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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (March 14, 1974)
Page 2 Heppner, Ore., Gazette-Times Thursday, Mar. 14, 1574 Horse sense ERNEST V. JOINER VJ. Sunday, if it should survive an Irishman's Saturday night, is St. Patrick's Day. Since Morrow County is predominately Irish it (alls upon me to say some nice things about them, a task which imposes a heavy responsibility upon a columnist of English extraction. Happily, my ancestors fraternized with the Irish, thus validating my right ; to speak up on this auspicious occasion. The Archbishop of Santa Fe. himself as good an Irishman as a Catholic, was fond of telling Irish stones. One I recall concerns a priest's admonishment to a drunk Irishman whom he regaled after this fashion: "Mike, you are lower than the beasts of the field. Look at that cow drinking over , there. She knows when she has had enough." To which Mike replied. "Sure, and she's fine with that water. But wait "till she runs across a stream of whisky." The Irish have earned a reputation for dealing harshly with each other. Samuel Johnson once wrote, 'The Irish are a fair people: they never speak well of one another." And George Bernard Shaw was prompted to say, "Put an Irish man on the spit, and you can always get another Irishman to turn him " Of course. Johnson was an Englishman and may be forgiven: but Shaw was an Irishman and should have known better. Pa! O'Brien had become interested in reincarnation by reading The Search for Bridey Murphy. But after reading the bestseller he wasn't sure what reincarnation really meant, so he asked his friend Mike Murphy, who was still happy with his thought of a stream of whisky. "Reincarnation," Mike explained, "is when you die and come back to this earth in some other form." Pat was dubious. "Let me give you an illustration." said Mike patiently. "Suppose you were to die. Then you'd be reborn as a blade of grass. While you're a blade of grass, waving away in the meadow, a cow comes along and eats you." Pat nodded in understanding. "In due time you pass through that cow and come out in a neat little pile in the middle of the meadow. One day I come walking through the meadow and almost step into the neat, round pile. But I see you just in time, so I draw back, look down at the pile and say, "Hello. Pat. You ain't changed much!' That's reincarnation." The world is full of distinguished Irishmen. Thomas H. Cannon, for 30 years High Chief Ranger of the Catholic Order of Foresters, had been a militant Irishman for every one of his 84 years when he told this story of "Nine Famous Irishmen." It goes like this: In the Young Irish Disorders in Ireland in 1848 the following nine men were captured, tried and convicted of treason against Her Majesty, The Queen, and were sentenced to death: John Mitchel. Morns Lyene, Pat Donahue. Thomas McGee, Charles Duffy. Thomas Meagher. Richard O'Gorman. Terrence McManus and Michael Ireland. Before passing sentence the judge asked if there was anything that any of them wished to say. Meagher, speaking first, spoke for all nine in this manner . . . "My lord, this it our first offense but not our last. If you . will be easy with us this once, we promise, on our word as gentlemen to try and do better next time. And next time-sure we won't be fools enough to get caught." The indignant judge sentenced them all to be hanged by the neck, then drawn and quartered. Passionate protest from all over the world forced Queen Victoria to commute the sentence to transportation for life to faraway, wild Australia, m 1874. word reached the astonished Queen Victoria that the Sir Charles Duffy, who had been elected Prime Minister of Australia, was the same Charles Duffy who had been sent there as a criminal 25 years before. On the Queen's request, the records of the other eight sen! with him into exile were placed before her. And this is what was uncovered: Thomas F. Meagher was the Governor of Montana in the United States; Terrence McManus was a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army: Patrick Donahue was also a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army: Richard O'Gorman was Governor General of Newfoundland: Morris Lyene had served as Attorney General of Australia, in which office he was succeeded by Michael Ireland; Thomas D'Arcy McGee was a Member of Parliament a! Montreal. Minister of Agriculture and President of Council. Dominion of Canada: and John Miichel was a prominent New York politician and the father of John Purroy Mitchel. mayor of New York City at the outbreak of World War I. I won my wings Sunday. I took an airplane ride with Orville Cutsforth and suffered neither physical nor emotional damage. It started a( 7:30 a.m. when the phone roused me from my slumbers. It was Orville. "Want to see a herd of one thousand elk?" he asked. Not having seen even two elk in my whole life. I jumped at the chance of seeing a herd of such size, forgetting to ask how we were going to sneak up on this concentration of beasts. An hour later he drew his Jeep up at Lexington's International Airport and he hustled me and La Verne VanMarter Sr. into a Cessna 180 and a few minutes