COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL December 30, 2015
Fire damages Hillside Drive home
S
outh Lane County Fire and Res-
cue was alerted of a structure
fi re on Monday, Dec. 28 at the 2200
block of Hillside Drive at 1 p.m. The
structure was an abandoned house
covered in blackberry bushes. Division
Chief Joe Raade was in command of
the responders and said that when they
arrived the building was “engulfed in
fl ames.”
Neighbors reported that there were
Continued from page 1A
Deatherage says with no small
amount of pride. “If he could
only tell you about all of the cool
projects he’s worked on over the
years.”
To hear Harris tell it, he’s been
working on ‘cool projects’ since
his boyhood.
“My dad was a beekeeper,” he
said, “and we always had a shop.
This was during the Depression.
Nobody had any money, so we
would make our own toys. If you
wanted a toy boat, you went and
made one. It’s just the way we
did things in those days.”
Later on, his ability to design
and manufacture equipment
in response to new challenges
served Harris well at the Boe-
ing Company, one of the world’s
premier aerospace manufactur-
ers. He spent 15 years there,
designing and building aircraft
engines, missile hardware and
working on the power supply for
the international space station.
In 1970, though, with staffi ng
down at Boeing and in the market
for a new endeavor, Harris took
up an offer from Carlton Wood-
ard to design machinery for his
Kimwood Corporation, manu-
facturer of state-of-the-art equip-
ment for the timber industry. The
Helpful tips for
dealing with your
fruitcake anxiety
several transients living in the aban-
doned house, but they were not pres-
ent during the fi re and were later found
in downtown Cottage Grove that day.
SLCFR reports that the structure was
heavily damaged and is not inhabit-
able. The responders arrived with two
engine companies, one medic unit and
three water tenders. No injuries were
reported.
BY NED HICKSON
News Media Corporation
photo by Sam Wright
Neighbors reported several transients living in
a house that caught fi re Monday afternoon.
H ARRIS
move brought Harris to Cottage
Grove and began a long and pro-
ductive relationship between the
engineer and the area’s business
community that has continued
for decades.
Harris moved on from Kim-
wood after seven years, taking
a position as a consultant with a
Eugene-based engineering fi rm,
which he held for 13 years.
Harris operated out of a shop
at his home for four years, but
the desire to expand and produce
a machine of his own invention,
a machine that could cut eight to
10 cords of fi rewood an hour, led
him to purchase his 10th Street
shop. Instead, he and his son,
Ron, saw other area businesses
lining up to solicit his expertise
to help solve their own dilem-
mas.
“We found our niche,” Har-
ris said. “We design things and
we often wind up making them.
Because we can design these
machines, we keep busy. People
come to us with problems, and
we make things to solve them.”
Among the many designs to
emanate from Harris’ shop was a
packing line for Emerald Valley
Kitchen, a machine capable of
packing 60 small salsa cups per
minute that Harris called “one
of the nicest machines we ever
built.”
He’s also designed and manu-
factured drills and other equip-
ment for Cottage Grove-based
innovators Pacifi c Yurts.
“We always enjoyed working
on a project with Harry,” said Pa-
cifi c Yurts President and Founder
Alan Bair. “He designed and
built multiple one-of-a-kind pro-
duction equipment for us. They
worked well the fi rst time and
still do to this day many years
later. I was always impressed
that someone of his caliber and
professional expertise was avail-
able in Cottage Grove.”
A few years back, the Harrises
also built a cocoa bean grind-
er/winnower for the Grenada
Chocolate Company, which they
believed to be the only machine
of its kind in existence. It wasn’t
the only machine they brought to
life for the company’s founders,
Cottage Grove residents Doug
Brown and Mott Green. There
was also a hydraulic press to
take chocolate slurry and sepa-
rate the fat from the fi ber before
the mixture is rebalanced and
sugar carefully added to create
a fi nished product. Harris also
manufactured a sugar dryer to
deal with the moisture in the
Grenadian air.
“Being able to sit down and
lay out a design on a computer,
then design and build the ma-
chine is big,” Harris said. “A lot
of people won’t do it. There’s a
lot of risk. It has to work, and
you can’t afford to fail.”
Deatherage added that Har-
ris’ ability to concentrate on the
problem he’s hoping to solve has
served him well.
“Harry has a wide range of
problem-solving abilities,” he
said. “He’s been pretty creative
over the years, but his designs
are always functional instead of
fancy.”
Now, Harris hopes to offer
vocational training to a new gen-
eration of young people, to teach
a practical, tactical form of prob-
lem-solving that he feels is dy-
ing out these days, a usefulness
he was careful to pass down to
his own children.
“It’s fun to have a group of
kids and teach them how to do
these things,” he said. “I always
let my kids get involved. That’s
really all you have to do, to show
them once and then let them
learn how.”
Still, Harris said he’ll miss the
relationships he’s fostered over
the years in Cottage Grove.
