A4
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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news@bakercityherald.com
Saturday, November 26, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Thankful
for so much
normalcy
N
ormal. A simple word, and one that’s easy to
take for granted. At least until very little seems
normal.
For more than two years, the concept of normal at
times might have felt, to many of us, like a fondly re-
membered figment from the past.
A worldwide pandemic can have that effect.
COVID-19 arrived rather suddenly.
In the span of a couple weeks, schools and many busi-
nesses, all of which had been operating normally —
there’s that word — closed or were severely curtailed.
Our lives were dramatically altered.
The return to normal — there it is again — has been a
more gradual process. So gradual, perhaps, that we didn’t
recognize it as acutely as we did the upheaval that made
the spring of 2020 unique.
This week, which brings the holiday when we tradi-
tionally consider what we are thankful for, gives us a fine
chance to reflect on, and celebrate, how much that once
was strange no longer is.
Which is to say, normal.
We’ve not banished the virus, of course.
It remains a threat to our older friends and family, and
those with certain medical conditions.
But the combination of vaccines and past infections
and better treatments has rendered COVID-19 a notably
lesser threat that it was.
As a result, this holiday season will be much more like
what we were accustomed to before most of us had heard
of a coronavirus.
Indeed, the past several months have been marked by
much that is, well, normal.
For the first time since 2019, a school year started in
the usual way, with fully in-person classes, and no mask
mandates.
Sports and other activities took place on the regu-
lar schedule, a vital part of the high school experience
for students, and an important connection between the
schools and the communities.
Most summer festivals and other events happened, and
that trend will continue with Thanksgiving dinners and,
next Saturday, Dec. 3, the Twilight Christmas parade and
tree-lighting ceremony.
There is of course so much else to be thankful for, both
in the community and in our own lives.
But this year, perhaps more than any other in recent
memory, we can, in addition to everything else we cher-
ish, relish the return of all that once again is normal.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
YOUR VIEWS
No need for large capacity
clips or AR-15s
I have been an avid hunter most of my
life, learning how to operate a gun and pis-
tol at safety classes while in school. And I
also was a part of a shooting club and be-
longed to a local outdoor shooting club
within my home town. While growing up
our rifles were all limited to a maximum
5-shot clip or magazine, shotguns were
limited to 3-shot magazine. AR-15 mili-
tary assault guns were military use only,
and never intended for home consump-
tion.
Somewhere down the road, some peo-
ple, I’d say the NRA, saw a fortune to be
made in the military killing weapons, so
spent a fortune in back pocket instruc-
tions to the Congress of the USA to make
these killing machines available to the
public market. Starting with 10-shot clips,
they have escalated to at least 30-shot clips
to use for whatever purpose is beyond me.
I can understand the military using these
clips for personal safety against an enemy.
But to the common citizen I ask WHY?
What does a 30-shot clip help with ? You
cannot legally hunt with these killing ma-
chines as the regular rifle is limited to
5-shot clips and no more. You want ham-
burger out of your meat? Then leave the
game animals alone.
I looked at the new laws that were
passed and nowhere did I see the gov-
ernment is going to get your guns. This
is another fake informative issue just like
the Republican Party is throwing around.
No one is asking to stop your hunting
and owning hunting guns, just the stupid
30-shot clips and even a 10-shot clip is
asinine to use along with the AK-47 and
AR-15. There is no place in our society for
these killing machines. If you want to use
them, then go ahead and sign up for the
military and go for it. Personally I am sick
and tired of seeing people killed in masses
by you idiots who seem to think it very
manly or womanly to have the bigger the
better. Not in my country! Never again!
Phil Reindl
Baker City
Blue Mt. Council doesn’t
speak for the public
October 25 through November 9 the
Forest Service’s Blues Intergovernmental
Council (BIC) held a series of meetings to
unveil their “desired conditions” for the
upcoming Forest Plan Revision talks. The
BIC’s desired condition for access is in-
correctly stated and must be revised. The
public in Eastern Oregon has stated their
desired condition for access is an open
forest. They have stated this since the be-
ginning of Travel Management in 2007,
and through the withdrawal of the forest
plan revision in 2018.