later we were headed toward Black Mountain. As a former flyer I always allowed my eyes to rove over the instrument panel in case any malfunction showed on the cluster of gauges. The rest of the time my eyes were picking out check points on the ground and observing possible emergency landing fields. Not Orville. He never seemed to check the instrument panel, and did a marvelous job of flying by (he seat of his pants. I asked Orville if he knew his magnetic compass wasn't working "Yeah." he responded, "that thing hasn't worked in a year." I fidgeted. "Orville." I asked. "I don't think your gyro compass is working either." Well, how about that, he said: Then explained that ij probably worked on the "off" position instead of the "on" one. and by some dial-twisting found it didn't work in any position. How about these other instruments. I screwed up enough courage to ask. "Well, you know how it is in this country." Orville responded cheerfully as we pulled up sharply to clear the trees on Mt. Arbuckle by what appeared to be 20 feet. "You let a plane set in the hangar with all the heat and dust and the first thing you know nothing works right " He did a tight right turn and did a screamer into a canyon and pointed to a herd of about 16 elk stampeding to ward forest cover I was too busy observing that the Cessna's wings were about 100 feet below the canyon rims on both sides to "oh and ah" over some scampering elk whose solid footing on terra firma I was beginning to envy. We didn't see more than 25 elk. but Orville kept up a happy and informative chatter about the country below-Lkiah. Arbuckle Ski Run. the Mountains Baldy. John Day River. logging practices and Penland Lake. If his eyes ever hit the instrument panel during the flight I'm sure to be damned. He stalled out over the end of the runway a! Lexington, pulled flaps and landed nicely in a 30-mile crosswind. I should have known better than to worry about the flying savvy of a man who's flown the Alaskan bush, led a flight of Cessnas to Havana, and barnstormed half the North American continent. He could probably have made that flight without his Cessna. He still owes me 975 elk. f ft , x c M :- : c CALIFORNIA WW 1974 Ttwlryw Desert flower The mail pouch EDITOR: Your entire editorial page this week (March 7) is just priceless. I have enjoyed Horse Sense, the Mayor of Hardman and Lester Kmsolving's column on Easter sunrise services so much that I entreat you to send me in one packages five more copies I am enclosing a check for $2 to cover the cost of the copies and mailing charges. This March 7, 1974 edition of your paper justifies my subscription cost. Thank you for delightful reading' LULU H BRAGHETTA. Sonoma. Ca EDITOR: Enclosed is our renewal for a year's subscription We have thoroughly enjoyed the Gazette-Times the past year, especially the editorial page. Keep up the good work and the news presentation. We were in Heppner briefly a year ago and were so impressed we subscribed to the paper MR AND MRS LOYAL CRAWFORD. Canbv. Back to McGuffey's! In McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader (revised edition) is a sketch by John Russell. 1793-1818. author of western adventure, essays and sketches. His language is clear and classical, his style concise and vigorous, as found in this sketch. "How to Tell Bad News." a conversation between Mr. H. and his Steward. Mr. H: Ha! Steward, how are you. my old boy? How do things go on at home'' Steward: Bad enough, your honor; the magpie's dead H. Poor Mag! So he's gone. How come he to die? S Overeat himself, sir. H. Did he'' A greedv dog . whv. what did he get he liked so well? S. Horseflesh, sir: he died of eating horseflesh. H How came he to get so much horseflesh"? S All your father's horses, sir. H. What! are they dead, too? S. Ay. sir: they died of overwork. H. And why were they overworked, pray? S. To carry water, sir. H To carry water! and what were they carrying water for' S Sure. sir. to put out the fire H Fire' what fire1 S O. sir. your father's house is burned to the ground H My fa'her 's house burned down ' and how came it set on fire" S. I think, sir. it must have been the torches. H Torches! what torches? S. At your mother's funeral. H My mother dead! S Ah. poor lady! she never look up. after it H After what? S. The loss of your father. H My father gone, too? S. Yes. poor gentleman! he took to his bed as soon as he heard of it. H Heard of what? S. The bad news. sir. and please your honor. H What! more miseries! more bad news! S. Yes. sir; your bank has failed, and your credit is lost, jnd you are not worth a shilling in the world. I made bold. sir. to wait on you about it. for I thought you would like to hear the news. Book Review Have we here an enemy of history? "Why should the world be only as you think it is? Who gave vou the authority to sav so'' People tell us from the time we are born that the world is such and such and so and so and naturally we have no choice but to see the world the way people have been telling us it is "You see. we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second, and erase persona! history, we create a fog around us. a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out. not