4 A
❘
WEDNESDAY EDITION
❘ AUGUST 19, 2015
Siuslaw News
P.O. Box 10
Florence, OR 97439
RYAN CRONK , EDITOR
❘ 541-902-3520 ❘
EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
Opinion
1 2 5 T H A N N I V E R S A R Y F L A S H B A C K
1890 ❙
T
T HE W EST
F LORENCE T IMES
T HE S IUSLAW O AR
T HE S IUSLAW N EWS
S IUSLAW N EWS
❙ 2015
his year marks Siuslaw News’ quasquicentennial, our 125th anniversary, a remarkable achievement for any business in a small
community like Florence. To commemorate this milestone, throughout the year we’ll feature some of the town’s history as origi-
nally published in the newspaper, including historic articles and photos from more than a century ago. —Editor
Glenada gleaning
O RIGINALLY P UBLISHED A UG . 13, 1897
T HE W EST , V OL . 8, N O . 16
Wild blackberries are about gone but
tame ones are getting ripe.
Alaska fever is raging here but no fatali-
ties are reported.
George Colles paid his family a short
visit the first of last week.
Wm. Bailey is spending a few days visit-
ing friends on Maple Creek.
There are no less than eight berries
growing here in abundance.
Cool and pleasant weather. Surely no
person could find fault with this part of
Lane County in regard to the weather.
L.G. Johnson writes to his family that he
has work at Clifford, Ore., at $2.50 per
day. He reports snow nearly every day at
that place.
A good looking young bachelor who, by
the way, has a nice ranch on Fiddle Creek,
says he will accept any young girl who will
come and propose to him.
Mrs. J.L. Furnish, becoming dissatisfied
with the local bank, deposited a small
amount of money in the (Siuslaw River)
bank. She recovered most of it at low tide.
Mrs. Einer, who has been visiting her old
friend Mrs. W.H. Pepper, likes the country
so well, she thinks of returning next sum-
mer and will probably invest in Glenada
property.
Luther King of Fiddle Creek, a former
resident of Glenada, has been staying sev-
eral weeks with George Craven in order to
near medical aid. His is a most peculiar as
well as interesting case.
Twenty-four years ago this August, he
was bitten by a large rattlesnake in
California. Every year since, at about the
same time, his leg breaks out in brown
spots that become running sores. He has
no appetite for food.
King says it strikes him every year on
the same day he was bitten — he can feel it
just the same as on that day.
He says he feels cross and wants to bite,
and has to work hard to control himself
and keep from biting.
The case puzzles the best doctors in
Oregon.
NEIGHBORS
The Old Whoopie — Part III
B OB J ACKSON
N EIGHBORHOOD C ORRESPONDENT
For the Siuslaw News
T
he Old Whoopie was only a
rusty four-cylinder 1925
Chevy roadster with no top
and a homemade wood pickup box,
but it was the most exciting thing that
had ever happened to me up to that
point in my young life. The memory
of the eye-smarting aroma of raw
gasoline dripping from her carburetor
during that long ago experience
remains as vivid today as if it had
happened only yesterday.
Because of the volatile power
inherent in those fumes, my hum-
drum, backwoods life would soon be
transformed into a world of speed and
“probably senseless” daring from
which I would never recover.
With very little power and a grab-
by clutch, my first trial runs with this
reincarnated, left-for-dead automo-
bile were far from impressive. But I
was not sitting in a rusty old car — I
was on top of the world!
I had no money to buy gas for the
tank (which was full of rust anyway),
so I carried a gallon of gas on the
floorboards to pour into the vacuum
tank hanging on the firewall above
the engine. Not having a driver’s
license, I couldn’t go far anyway. But
I was always available to haul fire-
wood or anything else, and my only
charge was gas for the Old Whoopie.
I just had to find more reasons to
drive the Whoopie, so I came up with
a grand scheme. After several days of
cutting through the tangle of second
growth timber, salal and salmonberry
brush, which was taller than my head,
and leveling with grub hoe, shovel
and rake, I had made a road.
Starting at the front of our house, it
meandered between the tall fir and
spruce stumps on the hillside above,
ending at our two-holer outhouse toi-
let, which for obvious reasons was a
long way from our back door.
Now, at the slightest hint of a biolog-
ical urge, I would go out the front door,
crank up the Old Whoopie and enthusi-
astically maneuver my obstacle course,
always trying to best my previous time.
Usually I would back all the way, there-
by sharpening my driving skills. My
Dad, by this time of course, had reluc-
tantly given up on any slim hope he had
ever held for my sanity.
I was understandingly proud of my
only possession, and washed it every
day, rust and all. This puzzled Uncle
Dewey, who had never washed a car
in his entire life. “Bobs,” he would
always laugh and say, “it ain’t gonna
help the running any!” It wasn’t long
before the open-air exposure took its
toll on the dove-tailed wooden steer-
ing wheel — it simply came apart and
fell off, leaving only the metal spokes
to steer with.
