion poorer, add-
ed another 18,000 public union jobs and
chased away 38,000 jobs from the private
workforce (per an analysis done by the
nonpartisan Legislative Revenue Office.)
More good news at the state level is
that Republicans picked up a Senate seat
so there is no longer a Democrat super-
majority in the Senate. The disappointing
news is that the House Republicans did
not add any members to their caucus and
are still only one seat away from a su-
GUEST
OPINION
Greg Barreto
per-minority just as we were in 2015-16.
Examples abound in poor policy that
has been passed in the last two legisla-
tive sessions and then topped off by the
elitist public union’s introduction of
Measure 97. The fallout that has ensued
leaves Oregon’s majority party unable
to pay for the spending and poor invest-
ments they have created over the last 30
years. And they now blame their lack of
management on the business community.
A shortfall in revenue when revenue has
increased by $3.1 billion since 2014 is
hard to imagine. How about mismanaged
government, shortsightedness, fiscal ir-
responsibility and payback to the public
unions that contribute heavily to their
campaigns?
Well, what’s coming for 2017? A com-
mon-sense approach might be to look at
serious reductions in spending and living
within our means, but instead we are see-
ing is more tax proposals coming from
the left. More proposed regulations and
mandates for businesses including pre-
dictive scheduling and requiring compa-
nies’ financial records to be made public.
Do you think that will bring good job
creators to our doorstep? Me neither.
In real life, we wish a lot for things.
See BARRETO, Page A5
Reader thankful Trump elected
Well, the election is over and the poor,
pathetic, left wing major media and their
favorite party and candidate, Hillary Clin-
ton, went down to well deserved defeat.
It should have been obvious to anyone
paying even the least attention that the
Clinton’s have left a trail of corruption in
their wake. Also, during the campaign and
before, Hillary seemed to have a real diffi-
cult time with something called the truth.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
The average Democrat voter, of course
— as is also true with Republicans — tend
to vote for and trust in their party, often
because their parents, grandparents, all
the way back to the dark ages did so. Not
a good thing. Sadly if the only news me-
dia they were tuned in to were spewing
out left wing propaganda they would tend
to believe and go by what they were hear-
ing rather than take time to research their
candidate. Personally, I am thankful that
Donald Trump, a non-politician, won and
is picking an outstanding cabinet and tak-
ing aim at “draining the swamp.”
Stormy Burns
Joseph