OPINION
Wallowa County Chieftain
A4
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
A big step to make a dream come true
S
ometimes destiny comes call-
ing. That’s what seems to be
happening at the Wallowa
County Humane Society this week.
Suddenly, instead of moving to ade-
quate, but smaller, remodeled quar-
ters sequestered in an alley, they have
found themselves front and center at
the EM&M Building, and about to
embark on a serious business ven-
ture that will benefi t the human com-
munity as well as our furry friends:
a thrift shop to complement Sorop-
timist. One kindly Soroptimist thrift
shop volunteer said, “We are happy
for them, and we are really looking
forward to cooperating. But do they
know how much work this is?”
Even better than a thrift shop,
someday, a DOG WASH! No more
soapy battles in the bathtub, or dances
around the lawn with a hose. Soon
there will be a chance for Wallowa
County’s dogs to experience the joys
of a nice, civilized warm-water scrub-
bing, and many Wallowa County
homes to become (more or less) fur-
free(r) zones.
dogs, and their
of
the
Hooray!
people could go
This growth
for exercise and a
comes not as a
romp. There are
fl uke, and not as a random chance.
some drawings, some tentative sketch
Carol Vencill, Denise Clevenger,
maps. And lots of lists.
and the rest of the Wallowa County
The vision, inspired by Best Friends
Humane Society board and vol-
Animal Shelter in Kanab, Utah, is
unteers have been thinking, plan-
not entirely clear yet, but it is emerg-
ning, and cogi-
ing. Admittedly,
tating over the
the Best Friends
‘THE
REASON
A
LOT
OF
idea of a “sanc-
model may be
tuary” for years.
a bit expansive
PEOPLE DO NOT RECOGNIZE
With the help
for a start. The
OPPORTUNITY
IS
BECAUSE
of NEOEDD,
Kanab, Utah shel-
IT USUALLY GOES AROUND
they’ve started to
ter owns 3700
focus their col-
acres and leases
IN OVERALLS LOOKING
lective minds on
another 17,000
LIKE HARD WORK.’
what a “sanctu-
acres of federal
Thomas
Edison
ary” would be. A
and state land
place outside of
that is mostly red-
town, with a house or other structure
rock desert. About 30,000 people visit
that could serve as an offi ce and stor-
every year to meet (and adopt) some
age. Perhaps a barn that could house
of the 1600 animals, and tour the
kennels for stray and adoptable dogs,
facilities, which include DogTown,
and quarters for kitties. Perhaps a pas- CatWorld, HorseHaven, PiggyPara-
ture and shelter for rescued horses and dise, and BunnyHouse. It is more than
other livestock. And defi nitely room
a sanctuary. This vast no-kill shelter
for a very large fenced area where
on the brink of Grand Canyon country
VOICE
CHIEFTAIN
To my leftie friends…
T
o my “leftie” friends…
My politics have generally
moved left since I wore an “I Like
Ike” button in the run-up to the presiden-
tial election of 1952. We’d just moved
from Minnesota to Southern California,
and my family in both places and the mil-
itary families of many of my California
schoolmates liked Ike.
My mother, who voted Republican but
was more interested in her church, was my
fi rst political tutor. She was insistent on
“justice,” whether it was the fair treatment
of the missionized Africans that we learned
about in church or the sibling squabbles
in our house. She had some problems
with Catholics (did they really “worship”
Mary?), and Mormons (were they a lat-
ter-day cult?), but in California we actually
met and knew Catholics and Mormons,
and I think her strong belief that we are all
God’s children turned her. She held on to
her Lutheranism, but grew more generous
to people who looked and believed differ-
ently, eventually growing fond of a Turk-
ish Moslem I once roomed with.
I graduated high school in 1960 and
soon got John Kennedy’s message that
doing for the country was more import-
ant than the country doing for me. My best
high school friend went to Mississippi to
register voters in 1963. Later that year,
when Kennedy was assassinated, a cou-
ple of college friends quit school to join
the Peace Corps. In 1965, with civil rights
movements in full swing and Vietnam a
rising glimmer, I joined the Peace Corps,
and spent most of the next fi ve years in
Turkey.
