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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 11, 2019)
4A | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Cottage Grove Sentinel 116 N. Sixth St. Cottage Grove, Ore. 97424 NED HICKSON , MANAGING EDITOR | Opinion 541-902-3520 | NHICKSON @ CGSENTINEL . COM The First Amendment C ongress shall make no law respect- ing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Govern- ment for a redress of grievances. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800) USPS#133880 Copyright 2019 © COTTAGE GROVE SENTINAL Letters to the Editor Policy The Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a community discussion of issues on the local, state and national level. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters should be limited to about 300 words. 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. Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published. Letters containing poetry or from outside The Sentinel readership area will only be published at the discretion of the editor. Political/Election Letters: Seven more minutes of childhood Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely issues of interest to our readers at-large. Letters must: 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support candidates based on personal experience and perspective rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric. Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes; this constitutes paid political advertising. As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper, at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria. Send letters to: nhickson@cgsentinel.com now seems like an eterni- during playground con- ty. versations as children put Lying there, listening to their own interpretive the details, I regretted not spin on the language of pushing the button one adults heard from the ra- more time. dio, television and from A hundred more times. discussions between par- I’ll never forget how I A thousand. ents after they thought felt this day 18 years ago In that same moment, I their children were as an American, a volun- also understood that the asleep. teer firefighter and as a father — and how each From the Managing Editor’s Desk held its own kind of hurt Ned Hickson that has never completely healed. But of the three, be- ing a father watching the impassive gaze of terror- My daughter suddenly sparkle in my then six- ism could only be avert- appeared in the doorway, year-old daughter’s eyes ed for so long, and that, and I realized that I was noticeably fade just a bit eventually, I’d have to still poised — frozen real- continues to be the mem- meet it — along with the ly — with my hand over ory that lingers most. questioning gaze of my the snooze button, still My alarm clock went daughter. listening to the account off the same as it always As a parent, I debated of terrorism on the radio. did back then, coming whether I should shield It was at this point that to life with the morn- her from these events, fragmented accounts of ing news — my prefer- essentially pushing the an attack on the Pentagon ence over the annoying, snooze button to allow began, along with word of high-pitched alternative her at least a few more a downed jetliner some- of chatter. Instinctively, I minutes of childhood where in Pennsylvania. swatted the snooze but- before waking her to this And maybe a car bomb ton and bought myself new, colder world. near the capitol — a story another seven minutes of But how long, I won- that was interrupted by sleep. dered, would it be before word of a second airlin- In the years since, I’ve she discovered reality on er crashing into the trade thought a lot about those her own? center towers. seven minutes, and how There are at least six “Dad, what’s happen- the simple push of a but- news stands near our ing?” my daughter asked. ton postponed a bitter re- home, all with their front She remained in the ality for just a little longer. pages displayed at eye doorway, a departure When the news came level for a child her age. from her normal routine on again, word of the I thought about the of diving onto the bed. I first airliner crashing into images that would be noticed this instinctively, the World Trade Center appearing in those small in much the same way she stopped my hand just plexi-glass windows in must’ve noticed my hand short of another seven the coming days and still hovering above the minutes of blissful igno- weeks. I thought about snooze button. rance — a time span that what she might overhear Neither of us moved; neither of us wanted to. At different levels, we both understood that moving meant setting things into motion that could somehow never be turned back. Slowly, I drew my hand away from the alarm clock and ges- tured for her to join me on the bed. There was no running, no broad-smiled dive over the footboard. She approached with obvious hesitation, her eyes mov- ing between the radio and me. “What’s going on, Dad?” she asked again. Pulling her close, we listened to the radio as I struggled to find the words to answer her question. After a series of false starts, I decided there was