COFFEE BREAK
B8 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
TuESDAY, MAY 3, 2022
Man’s true colors shock his longtime girlfriend
more than one right person for
everyone? How long will it take
me to recover from a broken
heart, if ever? His vandalism
and my huge financial loss keep
me away from this whack job.
How well do you really know
anyone? — DISILLUSIONED
IN WASHINGTON
DEAR DISILLUSIONED:
Inform the police that your
ex-boyfriend is continuing to
retaliate because you reported
him. There is no timetable for
healing from a broken heart, but
take it from me, it does happen. I
firmly believe there is more than
one “right person” for everyone.
You do not truly love HIM.
What you love is the fantasy
that he’s the only right person
for you.
DEAR ABBY: I am a
58-year-old, never-married
woman with a 22-year blue-
collar career. I own a home and
will retire with benefits many
people dream of.
I’ve recently ended a rela-
tionship with a man I’ve known
since childhood. I truly love
him. The problem is that he had
been stealing from me. I con-
fronted him several times, but
finally had to involve the police.
Now, he has flattened my tires
and repeatedly dented my cars.
My question is this: Is there
affairs over the years, some she
has admitted to and others I have
stumbled across. For the most
part, they have been physical
only, with no emotional attach-
ment. Twenty years ago she had
a passionate affair with a younger
man. It ended when he broke it off
to be with someone else. I didn’t
know about it at the time.
A year ago, she found out he’s
single again and invited him
back into her life. Now, she’s
openly seeing him. She’s telling
me they are “just friends” and
she “needs his company because
only he understands her.” I
believe if he had a better job
and financial outlook, she would
leave me in a minute.
I can’t stand the thought of
losing the love of my life, but I
We get to know the signifi-
cant people in our lives — both
male and female — by observing
them over a long period of time
and watching how they treat
others. You should not keep your
distance from this man only
because of his vandalism and
the money he has cost you, but
also because he has anger prob-
lems he seems unable to con-
trol. Surely those character flaws
showed themselves before he
started acting out on you. Think
back on the little things you may
have chosen to ignore, and you
may recognize that I’m right.
DEAR ABBY: My wife and
I married as teenagers 40 years
ago. Our children are adults, and
most people consider us a perfect
couple. My wife has had several
also can’t keep living with her
knowing I play second fiddle in
her heart. She refuses counseling
because she doesn’t see this as a
problem. Should I give her more
time (a year already) or file for
divorce? — CONFUSED IN
ILLINOIS
DEAR CONFUSED: You
have given your wife enough
time to come to her senses.
You state that she refuses coun-
seling and you believe she
would leave you in a minute
if he made more money. That
means she is staying with you
only because of the lifestyle
you provide. I do think there
should be some counseling —
for YOU. It will provide insight
and emotional support as you
contemplate divorce.
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
100s of US urban areas will become rural with new criteria
The Associated Press
MAUSTON, Wisc. — Hun-
dreds of urban areas in the U.S.
are becoming rural, but it’s not
because people are leaving.
It’s just that the U.S. Census
Bureau is changing the definition
of an urban area. Under the new
criteria, more than 1,300 small
cities, towns and villages desig-
nated urban a decade ago would
be considered rural.
That matters because urban
and rural areas qualify for dif-
ferent types of federal funding.
Some communities worry the
change could affect health clinics
in rural areas as well as transpor-
tation and education funding from
federal programs. But leaders in
other communities designated to
lose their urban status say it won’t
make a difference.
“We are rural and we feel
rural, and that’s how we already
identify,” said Randy Reeg, city
administrator of Mauston, Wis-
consin, a city of 4,347 residents
about 75 miles northwest of
Madison.
Groups like the American Hos-
pital Association say the changes,
Brennan Linsley/The Associated Press, File
A train carries blades for wind turbines bound for another state through Rocky
Ford, Colorado, in Otero County on June 30, 2016. Both Rocky Ford and Dawson,
Georgia, were classified as urban areas after the 2010 census because they had
populations over 2,500 residents. Under new criteria posted this spring by the U.S.
Census Bureau, these communities would no longer be designated as urban. The
new criteria require places to have 2,000 housing units, which is equivalent to 5,000
residents, to be considered an urban area.
which are the biggest being made
to the definitions in decades, could
cause problems for people who
need medical care in rural areas.
