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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 2018)
A4 Opinion wallowa.com September 5, 2018 Wallowa County Chieftain When you get excited by elk poop Fall means AND school days I FURTHERMORE begin and sports follow T his week, all of the children of school age have returned to classes. Another year has begun with plenty of challenges and opportunities ahead. I spent about a half-hour last Monday in Alyse Shetler’s kindergarten classroom at Joseph Charter, cap- turing our traditional “back to school” image. I left exhausted. Can you imagine how Mrs. Shetler was feel- ing at the end of a full day with these live wires? Someone remarked how all of the children in the photo were sit- ting quietly and facing for- ward. Truth is, I cropped out the ones that Paul Wahl weren’t. It’s a joke. The other aspect of classroom life that strikes an outsider quickly is the noise level. I was glad to get back to my relatively quiet office. We all owe a debt of gratitude to those who serve as classroom instructors. We salute all of you. WAHL TO WALL THE START OF THE SCHOOL YEAR also means the start of the fall sports season. Wallowa County’s schools participate in volleyball and football and are on a combined team for cross country. Beginning my freshman year, I attended my high school’s sporting events with a camera strapped around my neck. I was the photographer for our high school yearbook. Later I did double duty, shooting for my hometown weekly newspaper and the yearbook. While staff writer Steve Tool does the bulk of the heavy lifting for sports, I help out with stories and photos wherever possible. There are a lot of sports all happening at once each fall. We do our best to get as many results, stories and photos as possible into the newspaper. A great deal of our success ratio rests with the coaches and assistant coaches who are willing to provide us with stats and quotes. We couldn’t do it without them. Some coaches, it seems, are just more naturally inclined toward being willing to help out with coverage of their teams. Others decidedly are not. Some of our coaches even use online portals to post game information. They are our heroes. They should get a raise. If you notice a difference in the coverage level from team to team and school to school, “there’s the rub.” to quote Hamlet. Did you know that’s a sports term? The rub is a reference to the English game of bowls, where a rub is a flaw in the playing surface that interferes with the ball’s trajectory. In today’s idiomatic sense, a rub is a difficulty or impediment. So if your favorite team isn’t getting the amount of press you think it deserves, think about assisting your coach by offering to be a liaison person with the Chief- tain. We’re not particular about who provides the infor- mation, as long as it’s timely and accurate. If you’re an advanced amateur photographer and have high resolution images you would like to contribute, that would be terrific. Look for a complete schedule for all of our high school fall sports teams in next week’s edition. Then get out there and cheer on your team. started laying plans for this year’s opening day of archery season on closing day of last year’s archery season. Had a shade over 11 months to obsess about it more than was really proper and still managed to forget a few things. Left my release at home, for one. That’s the device that lets the arrow go. Kind of important. But I did have my backup release, so didn’t need to turn the truck around. Which was handy because I had pre- cious little time. My trip to the woods for the opener was mainly ceremonial, just to get out there. I worked that day and had to work early the next, so I had three skinny hours of daylight to get to the forest, hustle down a trail to a waterhole I knew of and –– if all went stunningly well –– get into some elk. And I’ll be darned if that isn’t just exactly how it worked out. Saw ultra- fresh tracks and very squishy elk doo- doo as I got close to the water. It’s an odd thing to register that hunting has made you get legitimately excited about finding warm feces. Dis- covering fresh poop usually goes in a different direction. Got to the water. Checked the wind. Picked the best spot to post up. Cleared away twigs so I would be silent as a ninja if I had occasion to zip off an arrow. Then I waited. For like, maybe, five minutes. Eight tops. It wasn’t a lot of minutes. Then I heard a breaking Jon Rombach branch. And another. Footsteps. Normally how I would handle this scenario is to be extremely patient and end up not getting a shot at the elk due to an excess of caution. In this case, I didn’t have time so I decided to employ my other hunting tactic of pushing too hard and blowing it that way. Not ideal, but tends to be quicker and the shot clock was ticking. So I tooted out a few subtle cow elk sounds from my new call. One of my equipment upgrades from the off-season re-tooling efforts. This call simulates female elk vocal- izations and goes by the name of “The Trophy Wife.” I admit that a large part of my purchase was triggered by such a spectacular name. But also it got good reviews for being convincing and genuine-sounding. Couple mews out of the ol’ The Tro- phy Wife and, sure enough, here they come. Four elk just traipsing through the timber right for me. Nonchalant. Flick- ing their ears. Not a care in the world. They look around for whoever was just talking. Don’t see anybody but aren’t concerned. Settle down and start drinking water and eating delicious shrubbery. I spent 20 minutes watching these elk slurp water and graze. They were thirty yards off, but none had antlers growing out of their heads and didn’t grow any during those 20 minutes I was in range. I kept checking. though. Just in case. So no shot. But it was cool. Really cool. To get off work, run out to the woods and right away hear exactly what you’re hoping to hear coming your way. Elk really are impressive. I didn’t plan on getting a shot at an elk with such a little blip of time to work with. I was just set on getting out there. Just like strapping on your rock skis to take a run during