really only one place to begin. As the events of that morning continued to unfold from the radio, we allowed our voices to carry over the reports of terrorism — and spoke, instead, of what it means to be an American. Today marks 18 years since I’ve stopped setting my alarm to go off with the morning news. I write this in memory of those innocent lives that were lost, as well as for the loss of innocence we all experienced in some way or another… LETTERS Shout out to our first responders We live on Seventh Street in Cot- tage Grove, next to the house that burned on Aug. 13 and early morn- ing of Aug. 14. I am writing to give a shout out to our fire department and to the police for their quick and profes- sional services in handling the very stressful night that we had. Without them and the way they did their jobs, I am sure we would have lost our house and all of the memories we have in it. One police officer even took my water hose and soaked the side of my house to help it from getting too hot and catching fire. He wound up getting quite wet. We are very, very thankful for their services and completely sup- port them and the job they do for us. Many, many thanks. —Bob and Heather Young, Cottage Grove Love our local paper but enough is enough As a loyal 35-year subscribers to the Cottage Grove Sentinel, we are concerned that our community pa- per’s subscription rate increases are getting out of hand. For the past 4 to 5 years, the rates have been increasing at what I feel is an alarming rate every year. To the people who are on fixed in- comes, this is hard to overcome. It’s no wonder that a lot of folks hate our cable TV providers, con- stantly raising their rates — some- times as much as twice a year. Out of necessity, people are “cut- ting the cord “and leaving the cable industry altogether. Hopefully, this will not be the case with The Sentinel in our fu- ture. Also, it no longer offers re- duced rates for senior citizens. We love our local paper but enough is enough. We don’t see the rationale for the yearly price hike since there is virtually no inflation these days. —George and Susan Zajic Cottage Grove (Editor’s Note: It’s true that our annual subscription rate has gone from $37.65 to $43.50 since 2016. However, we do offer a senior dis- count special twice a year. At the same time, we have had to respond to increases in the U.S. Postal Ser- vice rates and a three-fold increase in the cost of both paper and ink. We also want to provide competi- tive wages for staff.) HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS Oregon state representatives Oregon federal representatives • Sen. Floyd Prozanski • Rep. Peter DeFazio District 4 State Senator PO Box 11511 Eugene, Ore. 97440 Phone: 541-342-2447 Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us (House of Representatives) 405 East 8th Ave. #2030 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: defazio.house.gov/ contact/email-peter Phone: 541-465-6732 • Rep. Cedric Hayden Republican District 7 State Representative 900 Court St. NE Salem, Ore. 97301 Phone: 503-986-1407 Website: www.leg.state.or. us/hayden Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us • Sen. Ron Wyden 405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: wyden.senate.gov Phone: (541) 431-0229 • Sen. Jeff Merkley Email: merkley.senate.gov Phone: 541-465-6750 S entinel C ottage G rove 541-942-3325 Administration Jenna Bartlett, Group Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager... Ext. 1207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Gerald Santana, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... Ext. 1216 gsantana@cgsentinel.com Veronica Brinkley, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... Ext. 1205 vbrinkley@cgsentinel.com Carla Summers, Inside Multi-Media Sales Consultant... Ext. 1203 csummers@cgsentinel.com Editorial Ned Hickson, Managing Editor... 541-902-3520 nhickson@cgsentinel.com Damien Sherwood, Lead Reporter... Ext. 1212 dsherwood@cgsentinel.com Nick Snyder, Sports/Community News Reporter... Ext. 1204 nsnyder@cgsentinel.com Customer Service Meg Fringer, Office Manager, Legals, Classifieds... Ext. 1200 mfringer@cgsentinel.com Production Ron Annis, Production Supervisor... Ext.1215 graphics@cgsentinel.com Subscription Mail Rates in Lane and Portions of Douglas Counties: 10 Weeks ....................................................................................$11.50 One year .....................................................................................$43.50 Senior 62+ ...................................................................................33.00 e-Edition year ............................................................................$35.00 Rates in all other areas of United States: 10 weeks, $16; 1 year, $56.50; e-Edition $35. In foreign countries, postage extra. No subscription for less than 10 weeks. Subscription rates are subject to change upon 30 days’ notice. All subscritptions must be paid prior to beginning the subscription and are non-refundable. Periodicals postage paid at Cottage Grove, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. 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