even ourselves. "It is best to erase all personal history, because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people...! personally like Ihe ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you. for instance "it doesn't matter what you say to a plant . You can just as well make up words: what's important is the feeling of liking it. and treating it as an equal. "A hunter is not at all like Ihe animals he is after, fixed by heavy routines and pre dictable quirks: he is free, fluid, unpredictable. "To assume the responsi bility of one's decisions means that one is ready to die for them. ..It doesn't matter what the decision is. Nothing could be more or less serious than anything else In a world where death is the hunter, (here are no small or big decisions There are only decisions that we make in Ihe face of our inevitable death." "The Teachings of Don Juan." "A Separate Reality" and now "Journey to Ixtlan." Carlos Castaneda. a perfect example of Western man ti e. over-rational, over -emotional, egotistic, self indulgent, and encumbered bv innumerable hang-ups). first tells of how he went to Mexico to learn about psychedelic plants from an old Yaqui Indian, don Juan Instead, he is introduced into a sorcerer's world, negating every principle founding the pseudosecunsy of his formal life. It's an awesome, mes merizing world in a desert oozing with power, where the mysterious forces of the darkness, wind. fog. lightning and thunder are no longer ordinary elements of nature, whereeniitiesof the nigh! leap out of nowhere as death calmly waits, ready to tap one s left shoulder, where a mountain changes into an enormous field of tiny dots of light, where a bush changes into a strange, convulsing, dying animal, where a coyote transforms into a luminous effervescent being. They aren't simple hallucinations. Carlos at last discovers that his original interest in psyche delic plants is immaterial to the real knowledge don Juan is trying to leach him : how to be a w arrior and how to "slop the world" in order to "see" rather than just look. and. perhaps, eventually how to become a "man of know ledge." Like Castaneda s previous works. "Journey to Ixtlan." is easy, entertaining, fascinat ing reading It not only makes one thinks, but also question one's own secure beliefs in what is real and what is not. Ion Juan continues to get a kick out of Carlos' antics, and Carlos continues to be amazed at don Juan's perceptions and control over situations For tunately, this book is more don Juan and a little less Carlos, yet one still must admire Carlos for being so frank about his stupendous clumsi ness and insensitivity For the third lime he can't handle it and runs at the crucial moment, saying "It was not my time Not yet." At least that ensures a good market for his next book, and if you've read this far. you're probably hooked. -BB COW POKES , tJBtTTTiiZ By Ace Reid MO- f, I "Wul, if somebody would help me tighten this cinch. I believe I've got em!" GAZETTE-TIMES MORROW COUNTY'S NEWSPAPE AMrtm: llJ.Htwmr, Ort.tftM, Ph ;-t?a TkcMMHrGin wm tOtftiiUwd Mrch M, IMJ Tim Hmw Trnwi nlifr ; MMM II mi. CHMlUtt1Fk 15. tl2. MEMBER: NtllMUl flmiptm : Avwv. Ornm Niiiii PttMitrwrs Aim. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: S pr rwiri OrM. Mtlttwhart. iiKfM aay. IK. . MMitO wf cv. lie. Miinri killing. ! I. EmeitV. Jmr. Pnbkittr THt 6in Tifflt iiuoih no fHuncjjl rtUMRubilitY tor rnr m Mvvrtitt-' mots It wrfl. hwvr, rtrii wrtMwt hf r cct m clwr tor Nat par '. hum 4 tt &nntmml artuck a m rrr H TM & jtrflo Tiirm n at twit. Mayor of Hardman DEAR MISTER EDITOR: There's a lot of things to be said in favor of March, but general speaking the weather ain't one of em. In most of the country (his is when winter gits in a few last licks and spring ain't as quick coming around as we'd like. The fellers at the country store Saturday night was in a mood as changeable as the weather. There was Ed Doolittle, fer instant. Ed said he Is alius , stove up with a cold this time of year on account his old lady tells him to wear to much clothes. Ed said she bundles htm up whenever he goes outdoors, and then he works up a sweat, takes off a sweater or two, then gits chilled and spends the night sneezing. Ed said fer shore he wasn't Included in a health survey he saw the results of in the papers recent. A six-year checking of 7,000 people, Ed reported, showed that the best perfection agin catching a cold was to be over 60 year old, to be fairly well to do, to never work on Monday and to be married with no more than two children. Ed allowed that the report went on to say somepun about sycosomatic illness, which means if you think you're catching cold you are. Ed said he didn't understand that, but that the survey left him out on the well off part. Ed said he alius had f iggered that a head cold was about the only thing in this world that picks on the just and unjust, the rich and the pore. Gem Webster said he was in a hurry fer spring so he could see if any postmen got up nerve to wear them knee pants they got permission to wear last summer. Clem was of a mind that men has been gitting sissier ever since they left the watch pocket off their trousers