The BIC states that “The public has a
desire to be well informed on forest ac-
cess, therefore a current and compre-
hensive inventory of all forest roads and
trails is displayed on an easily read map
which clearly lists status is essential. Any
proposed changes to the status of the
road system would be evaluated and an-
alyzed at the project level through the
NEPA process in coordination with the
local and tribal governments and with
comprehensive public notice and involve-
ment.
Where applicable, road and trail sys-
tems available for public use should be
maintained according with their desig-
nated purpose. Any use restriction previ-
ously reviewed and approved through the
NEPA process are clearly and effectively
posted for the public and reflected on up-
dated maps.”
This statement is in support of Travel
Management, closure of cross-country
travel and closure of motorized access
to roughly 95% of the national forests
in Northeastern Oregon. The statement
must be changed to “The BIC has a desire
to be well informed. ....” as the BIC de-
veloped these desired conditions outside
public participation, and without consid-
eration of past public comments or objec-
tions filed.
The BIC’s documents should reflect it
speaking for itself, and not representing
itself as a voice of the residents of Eastern
Oregon, as it is not a representative body
of Eastern Oregon.
John George
Bates
COLUMN
Face full of leaves spurs memories of a maple
I
had forgotten how much fun a yard
full of fallen leaves can be until I had an
armful chucked in my face.
The thrower was my grandson, Brysen
Weitz.
His aim was true.
A mixture of willow and ash leaves lit-
tered my hair and shoulders.
And the sleeves of my jacket — leaves,
even dry ones, as these fortunately were,
stick to fleece and once there are not in-
clined to be dislodged.
Brysen is 5. His brother, Caden, who is
3, proved equally adept at carrying leaves
but was less accurate with his crackling
bombardments.
The age range between 3 and 5 is the
prime period, of course, for turning leaves,
which nature supplies for free every au-
tumn, into a toy that holds young atten-
tions longer than any number of expensive
electronic gadgets.
Besides which we were out in the good
clean air, none of us tethered to a cord.
I had been out there, wielding a rake, a
few hours before Brysen and Caden came
to visit.
As I yanked the plastic tines across the
grass (unusually green for mid-autumn, a
testament to weather that, until recently,
was quite mild) I understood that my la-
bors were likely to be futile.
I knew the boys were coming over.
More to the point, I knew that small
boys can no more ignore piles of leaves
than they can pass a plate of chocolate chip
cookies without pleading to be given one.
(Or, depending on the boy, grabbing one
and commencing to gobbling. This is not
illogical — even if the boy gets into a bit
suade the leaves to yield to the tines, I got
to thinking, as I almost always do at such
Jayson
times, about my maternal grandparents’
Jacoby
home in Stayton, the town where I grew
up.
(Mine was a fortunate childhood in
of trouble, it’s not as if the parents can take many respects, not least being that both
the cookie back. Regret is supposed to be a sets of grandparents lived little more than a
bitter emotion, but it’s much less so when
mile away. Their homes were much closer
the sweet flavor of chocolate still lingers on to each other — very nearly within the
the tongue.)
range of a well-thrown dirt clod.)
I was once a small boy myself, and al-
Grandma and Grandpa’s house was on
though that era sometimes seems im-
what seemed to me, as a boy, a sprawling
possibly distant, certain things — piles of
property. There was a filbert orchard and
leaves and plates of chocolate chip cookies, a big garden and blackberry bushes and a
to name but two — can briefly bring me
goldfish pond and a secluded patch of grass
closer to the past.
we always called the sunken garden.