Fergifest when the conditions aren’t optimal. Or snowy. It’s still fun and something you’ve gotta do just because. Driving home, looking at the moun- tains and other notable features I see no good reason to describe here, I had one of those warm washes come over me where you take a gander at where you’re at and realize what a good thing it is to be in Wallowa County. Where else can you take a brief jaunt after work and be amongst elk lick- ety-split like that? Actually, lots of places. So many other places. All you bowhunters should probably go to those other places. Seriously. (Jedi wave of the hand). These are not the elk you’re looking for. Jon Rombach lives in Wallowa County, has elk at the top of his food pyr- amid and is a columnist for the Chieftain. Why am I sick during the summer? Here’s one reason I t is summer time and this doesn’t usually equate to runny noses, coughs, sore throats and ear pain. This year in Wallowa County, however, we have seen a fair amount of summer “colds.” This has caused patients to ask: How or why do we get sick in the summer? Ultimately, an individual can contract a “cold” or the “flu” during any time of the year. This article will explain how our body defends itself and how easily one can become sick. There are three main pathogens (small organisms that can make us sick) in the world: bacteria, viruses and fungi. They are abundant; they live on us and in us. Some of these help our bodies to function cor- rectly. Contact with these organisms is daily. Most pathogens need to enter the body to infect. The body’s first mechanism of defense is the skin. Any time a person is cut or any opening in the skin is observed, they stand a chance of a pathogen entering the body and potentially causing an infection. MOUNTAIN MEDICINE Besides cuts, pathogens can enter our bodies through our nose, mouth and eyes. Once a pathogen has arrived at a desirable location, it begins to multiply. As its num- ber increases, our body notices the small changes that pathogen makes and sends antibodies to fight the infection. Most infections are fought off without us recognizing it. On other occasions, the pathogen multi- plies too quickly or our bodies are unfamiliar with it and more time is needed to figure out how to fight the infection. This is when we expe- rience the following symptoms: cough, congestion, runny nose, sore throat and feeling tired. For some (infants, elderly, the immunocompromised), the size of pathogen colony can be much smaller to cause an infection. Extra care should be taken to assure they are not overly exposed to pathogens. Dr. Allen ‘A PERSON CAN BECOME SICK FROM PATHOGENS BEING PASSED FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER DURING ANY WEATHER PATTERN AND IN ANY SETTING. HOWEVER, WITH A SIMPLE STRATEGY, INDIVIDUALS CAN ALSO PREVENT MANY INFECTIONS BY CHANGING DAILY BEHAVIOR.’ Infants, for example, have under-developed immune systems that will struggle to fight patho- gens that adults could more eas- ily expel. It is recommended that these individuals be up to date on all vaccinations. These vaccinations “prime” the immune system to respond faster and more effectively. It is wise to use judgment in the areas these indi- viduals will be exposed and with whom they will come into contact. It is speculated that winter months show higher infection rates due to the closer proximity of peo- ple and not due to the change in weather. If someone is sick and sneezes outside, away from oth- ers, chances of that sneeze infecting another person are low. If that sneeze happens in a class- room with 30 students, however, chances are much higher that it will spread to others. Other ways infec- tions could be spread are through touch (desks or doorknobs in that classroom) and the occasional child who returns home from school and sneezes directly into your face –– we’ve all been there. Truly, the question should be: How do I prevent myself from becoming sick? Common and effec- Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884 M eMber O regOn n ewspaper p ublishers a ssOciatiOn Published every Wednesday by: EO Media Group VOLUME 134 USPS No. 665-100 P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828 Office: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore. Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921 Contents copyright © 2018. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Publisher Editor Reporter Reporter Newsroom assistant Ad sales consultant Office manager Chris Rush, crush@eomediagroup.com Paul Wahl, editor@wallowa.com Stephen Tool, steve@wallowa.com Kathleen Ellyn, kellyn@wallowa.com editor@wallowa.com Jennifer Powell, jpowell@wallowa.com Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com tive strategies include washing your hands frequently, not touch- ing your face, regularly clean- ing areas that are considered “fre- quently touched,” not sharing drinks or utensils with others, getting ade- quate sleep, removing stress (men- tal, physical, and emotional), not using tobacco, eating better, moder- ate amounts of exercise and others. Also trying to avoid expos- ing others when sick by staying home from work or keeping kids home from school helps prevent the spread of illnesses. In conclusion, a person can become sick from pathogens being passed from one person to another during any weather pattern and in any setting. However, with a simple strategy, individuals can also pre- vent many infections by changing daily behavior and via vaccinations. These things will improve immune system and overall health. Kelsey Allen, D.O., is a fam- ily medicine physician at Mountain View Medical Clinic in Enterprise. Mountain Medicine is a collabora- tion between Ron Polk and Allen. Periodical Postage Paid at Enterprise and additional mailing offices Subscription rates (includes online access) Wallowa County Out-of-County 1 Year $40.00 $57.00 Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery See the Wallowa County Chieftain on the Internet Wallowa.com facebook.com/Wallowa twitter.com/wcchieftain POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wallowa County Chieftain P.O. Box 338 Enterprise, OR 97828