and stopped striking matches on the seat of their pants. Clem said one thing fer shore is that if grown men start wearing short pants for everday work, he ain't going to be able to laugh at his old lady's Easter hats any more. General speaking, the fellers was agreed with Clem's words about men's fashion, It were Zeke Grubb that allowed no self respecting men at all and very few circus clowns would be caught in some of the outfits you see passing fer men clothes nowadays. Zeke said with the long hair, high heels, six-inch cuffs in the bell bottom pants, and the wildflower shirts the men today look like the wimmen did afore they all took to wearing blue jeans and men's work shirts. Speaking of wimmen. Bug Hook urn said he had heard a rumor that the big oil companies were going to stop using credit cards The reasoning. Bug allowed, is that they can sell all the gas they can make fer cash at whatever price they want, so why bother with all the extry paperwork of sending out bills ever month. Bug was of a mind that would slop the country dead in her tracks SVimmen buy everything on credit, said Bug, and they got to have them gas cards to git to where the bargins are Wimmen saying "charge it" holds America together, was Bug's words. Yours truly, MAYOR ROY. rX ft-' Perils to the Jewish BY l.FSTr.RKIVNOl.VIV; One of ecclesiastical history's oddest couplings is the current romance between the hyper-Fundamentalist 'hate your parents" Children of God cult and Libya's nitwit Moslem dictator. Muanimer Qaddufi Qaddafi. according to "The London Times," has been identified by the five Palestinians who murdered :tl civilians in the Rome Airport as having not only bankrolled them, hut having planned as well to kill Secretary f State Henry Kissinger. The comparatively less lethal Children of Ciod, now spread abroad from Texas and California, have been officially investigated by the Charity Frauds Bureau of the New York State Atturney General's Office. A 23-page report from Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz' office cites: intensive brainwashing, refusal to permit court officers and police officials to gain access to records, involuntary imprisonment and possible violation of domestic relations law through common law marriages." What is of far more serious peril to the Jewish communit v -- whether in Israel or the L'.S is how Moslem oil and money is affecting Congress t And how it could further affect it -- by means of future campaign financing ) Take Senator James Aboure.k fDem., South Dakota' for an example Though he is the only member of the senate who is of Arab ancestry this parents are Lebanese) and though he is listed as a member of the strongly anti-Israel Syrian Orthodox (now called the Anliochan Orthodox! Church, Abourezk was able to obtain Jewish support for this election campaign for the senate in li)72. For he promised in writing "to promote a just and lasting peace settlement in the Middle East " Hardly a year later, however, the newly-elected senator from South Dakota told me - in the presence of two witnesses: 1 "I know that Israel drove out several million Arabs that they forcibly ejected from their homes . . . The I'nited Nations never formally recognized the partition of Palestine." 2. "I have never heard of any Arab government leaders calling for the annihilation of either the Israelis or their government . . . Last summer in Lebanon, I had extensive discussions with some of the Al Fatah people. Fatah is very much opposed to terrorism." Last December, after testifying and voting against military aid to embattled Israel. Senator Abourezk was sent on another trip to the Middle East -- this time at the taxpayers' expense. He was sent by order of the chairman of Ihe Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee - Senator Henry ("Scoop"! Jackson (D-Wash ). Senator Jackson is a supposed friend of Israel. Wrhen Senator Abourezk (who does not belong to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) returned to the U.S., he told the Washington Press Club on Feb. 6: "I am told by the Arabs that the reason that Ihey were shelling from the Golan Heights was . . . the Syrians to prevent the law of squatters' rights from taking effect started lobbing shells down on those settlers." If this "justification" of Syrian shelling of Jewish farm families for 20 years was not fantastic enough to match the general tenor of Arab propaganda. Senator Abourezk offered more and better. For he also passed along the information that many Arabs believe that behind Arab terrorism is a secret force: Israeli Intelligence. Then, after denouncing "tin horn dictatorships" in Greece Brazil and Chile, the senator, when asked about Arab dictatorships, huffily described them as "monarchies " Considering the fact that he is a freshman senator Abourezk has been extraordinarily well paid for his lecturing - such as the $10,000 he took in for just one engagement (in the heavily Arab area of Detroit ). While Abourezk had one of the senate's worst attendance records, he made $w ooo for 13 lectures in 1973 - or $20,000 more than Senator George McGovern made for making 19 lectures (and havinc a f ir better senate attendance record i. '