“I have a town full of friends,”
he said. “There are great people
here, and I just hate to leave.”
turn from the main trail and head
uphill. It’s hard work to climb
hills in cross country skis, but
after a couple miles of hoisting
ourselves up and up, we arrive at
a glorious payoff — Eagle Point,
a promontory offering a stunning
view of Odell Lake from what
feels like hundreds of feet above
the lake surface. During particu-
larly lucky visits, we’ve been for-
tunate enough to watch the bald
eagles themselves perch high in
the treetops a few feet from us,
then noiselessly leave the trees
to rocket downward and pluck a
fi sh from the lake’s frigid waters.
On this day, though, there were
no eagles, only other skiers con-
vinced that they had discovered a
secret known only to a precious
few.
Of course, all that uphill climb-
ing leads to a glorious descent,
and it was work to keep Jack run-
ning at a speed adequate to keep
us from skiing into his backside.
(On one occasion, sure that he
wouldn’t be leaving the trail or
speeding up any time soon, I
opted to spread my skis far apart
and ski over the top of him just
in time.) There were a few falls
as we made it back down the
mountain, though a dark, sudsy
beer at the end of our journey
served as the perfect salve for
sore muscles.
Back on level ground, the
scenery we’ve witnessed on such
days seems a dream or a dis-
tant memory, though a whiff of
icy air from the north brings the
memories — and the itch to lace
up the boots once again — fl ood-
ing right back.
R
estaurant
the ski trail, though it’s also won-
derful to exchange a knowing
glance and a smile with strangers
out enjoying the snow. On this
particular weekend, it appeared
that not one person we crossed
paths with could have been even
one percent happier, and there
was little to hinder our own good
mood, what with perfect weather
and powdery snow to be had in
all directions.
Each time we head to Gold
Lake, we invariably take a left
G U I D E
S KI
Continued from page 6A
9A
R
ecent studies show that
mild depression after
the holidays is not only com-
mon but, in many cases, is the
result of FDAD — Fruitcake
Disposal Anxiety Disorder. On
one hand, your fruitcake was
a gift and therefore deserving
of some measure of apprecia-
tion. On the other hand, it has
already become a chew toy for
the neighbor’s pit bull. This of-
ten leads to feelings of anxiety
long after the holidays have
ended, particularly when you
see “Buster,” still intoxicated
with rum, struggling to dis-
lodge the sugar loaf from his
tightly-clenched jaws.
So, as a service to our read-
ers, we assembled a group of
psychiatrists to help provide in-
sight into dealing with FDAD.
At a cost of more than $200 an
hour, we held an informative,
three-minute discussion to
create the following self-help
guide:
I’m OK — You’re OK. But
Give Me a Fruitcake and I’ll
Kill You.
According to our experts, the
fi rst step in dealing with this
anxiety is understanding where
it comes from. To do that, we
must go back to the very fi rst
fruitcake, which historians
agree was baked by Betsy Ross
who, for obvious reasons, was
noted for her sewing. Subse-
quently, this same cake was
dropped from a tall building by
Dick Clark each New Year’s
Eve until 1972, when it devel-
oped a crack and, as a safety
precaution, was launched into
space.
This was done despite pro-
tests from scientists, who
warned that the loaf could
eventually come crashing back
to earth and lead to mass ex-
tinction.
Experts say this has led to a
new generation of people who
not only distrust fruitcake but
see it as a genuine threat to hu-
manity. For these people, we
offer the following four-step
guide to controlling their fruit-
cake anxiety.
Step one: Make a list of your
fruitcake’s good qualities. The
key is to start with what makes
fruitcake unique. For example:
Its indestructibility. You may
not like fruitcake, but you have
to respect the fact that cock-
roaches will be eating it long
after humans are being import-
ed to other galaxies on alien
party platters.
Step two: Incorporate fruit-
cake into your daily activities.
This is easy once you stop
thinking of fruitcake as food.
In the same way that Tofurkey
is slowly gaining acceptance as
an environmentally safe mulch,
fruitcake doesn’t seem so bad
once you’ve started using it to
block open the garage door.
Step three: Consider turning
your fruitcake into a treasured
heirloom by getting it engraved
and then giving it to someone.
Just add your name and date,
and you can pass this special
keepsake on to someone else
at the next available birthday
party, wedding, house warm-
ing, bat mitzvah, Earth Day
celebration, etc.
And fi nally, if after fol-
lowing these fi rst three steps
you’re still unable to control
your symptoms, go directly to
Step four: Investing in a ticket
to Mantiou Springs, Colo., for
the annual Great Fruitcake
Toss.
Each January, this event
draws hundreds of people from
around the world for the sole
purpose of showing off their
fruitcakes and then catapulting
them as far as possible.
Sure, this may sound stupid.
But some day this might be
our last defense against invad-
ing aliens.
(Ned is a syndicated colum-
nist with News Media Corpo-
ration. His book, Humor at the
Speed of Life, is available on-
line at Port Hole Publications,
Amazon Books and Barnes &
Noble. Write to him at nedhick-
son@icloud.com)
Ask your sales
representative
about placing your
restaurant ad here.
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