From my adult perspective, the piles of
The property was bordered on one side
leaves are pleasing to the eye, symbols of
by an irrigation ditch.
order and neatness. I appreciate how the
But among its many trees and shrubs,
modest mounds, with their mottled shades one stood out, literally so. It’s a bigleaf ma-
of brown and yellow, are surrounded by
ple, a hoary old thing, draped in moss and
expanses of untrammeled grass, soft and
so thick around that it probably would
lush.
have taken me and all three of my siblings,
Such nuances are, of course, as mean-
holding hands, to encircle the trunk.
ingless as calculus to a 5-year-old and a
The maple, which stood between the
3-year-old.
house and the street, cast a great patch of
They see a series of piles obviously con- shade. Two swings hung from branches.
structed for the sole purpose of being dis-
But when I remember the maple I in-
mantled, the pieces scattered about the
variably see it in the fall of the year, after
yard (with some held in reserve to toss over it had shed most of its yellow and orange
Papa’s head.)
leaves.
After the boys had gone I grabbed the
And such a bounty of leaves, as the ma-
rake and rebuilt the piles.
ple is both broad and tall.
A couple days later the wind freshened,
We would gather some weekend day,
the willow boughs whipped about and I
my family and probably some cousins, al-
was basically back where I had started. A
though my memory is a bit murky in that
southern gale respects my rake work about regard, and have a go at raking the leaves.
as much as my grandsons do.
The bigleaf maple, if you’re not well ac-
While I was out there, trying to per-
quainted with the species, is aptly named.
The leaves, some of them, were as big as a
dinner plate.
Those days are among the more vivid
from my childhood.
I remember the crunch of the leaves, the
earthy smell of them, the skeletal look of
the tree, nearly bereft of the foliage it car-
ried for half the year.
My grandpa died in 1980, my grandma
five years later. The house was sold, then
torn down.
When I drive past the property now,
bare of the house and many of the plants
my grandparents tended, it seems much
smaller than I can account for solely by the
different perspectives of a man and a boy.
This saddens me in a way I can scarcely de-
scribe. It is, I suppose, a palpable reminder
of time’s terrible passage, that some of our
best days, once passed, are gone forever,
leaving us with only the ersatz versions we
call memories.
But all is not lost.
The maple tree still stands — or at least
it did when I last went that way, a couple
months ago.
It must be elderly by the standards of
maples, which don’t live so long, usually, as
the conifers. I suppose no one has raked its
leaves in decades, their fates left to the va-
garies of wind.
I don’t wish to involve my grandsons in
trespassing, of course.
But I think it would be a fine thing, on
some autumn day, to introduce Brysen and
Caden to this great old tree, to let another
generation — the fifth, they would be —
kick around the leaves that are the prod-
ucts of such deep and persistent roots.
█
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.
CONTACT YOUR
PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Joe Biden: The White
House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,
Washington, D.C. 20500; 202-456-
1111; to send comments, go to
www.whitehouse.gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. office:
313 Hart Senate Office Building, U.S.
Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510;
202-224-3753; fax 202-228-3997.
Portland office: One World Trade
Center, 121 S.W. Salmon St. Suite
1250, Portland, OR 97204; 503-326-
3386; fax 503-326-2900. Baker City
office, 1705 Main St., Suite 504, 541-
278-1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. office:
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-
224-5244; fax 202-228-2717. La
Grande office: 105 Fir St., No. 210,
La Grande, OR 97850; 541-962-
7691; fax, 541-963-0885; wyden.
senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd
District): D.C. office: 1239
Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-
6730; fax 202-225-5774. Medford
office: 14 N. Central Avenue Suite
112, Medford, OR 97850; Phone:
541-776-4646; fax: 541-779-0204;
Ontario office: 2430 S.W. Fourth
Ave., No. 2, Ontario, OR 97914;
Phone: 541-709-2040. bentz.house.
gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254
State Capitol, Salem, OR 97310;
503-378-3111; www.governor.
oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias
Read: oregon.treasurer@ost.state.
or.us; 350 Winter St. NE, Suite 100,
Salem OR 97301-3896; 503-378-
4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen
F. Rosenblum: Justice Building,
Salem, OR 97301-4096; 503-378-
4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative
documents and information are
available online at www.leg.state.
or.us.