“Going with the new definition
could limit the number of rural
health clinics moving forward and
have a negative impact on rural
access to care,” said Shannon Wu,
senior associate director of policy
at the hospital association.
For starters, the Census Bureau
is switching to housing units
instead of people as the basis for
calculating what should be an
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
urban area. Bureau officials say
the change will make it easier to
update between once-a-decade
head counts of the U.S. They also
contend that it’s needed because
a new privacy method introduces
errors into 2020 census popula-
tion numbers at small geogra-
phies to protect people’s identi-
ties. Housing counts stay accurate
under the method.
A place had to have at least
2,500 people to be urban under
old criteria that lasted more than a
century. Now, it will need at least
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
Astoria
Longview
43/58
Kennewick
43/71
St. Helens
45/72
44/78
Condon
47/77
47/71
Maupin
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
Cooler
Periods of rain
Colder with a
little rain
Baker City
33 67 44
Comfort Index™
La Grande
5
33 68 45
Comfort Index™
3
Eugene
8
0
0
42/72
61 48
60 40
47 35
7
3
0
45 35
8
2
0
ALMANAC
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Sunday
Low Sunday
High: 98°
Low: 15°
Wettest: 3.33”
56°
33°
55°
34°
61°
36°
0.02
0.02
0.03
1.95
2.91
0.01
0.01
0.07
3.79
6.52
0.16
0.16
0.07
10.03
10.36
PRECIPITATION (inches)
Sunday
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Normal year to date
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
HAY INFORMATION WEDNESDAY
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
Powers
43/73
35%
SSE at 7 to 14 mph
1.7
0.17
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Monday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
10% of capacity
83% of capacity
46% of capacity
94% of capacity
48% of capacity
99% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Sunday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
3980 cfs
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder
32 cfs
Burnt River near Unity
1 cfs
Umatilla River near Gibbon
560 cfs
Minam River at Minam
424 cfs
Powder River near Richland
35 cfs
The Dalles
Crater Lake
Rome
Ronald Reagan’s horse in the T.V. series
“Death Valley Days,” Sinbad the Sailor,
was struck and killed by lightning on May
3, 1982, at Kanab, Utah.
SUN & MOON
TUE.
WED.
5:37 a.m.
8:02 p.m.
7:45 a.m.
none
MOON PHASES
First
May 8
Full
Last
New
May 15 May 22 May 30
Jordan Valley
32/65
Paisley
38/78
Frenchglen
37/72
City
Astoria
Bend
Boise
Brookings
Burns
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Council
Elgin
Eugene
Hermiston
Hood River
Imnaha
John Day
Joseph
Kennewick
Klamath Falls
Lakeview
Hi/Lo/W
58/47/pc
81/47/s
68/49/s
61/46/c
71/42/s
63/42/s
70/45/s
68/43/pc
71/45/c
72/48/pc
77/56/pc
78/51/pc
72/50/pc
72/45/pc
67/45/s
76/58/pc
76/43/s
74/42/pc
Hi/Lo/W
55/47/sh
61/47/c
68/50/pc
54/50/c
63/43/c
55/48/sh
58/49/sh
64/47/c
58/48/c
59/51/sh
67/53/c
61/51/sh
63/48/c
64/48/c
59/44/sh
68/52/c
61/46/c
64/46/c
Diamond
Grand View
Arock
36/71
38/70
36/71
38/74
Klamath Falls
34/76
Lakeview
34/74
McDermitt
Shown is Wednesday’s weather. Temperatures are Tuesday night’s lows and Wednesday’s highs.
THU.
Boise
39/68
Fields
43/80
WED.
36/75
Silver Lake
35/76
Medford
Brookings
Juntura
31/71
41/84
46/61
Ontario
41/74
Burns
35/79
36/70
RECREATION FORECAST WEDNESDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
WEATHER HISTORY
5:38 a.m.
8:01 p.m.
7:07 a.m.
11:24 p.m.
43/77
Grants Pass
OREGON
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
Beaver Marsh
Chiloquin
El Centro, Calif.
Yellowstone, Wyo.
Plant City, Fla.
