10A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL August 24, 2016
C ONSTRUCTION
ABUSE
Continued from page 1A
Douglas G. Maddess, DMD
Continued from page 1A
And what about
Coiner Park?
Cottage Grove City Planner
Amanda Ferguson, who also does
double duty as a representative of
the local Rotary club, said that the
club and the City hope to be fi n-
ished with a project to install new
playground equipment in the park
by Labor Day, though the curing
of concrete that’s expected to be
poured this week could affect that
schedule.
Last year, Rotary conducted a
survey of needs in the park and en-
hancements that the public might
like to see. Ferguson said the re-
sponses ranged from equipment for
the park’s youngest users to ameni-
ties for older youth. Plans include
the addition of a merry-go-round,
new toddler swings and a climbing
net that can be used by all ages.
photo by Jon Stinnett
This fenced-off area at Coiner Park is soon to
host new playground equipment.
FAMILY AND GENERAL DENTISTRY
Roberts-Larson initially stated
that the child “had fallen from a play
structure and that caused the bruis-
ing,” Skaggs wrote, though she later
said that she had become “stressed
and upset over a recent job loss” and
the child would not stop screaming.
Roberts-Larson then stated that she
spanked the child approximately four
times with her hand, later stating that
she had “gone too far,” according to
a probable cause affi davit that Skaggs
submitted to the Lane County Circuit
Court. Following that interview in
March, Roberts-Larson was cited for
Assault III and released.
In explaining why it took so long
for the suspect to be charged, Skaggs
said that it took three weeks to locate
Roberts-Larson, who was a transient
at the time. Three weeks following her
arrest, Skaggs said the District Attor-
ney’s Offi ce requested another inter-
view. Deputy District Attorney Erik
Hasselman told the Register-Guard
that the DA’s offi ce asked CGPD for
another interview.
Brightening Lives One Smile at a Time
See our new website:
douglasgmaddessdmd.com
O FFBEAT
Continued from page 4A
Finally, after moving all the
spectators about a quarter-mile
down the beach and away from
the blast site, Thornton and his
crew took cover … and fi lled
the sky with noise, smoke, sand
and bits of dead whale.
If you search for “explod-
ing whale” on YouTube, you’ll
readily fi nd the KATU-TV story
that reporter Paul Linnman and
cameraman Doug Brazil fi led
that night. It does a spectacu-
lar job of showing the whole
event: the massive explosion
(“like a mighty burst of tomato
juice,” Linnman recalls in the
book); the yells of delight turn-
ing to quavering shrieks of fear
as the tiny specks visible above
the crowd grow larger and it
becomes clear that slabs of rot-
ting meat, ranging in size from
pinhead-size bits to refrigerator-
sized chunks, are now falling
out of the sky.
You’ll hear possibly the most
unintentionally comic part of
the whole clip: A woman’s
motherly voice behind the cam-
era saying, “All right, Fred, you
can take your hands out of your
ears now … here come pieces of
… oh my g—“
You’ll also see what hap-
pened to Walt Uemenhoefer’s
brand-new 1971 Buick Ninety-
Eight Regency. A chunk of fl y-
ing whale meat the size of a cof-
fee-table top had dropped out of
the sky directly onto the roof of
the big luxury car, blowing glass
out in all directions and leaving
its top fl atter than its owner’s
military haircut.
“My insurance company is
not gonna believe this,” Uemen-
hoefer remarked ruefully when
he saw what had happened. But
he had to chuckle later on, when
he remembered the sales promo-
tion that had been going on at
Dunham Oldsmobile in Eugene
when he’d bought the car just
a short time before. It was tag-
lined, “GET A WHALE OF A
DEAL ON A NEW OLDSMO-
BILE.”
“Fortunately, no human was
hurt as badly as the car,” Lin-
nman said in his newscast.
“However, everyone on the
scene was covered with small
particles of dead whale.”
Uemenhoefer, by the way, is
best known today as the titular
“Baron” of The Baron’s Den, a
gun store and indoor shooting
range just south of Eugene in
Goshen, visible from Interstate
5 (it usually sports a big blue
banner that reads “SHOOT A
REAL TOMMY GUN”). He
died at the age of 84 in January
of this year.
In the aftermath, Thornton
was spinning hard — or trying
to. “It went just exactly right,”
he told Larry Bacon of the Eu-
gene Register-Guard. “Except
the blast funneled a hole in the
sand under the whale” (there-
by causing some of the whale
chunks to be blown back toward
the parking lot, he went on to
say).
Decades later, Thornton
— who also died recently, in
October 2013 — was still defi -
antly sanguine about the whole
affair. Contacted by Linnman
in the mid-1990s, he refused to
be interviewed on camera, and
seemed to feel that news cover-
age of the event had converted a
successful operation into a pub-
lic-relations disaster. The con-
versation ended on a sour note
when Linnman asked Thornton
if he didn’t want to tell the pub-
lic about it — about what had
gone wrong that day.
“What do you mean, ‘what
went wrong?’” he asked Lin-
nman tersely — apparently by
way of implying that nothing
had.
(Sources: Linnman, Paul. The
Exploding Whale. Portland:
West Winds Press, 2003; The
Springfi eld News archives; The
Eugene Register-Guard, Nov.
13, 1970.)
Finn J.D. John teaches at
Oregon State University and
writes about odd tidbits of Or-
egon history. For details, see
http://fi nnjohn.com. To contact
him or suggest a topic: fi nn2@
offbeatoregon.com or 541-357-
2222.
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