LOCAL & STATE
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019
GRAMMAR
Continued from Page 1A
Jovin isn’t selling anything.
And although she’s passionate,
she’s no proselytizer.
Mainly Jovin just wants to meet
people, to share with them a few
minutes and, ideally, a few laughs.
If these chance encounters also
allow her to indulge in her enthu-
siasm for language, and in the
process help one of her newfound
friends bypass some pratfall of
punctuation, so much the better.
Jovin’s journey started almost a
year ago, on Sept. 21, 2018, also on
a sidewalk.
This one was in front of her
apartment on Manhattan’s Upper
West Side.
Jovin, who earned a master’s
degree in comparative litera-
ture from UCLA and started a
language-learning website called
Words, wanted a way to discuss
her favorite topic — language and
how we use it — in a forum more
personal than the internet.
She was also tired of the nasti-
ness that online anonymity can
nurture.
“I want people to take joy in
language and not use it as a
weapon to hurt people with,” Jovin
said Monday as she sat on the east
side of Main, in front of the Geiser
Grand Hotel.
So on that day last September
“I want people to take joy in
language and not use it as a
weapon to hurt people with.”
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
cities, on not quite a whim.
Jovin, who grew up in Los An-
geles, said she wanted to stop in at
least one town in Oregon.
— Ellen Jovin
But she had already visited
Portland — this was long before
she set up a folding table in front
Grammar Table — so she pon-
of her apartment, taped on the
dered other places.
“Grammar Table” sign, sat back
“I looked (Baker City) up and it
and waited.
looked like a cool town,” Jovin said.
She didn’t wait long.
It exceeded her expectations.
(About 1.7 million people live in
“I’m so happy we came here,”
Manhattan, after all.)
she said. “There are lots of really
Within 30 seconds someone
beautiful buildings here. And now
stopped to chat.
it’s not just a dot on the map. It’s a
“Pretty quickly it became appar- place I know something about.”
ent to me that it can be an anchor
A trifl e more, perhaps, than she
for community building,” she said expected.
of the Grammar Table experiment.
Jovin initially set up her table
Since then Jovin has put up her Sunday evening on the east side of
table in many places in New York Main near Court Avenue, and in
City.
90 minutes or so she met several
And in late July she embarked
local residents and a handful of
on a national tour with her
visitors from, among other places,
husband, Brandt Johnson, who
Canada, Texas and California.
is making a documentary tenta-
And although the conversations
tively titled “Grammar Table: The delved into grammatical matters,
Movie.”
that was, Jovin said, just “a place
Jovin also is writing a book
to start.”
about her adventures for Hough-
“I learned about someone’s
ton Miffl in Harcourt. She hopes it medical history, and how a couple
will be published in 2021.
met and fell in love,” she said.
Over the past month Jovin has
Jovin said that mixture of per-
visited Buffalo, Toledo, Detroit,
sonal anecdote and discussion of
Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, grammar and language has been
Fargo and Spokane, among other typical during her hours sitting
cities.
behind the Grammar Table.
She picked Baker City, which is
“It’s very broadly human,” she
considerably smaller than those
said.
And quite often amusing.
“I cracked up about 30 times
doing the course of the conversa-
tion,” Jovin said of her brief time
in Baker City Sunday evening.
She also watched a covey of
quail, complete with cute chicks,
scamper past.
A common sight in Baker City,
but not so in New York City.
“To me that was a big deal,”
Jovin said.
It was also a chance to indulge
in her favorite topic.
Jovin said the wildlife encoun-
ter prompted her to tweet about
the plural of quail.
(As with elk and deer, the
plural version is the same as the
singular.)
Jovin said she’d like to take
Grammar Table to every state,
but she admits that’s probably an
overly ambitious goal.
In the meantime she’s eager to
continue seeing new towns and
meeting new people.
And although she treasures the
personal stories that sometimes
result, Jovin said she’s especially
excited when someone simply
walks up and, without even mak-
ing an introduction, launches
into a question or comment about
grammar or language.
“As if this,” she says, gesturing
to her table stacked with grammar
guides, “is a natural thing to fi nd
on a sidewalk.”
Missing
hunter
found safe
By Chris Collins
ccollins@bakercityherald.com
As it turns out, Benjamin Owens
wasn’t ever really lost.
The 27-year-old Eugene-area
man had just returned from a day
of hunting when he found a fl ier on
his pickup truck announcing that
searchers were looking for him,
said Chris Galiszewski, coordina-
tor of the Baker County Sheriff’s
Search and Rescue Team.
Owens was the subject of a half-
day search that started about 10:30
a.m. and ended at 3 p.m. Monday.
Searchers drove about 350 road
miles looking for Owens’ pickup.
The hunter was well-equipped for
the outing and simply had become
focused on his hunting and had
neglected to call his wife, Jamie, to
report in as he usually did, Galisze-
wski said. Jamie had last heard
from her husband by phone from
Sumpter on Saturday. She called
the Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce
Monday morning to report that her
husband was overdue in contacting
her.
See Hunter/Page 5A
Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer withdraws retirement
■ Sheriff who is the subject of an ethics complaint says he will seek a sixth term
lice offi cer fi led the latest eth-
ics complaint with the Oregon
JOHN DAY — A sheriff in
Department of Public Safety
Eastern Oregon who an-
Standards and Training, or
nounced he would resign the
DPSST, a state agency that
day after being notifi ed of an
enforces minimum standards
ethics complaint against him for peace offi cers.
now says he will stay on the
The complaint alleges
job and seek re-election for a
Palmer failed to return lost
sixth term.
property — in this case, a fi sh-
Grant County Sheriff Glenn ing pole with the owner’s name
Palmer told county offi cials at engraved on it. The complaint
a public meeting last week he alleges Palmer kept the pole
would quit. But he wrote in a out of personal animosity
Facebook post Tuesday, “I am toward a retired OSP offi cer
withdrawing my resignation.” Gordon Larson.
A former Oregon State Po-
Larson fi led the ethics com-
By Emily Cureton
Oregon Public Broadcasting
plaint. He said the lost fi shing
pole “is a small piece of a much
larger issue that talks about
a sheriff willing to use all
resources under his direction
to try and damage a citizen.”
In 2018, Larson ran against
and lost to Palmer’s younger
brother, Sam Palmer, for
a Grant County Commis-
sion seat. Larson claims the
sheriff has repeatedly used his
position to damage political
opponents.
Sheriff Palmer’s politics
were a fl ashpoint during the
2016 occupation of the Mal-
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heur National Wildlife Refuge,
when he publicly sympathized
with armed militia members
who took over the refuge for
41 days.
“Local offi cials, primarily the
sheriff and those acting under
his control, [are] trying to dam-
age me and my family because
of my political posture against
the Malheur occupation,
because I opposed his brother
in a political race, and more
Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian fi le photo
importantly because we’ve
called him out for his tactics,” Gov. Kate Brown hugs Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palm-
er as they enter a meeting with homeowners in Canyon
Larson said.
See Palmer/Page 5A City after the Canyon Creek fi re in August 2015.