High: 74°
Low: 23°
Wettest: 0.39”
Brothers
35/78
31/74
Roseburg
Huntington
31/69
38/81
Oakridge
Council
37/68
42/71
Seneca
41/77
Coos Bay
SUNDAY EXTREMES
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
36/72
Bend
Elkton
42/63
Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels
very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable.
35/71
33/67
John Day
35/80
37/79
42/74
59 37
10
Sisters
Florence
43/61
Halfway
Granite
31/65
Baker City
50 30
59 45
Monument
39/76
Redmond
42/57
62 37
10
36/71
40/74
44/72
Corvallis
Enterprise
33/68
41/70
Newport
62 45
10
36 71 50
Comfort Index™
Enterprise
2
Elgin
34/71
La Grande
42/72
44/79
Idanha
Salem
Increasing
clouds; warmer
45/72
Pendleton
The Dalles
Portland
Newberg
43/72
Lewiston
45/72
Hood River
43/75
42/63
Partly cloudy
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Walla Walla
46/76
Vancouver
44/73
TIllamook
TONIGHT
the bureau’s urban areas form
the cores of metro and micro
areas, and its definitions provide
the basis for how other agencies
classify urban and rural areas in
determining eligibility for federal
funding. The bureau reviews the
definitions every 10 years after a
census, and the urban population
has grown from about 45% of the
total U.S. population in 1910 to
more than 80% a decade ago.
“We’ve heard people say 2,500
was too low. That was the impetus
for the increase,” said Michael
Ratcliffe, a senior geographer with
the Census Bureau.
Different federal programs
use different definitions of urban
and rural, and some communi-
ties qualify for rural funding for
some programs and not others. But
any changes “will have signifi-
cant implications for many groups
and communities,” said Kenneth
Johnson, a senior demographer at
the University of New Hampshire
who studies rural issues.
“Another likely concern for
many rural communities is that
if many existing urban areas are
redefined as rural, competition
for the limited rural funds will
increase,” Johnson said.
2,000 housing units, the equiv-
alent of about 5,000 people. A
revised list of urban areas won’t be
released until later this year, but a
third of the areas deemed urban a
decade ago would be knocked into
the rural category under the new
criteria.
Places with 50,000 residents
or more were considered “urban-
ized areas,” compared with
“urban clusters” having between
2,500 and 49,999 residents in
the past. But those distinctions
will be eliminated and all will be
called urban areas under the new
definition.
Some communities worry that
the switch to housing units will
cause some areas to be underesti-
mated if the Census Bureau uses
the U.S. average of 2.6 people per
household for its calculations. For
instance, Madera County, Cali-
fornia, has 3.3 people per house-
hold, and the change “would not
fully represent the community,”
Patricia Taylor, executive director
of the Madera County Transpor-
tation Commission, said in a letter
to the bureau last year.
The Census Bureau says the
new definition should be used
for statistical purposes only. But
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
City
Lewiston
Longview
Meacham
Medford
Newport
Olympia
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Powers
Redmond
Roseburg
Salem
Spokane
The Dalles
Ukiah
Walla Walla
WED.
THU.
Hi/Lo/W
72/52/pc
71/45/c
69/48/c
80/50/s
57/44/pc
65/43/c
74/51/s
76/56/pc
75/52/pc
71/51/pc
73/47/s
80/47/s
77/48/pc
72/49/s
67/49/c
77/55/s
70/42/pc
72/53/pc
Hi/Lo/W
64/50/c
57/49/sh
58/48/c
64/50/c
52/48/sh
56/45/sh
70/51/c
68/51/c
61/51/c
58/52/sh
57/53/c
62/46/c
60/52/sh
60/52/sh
60/43/sh
66/53/c
56/47/c
63/51/c
Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain,
sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice
ANTHONY LAKES
PHILLIPS LAKE
Milder
Warmer
48
35
66
44
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
Milder
Some sun; pleasant
58
43
72
46
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
Not as cool
Warmer
54
37
66
40
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
Warmer
Some sun; warmer
67
45
75
48
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
Milder
Warmer
67
44
71
50
HELLO SPRING.
HELLO SAVINGS.
SAVE
HUNDREDS
APRIL 15 - MAY 31
WITH A
FREE LEATHER
UPGRADE*
Stressless ® Mary shown in Paloma Sand
Stressless ® Max shown in Paloma Espresso
* See store for details.
OR SAVE $300
OFF STRESSLESS ®
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