***
One of the fi rst people I met when I
LETTERS to the EDITOR
MAIN
STREET
Rich Wandschneider
moved to Wallowa County in 1971 was
Gardner Locke, who had gone from the
WW II Marine Corps in the Pacifi c to the
Hanford nuclear plant, and then moved
to Joseph, where he ranched and taught.
Gardner and Tappy had us to dinner to
talk about the Peace Corps soon after we
arrived, and shortly after that, in a window
of time when the Peace Corps accepted
volunteer families, they were off to Ecua-
dor. Back in Joseph, Gardner was the
anchor as an unlikely group of skiing
friends put together the run at Fergi.
Gardner once told me that I had never
left the Peace Corps. I took it as the big-
gest compliment I’d ever had, and told him
that he’d been in the Peace Corps before it
was invented.
But as Gardner and I and many oth-
ers—Democrats and Republicans, Cath-
olics and agnostics—in this small place
built ski runs, reclaimed ties with Nez
Perce people with the Homeland Project,
formed a board and friends group to build
and equip a “doctor’s house” for OHSU
residents and, eventually, a new hospi-
tal, and grew a slew of non-profi ts—Wal-
lowa Resources, Building Healthy Fami-
lies, Safe Harbors, Fishtrap, Divide Camp,
the Josephy Center, etc.—and gave suc-
cor to community building Lions, Sorop-
timist, 4-H, granges, and Rotary, my lefty
cohorts in cities and suburbs borrowed an
alternative strategy from the right—radical
individualism.
It might have started with Ayn Rand’s
Fountainhead and Barry Goldwater’s call
for a robust individualistic economics,
Ronald Reagan’s “government is the prob-
lem,” and Milton Friedman’s free mar-
ket approach to everything, but it was cer-
tainly fueled by the “do your own thing”
of the 70s left. Soon a shared right-left
theory claimed that if we each followed
our bliss—lived our dreams on the left or
made as much money as we could on the
right—the world would be a better place.
Community got lost.
Hollywood made fun of it with “greed
is good,” but left and right both kept push-
ing it. The economic winners on the right
have used their power to appoint judges
and curtail voting rights of old black and
Native communities and the growing Lati-
nix population, and to make sure that
wealth continues to create more wealth
and is easily moved to the next generation.
Winners on the left have often focused on
environmental issues, laudable actions for
the general public, but especially dear to
sailors, skiers, and high-end eco-tourists.
Health care gets crushed in the left-right
squeeze, and an almost free public educa-
tion system is buried. Now winners on left
and right send their kids into the expensive
higher education system with high tuition
payments—and even bribes.
In Portland, my liberal friends have
decided that policies that would encour-
age denser neighborhoods and help solve
a housing crisis might hurt property val-
ues. Lefty and righty NIMBYs have found
their ways into environmentalism and
corrections!
Some natural ways to beat late summer heat
Will Ferguson
Washington State University
Cranking up the air con-
ditioner isn’t the only way to
deal with the stifl ing heat that
is blanketing much of North
America and Europe.
Washington State Univer-
sity architect Omar Al-Hassawi
is an expert at reducing indoor
temperatures without the use of
electricity.
His research blends ancient
architectural practices with
modern innovations to produce
surprising results.
Whether you lack an air
conditioner or are trying to cut
your utility bill, Al-Hassawi
can help. Here are a few of his
suggestions for beating the heat
this summer.
Ventilation strategies
In a climate like the Inland
Northwest where temperatures
drop by 30-35 degrees Fahr-
enheit at night, natural ventila-
tion is an effective alternative to
blasting the air conditioning.
Opening home windows
after sunset and leaving them
open until about 10 a.m. the
next morning will help fl ush out
the heat generated indoors the
day before, Al-Hassawi said.
Conversely, closing win-
dows during the hottest time
of the day, from around noon
till about an hour before sunset,
will minimize heat gain.
Proper shading techniques
Another useful strategy for
keeping home temperatures
cool is shading exterior win-
dows from the outside instead
of the inside with blinds, cur-
tains or even foliage.
“This acts like a hat for the
windows similar to how we
use hats to shade and protect
ourselves,” Al-Hassawi said.
“Exterior shading for windows
facing south and west is espe-
cially effective.”