One day while delivering fire-
wood, I missed a spoke and grabbed
the throttle, thus punching a hole in a
neighbor’s house.
The wood-spoke wheels were get-
ting loose, so I would back her into
the lake to soak and swell the wood.
More to come...
LETTERS
Kudos to City Lights
In response
The one-year anniversary party for City
Lights Cinemas, hosted so graciously and gen-
erously by the owners Michael Falter and Susan
Tive and staff, was an overwhelming success. It
felt like the entire population (plus 100) of this
wonderful town was in attendance.
Since Michael and Susan opened City Lights
and filled a huge void in our choices for enter-
tainment, they have become very engaged in
many community activities — all to benefit var-
ious organizations and help where there was
need.
The showings of the digitally restored film
“Casablanca,” preceded by complimentary
wine and appetizers, with Dave Craddock tick-
ling the ivories and followed with offerings of
popcorn and the pie’ce de re’sistance — the
“candy” girl in the aisles offering your choice of
sweets — all went to make up a special evening.
Michael and Susan have brought so much to
Florence with their wide range of entertainment
choices that have only enhanced our already
numerous outlets for live theater, musicals,
artists and artisans.
They are truly “Florencians,” and we hope
they are here to stay.
Sue Hale
Florence
Praise be that we don’t have Siuslaw News’
Aug. 15 letter writers Boomer Wright
(“Appeasement”) and Jimmie L. Moe
(“Parenthood”) running our country.
Boomer declares the administration’s pro-
posed nuclear arms deal with Iran to be
“appeasement.” The Iranians are such awful
people. We intrepid Americans are so antisepti-
cally pure. (When in mankind’s history was any
large group of people such?) It’s either them or
us. Bomb the tar out of them. That’s the ticket!
Jimmie believes that men, such as he, know
better about women’s reproductive practices
than women. The straw-person in his attack on
Planned Parenthood is the organization’s
founder, Margaret Sanger.
He alleges that Sanger “started the movement
in our country to eliminate or reduce the num-
ber of less-advantaged children being born in
America. … Twice as many African Americans
are denied life through abortions as compared to
all other means (murder, accidents, etc.)”
because “the latest stats” show it.
Whose stats? Jimmie’s final hammer blow of
condemnation is his statement that Hillary
Clinton and Nancy Pelosi have “praised
Sanger’s courage and devotion.” He has para-
phrased comments made by the crazy-minded
neurosurgeon and GOP presidential candidate
Ben Carson.
NPR posted Aug. 14 on the Internet a fact-
check article about Carson’s allegation that
Planned Parenthood (PP) was started to “control
the black population.” Sanger believed that peo-
ple regardless of race should have the children
they want. Her focus was on birth control.
In 1921, she wrote: “The almost universal
demand for practical education in birth control
is one of the most hopeful signs that the masses
themselves today possess the divine spark of
regeneration.” It was Sanger’s support of birth
control that motivated her in 1946 to write:
“Negro parents, like all parents, must create the
next generation from strength, not from weak-
ness; from health, not from despair.”
Carson has said, “One of the reasons you find
most of their (PP) clinics in black neighbor-
hoods is so that you can find a way to control
that population.” In 2014, the Guttmacher
Institute revealed that 60 percent of all known
abortion providers, including Planned
Parenthood clinics, are in majority-white neigh-
borhoods. In 2013, Planned Parenthood stated
that “14 percent of its patients nationwide were
black … nearly equal to the proportion of the
African-American population in the U.S.”
But, then, I am a liberal. Jimmie knows:
“Liberals, through slick media campaigning and
effective slogans, make Planned Parenthood
into a compassionate and caring alternative to
childbirth.”
Harold Titus
Florence
L ETTERS TO THE
E DITOR P OLICY
The Siuslaw News welcomes letters to the
editor concerning issues affecting the
Florence area and Lane County. Emailed let-
ters are preferred. Handwritten or typed let-
ters must be signed. All letters should be lim-
ited to about 300 words and must include the
writer’s full name, address and phone num-
ber for verification.
Letters are subject to editing for length,
grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter
is not guaranteed and depends on space
available and the volume of letters received.
Libelous and anonymous letters as well as
poetry will not be published. All submissions
become the property of Siuslaw News and
will not be returned.
Write to: Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com
USPS# 497-660 Copyright 2015 © Siuslaw News
John Bartlett
Jenna Bartlett
Ryan Cronk
Susan Gutierrez
Cathy Dietz
Ron Annis
Jeremy Gentry
Publisher, ext. 327
General Manager, ext. 318
Editor, ext. 313
Advertising Director, ext. 326
Office Supervisor, ext. 312
Production Supervisor
Press Manager
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WHERE TO WRITE
Published every Wednesday and Saturday at 148 Maple St. in Florence, Lane County, Oregon. A member of the National
Newspaper Association and Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. Periodicals postage paid at Florence, Ore.
Postmaster, send address changes to: Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439; phone 541-997-3441; fax
541-997-7979. All press releases may be sent to PressReleases@TheSiuslawNews.com.
Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us