Home occupants can also
wear very light clothing and
avoid
high
heat-generat-
ing activities such as intense
exercising and cooking meals
during the afternoon. A cold
shower or placing some cool
water in front of a low fl ow
fan are also good ways to cre-
ate evaporative cooling and
reduce indoor temperatures.
Al-Hassawi grew up in Iraq
where temperatures rarely dip
below 110 degrees Fahren-
heit in summertime. For hun-
dreds of years, people in the
region incorporated down-
draft and evaporative cooling
techniques into their architec-
tural designs that harnessed
the power of wind and water
to keep inside temperatures
bearable.
“The tests I’ve done show
that incorporating this type
of cooling system into mod-
ern homes, particularly in a
place like the Pacifi c North-
west, could bring tempera-
tures down by as much as 30
degrees,” Al-Hassawi said.
“So, if it is 100 F outside you
can get 70 F inside.”
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
Offi ce: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore.
Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921
Contents copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.
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is a substantial tourist attraction.
When the Humane Society moved
from their old digs to the new one,
a lot of volunteers, including lots of
men and pickups, appeared to help
transport furnishings from Second
Best, and materials from the existing
WCHS building on River Street. The
new place provides greater potential
for earning funds, and a higher profi le.
The fact that this opportunity, a step-
ping stone to a some-day sanctuary,
suddenly manifested itself shows that
dreams can come true, even if they do
so slowly.
“The reason a lot of people do not
recognize opportunity is because it
usually goes around in overalls look-
ing like hard work” (Thomas Edison).
Well, when they were moving stuff
from Second Best and the old offi ces,
it sure looked like most every WCHS
volunteer was wearing overalls. We
look forward to the new HQ, the thrift
store, and clean(er) dogs. And some-
day, that sanctuary. “Dreams come
true; without that possibility, nature
would not incite us to have them,”
John Updike.
CJD rodeo was perfect!
This letter is in response to Mr. O”Ban-
ion’s letter from suburban Portland (Gales
Creek). Mr. O’Banion had a long list of
complaints about the CJD rodeo. I thought
the rodeo was wonderful. I hope the orga-
nizers and many volunteers do not change
a thing. The patriotism and incredible skill
of the boys/girls men/women participants
made the Saturday night show just per-
fect. As I sat in the stands watching it all
unfold I felt so grateful to live in our great
nation and our great county. I thought to
myself that there was not anywhere else in
the world I’d rather be at that moment than
at the CJD rodeo on a Saturday night in
Joseph. Wow! What a blessing to be able to
openly honor God, our nation, our fl ag, our
veterans and the native Americans who live
in this blessed place before any of us cur-
rently living. Don’t change a thing at the
rodeo!!! God, country, and horses in the
shadow of the mountains on a gorgeous
summer night!!
Mike Harvey
Joseph
Thanks, Paul and Charlie!!
I want to thank Paul and Charlie for tak-
ing such great care of our downtown hang-
ing fl ower baskets. They look AMAZING!
Your dedication and hard work has helped
beautify our town and make it look like it’s
still alive and well. You two young men are
very much appreciated !
Debbie Kellerman
Enterprise merchant
We need men and women of
integrity
We once were proud that our country stood
for righteousness, justice, liberty and freedom;
however, now pride has faded. Greed, irre-
sponsibility, and violence have taken the place
of the honorable qualities we celebrated about
our country. Pride should cause us to force our
country to stop taking children from their par-
ents and putting them in cages. Pride in our
country ought to steer us away from a level
of discourse that demeans people, rather than
just accept that “times are different now”. True
pride in our country would mean that we stop
allowing mass murderers to kill dozens of peo-
ple at one time, and we would stop providing
the means for so many individuals to be mur-
dered. Proud citizens would surely not vote
for government leaders of questionable rep-
utations and of immoral character. Proud cit-
izens would not allow Russians to infl uence
our elections; and once it occurred, they would
ensure that it never happened again.
If the United States of America is to sur-
vive, we must have courageous men and
women of integrity who will “walk the walk”
and “talk the talk” with truth and honesty. We
need such faithful people in our communities,
our government, our media, and the voting
booths. They will make us proud.
Evelyn Swart
Joseph, Oregon
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Wallowa County Chieftain
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