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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 1995)
f The INDEPENDENT, January 25,1995 By Nancy Burch, Librarian Vernonia Public Library At present, your local library is in posses sion of eight of the New York Times 10 best sellers in the fiction category, as well as four of the 10 best sellers of mystery. Additionally, several of the top nonfiction books and most of last week’s best selling paperbacks are available for your reading pleasure. Don’t you think it’s great that the readers of Vernonia have the very newest reading material right at their fingertips? In The Lottery Winner, ranked seventh on the list, Mary Higgins Clark has compiled a collection of interelated stories involving the lovable detecting team of Alvirah and Willy Meechan. This book is unlike her others in that each of the six short mysteries is com plete in itself. It also reflects more of Clark’s wit than usual. These beguiling characters and their escapades keep the reader superbly entertained and no Mary Higgins Clark fan should miss it. The Celestine Prophecy, Debt of Honor, In som nia, Wings, The B ridges o f M adison County, Dark Rivers o f the Heart, and The Chamber are other best sellers to be found In the local library. In the mystery category, Patricia Cornwell has three books that are currently best sellers. Her protagonist, forensic sleuth Kay Scarpet- ta, can be found in all of her books, including A ll That Remains, Cruel and Unusual, and Body of Evidence. Cornwell states, “If I want a character to do or know something, I try to do or know the same thing.” To that end, she worked for six years in the office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia, wit nessing hundreds of autopsies. She continues to train and study at the FBI Academ y in Quantico. Cornwell also continues to bring her gritty realism to the public with her latest re lease, The Body Farm, which is available in the library. Jonathan Kellerm an, is another author whose* own background allows him to delve deeply into the background of his characters and the situations they find themselves in. Kellerman was a distinguished child psycholo gist who now writes fiction full-time. He has merged the science of psychology and the art of fiction to create situations full of gripping suspense to which his character, psychologist- detective Alex Delaware, must find answers and resolutions. When a recurring nightmare of a juror in the agonizing murder trial of a se rial killer causes the juror to seek Delaware’s help, a strong possibility develops that she has repressed a childhood memory of some thing very real—something like a murder. Self Defense, Kellerman’s newest novel of psycho logical suspense is second on the mystery best seller list and can also be found in your local library. Libra ry Hours: Monday and Friday 1-5 p.m „ Wednesday 9 a.iri.-5 p.mM Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p m P reschool Story Time: every Wednesday from 10:30-11 a.m. Hurry...Final week of our 1 /2 PRICE SHOE SALE Prices Reduced Even Lewerll TONY’S SHOES 1620 COLUMBIA BOULEVARD, ST. HELENS (yJHusqvarna Our Most Popular 20" Chainsaw! Model 51 •51 cc. 3.1 HP • 20" bar and chain •A ir Injection™ to run 20 times cleaner Runs 20 times longer between air filter changes! Versatile & Reliable Featuring Air Injection s$>°. Sale Ends Jan. 31,1995 You'll never see this saw at this price again! VERNONIA AUTO PARTS AND SAW SHOP 429-2311 • 429-NAPA 292 Bridge Street, Vernonia, OR 97064 * ★ * * * * 11 Enjoys reading The INDEPENDENT To the Editor: Just a note to let you know how much I enjoy reading your paper. I think Vernonia is the most b e a u tifu l o f all c itie s in Columbia County. I like how you include all school and community events in your paper. Thank you for such a won derful newspaper! Sincerely, Marion Klecker Scappoose Use scien ce, not name-calling To the Editor: A pparently, D ennis N el son’s fame is growing. His lat est critic is from Corvallis. Mr. Christiansen’s creden tials as a forester are very im pressive and extensive. He would seem to be in a good position to refute Nelson from the standpoint of forest sci ence, but instead all he did was engage in name-calling and denigration. If Mr. Chris tiansen has superior knowl edge, why does he not share that with us? T h is a p p ro a ch is a te x t book example of what is tech nically termed ad hominem. This is the case where one attacks the messenger rather than the m essage. A good high scho ol d e b a te r could quickly dispose of Mr. Chris- By David Michael Jones, member Isaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter I have a confession to make. I love choco late with my coffee. Not just a little chocolate, like in the chocolate chip cookies that I asked by wife to quit making for my own good, but a good bar of dark chocolate per cup. I’ve tried to quit, but it seems I’m addicted. When I driftboat fish, I often mix instant cof fee and instant chocolate for a coffee-mocha type drink that fulfills my “need” and runs the oars for a while. In an attempt to cut down on the amount of caffeine and chocolate, I went back on my property on Rock Creek and dipped a pot in the coffee-colored stream, fig uring that’d have the color and I could adjust the taste. Didn’t work quite the way I planned it. It seems the coffee or chocolate-colored water in Rock Creek was all gritty and silted up. Tasted terrible. I didn’t like it at all. But that’s okay, I don’t have to live in it. I don’t have to live in it. But who or what does? Fish, crayfish, insects and other living things too small to see. Fish eat insects in or der to live and grow, especially little fish. Now there have been occasions when I’ve talked to fish. You know how it is when one breaks your line and swims away with an im pudent tail flip. Well, you kinda talk to them, ad m itted ly not in a Sunday-church-going- voice, but you do talk to them. This really seems to be a day for confessions: I’ve talked to insects. One time I reached around a snag to grab my choker and came up with an arm full of yellowjackets and I talked to those bugs. Boy, did I talk to those bugs! Other bugs I have talked to are the large salm onflys or stoneflys that fly into me as I’m riding my bike on Rock Creek Road. In an attempt to balance my angry conversations with bugs, I have tried Page 3 tiansen as a person more in terested in obfuscation than the truth, whatever that may be. Bob Ragsdale Vernonia Christiansen letter warrants response To the Editor: In response to Mr. Chris tiansen’s letter (The INDE PENDENT 1/11/95), I would like to say that he has mas tered the politically correct clichés used by all timber in dustry propagandists. They are designed to confirm pre- jucide, inspire anger, close m inds and id en tify scap e goats. Mr. C hristiansen’s disre gard for, and lack of curiosity about, the biological founda tion of forestry is characteris tic of a mindset which is fo cused on the production of logs. His “long view” of the curre nt debate is ty p ic a lly short-sighted when applied to a forest that normally oper ates in 500 year to 1,000 year cycles. My g ra n d fa th e r also worked in the Tillamook burn. This tragedy was a direct re sult of unwise industrial activi ty. More than 99 percent of the old growth in Columbia County is gone. The native second growth is rapidly be ing liquidated. Genetically al tered, single specie planta tions that can only be main tained by the use of p e s ti cides, herbicides and chemi- Please see page 11 to seek out the slender winter stonefly that is common in Western rivers and has an emer gence date of January 1st. I have been unable to find this oxygen-loving [common?] stonefly, but then, perhaps I can’t see it since it is a brown color. Or could it be that the nymphal stage of this insect, which lives in stream leaf debris, is suffocated by the silt? Maybe the fish know. Further streamside conversations with fish have revealed that the silt stresses the fish by getting in their gills and making it harder for them to breathe, so they speculate that the silt and mud probably kill the stoneflys. Many fish never even get bom because the silt suffocates the eggs, which must breathe in order for the fish to hatch out of the gravel where the eggs are laid. For those that hatch, the quest for food is compli cated by restricted visibility and, when a fin gerling fish seeks the side eddies to rest, they find the eddies silted in, as are a lot of small side channels and creeks that are needed for resting and living places. “Well, hey, why don’t you just get up and move to another drainage? You mean you can’t get up and walk like the walking catfish I’ve read about? So you’re stuck here, Mr. Salmon and Mrs. Steelhead, and there is noth ing you can do about your living conditions ex cept try to clean the mud out of your nests when you lay your eggs. “Well, I’d really like to help, but I’ve got trou bles of my own. Baby needs a new pair of shoes; the truck’s darn near on empty; I gotta throw another log on the fire to heat some wa ter for coffee. “Say, could you use a cup of coffee-mocha? I can at least do that much for you. Oh, you say you have enough chocolate in your water. Well, don’t say I didn’t offer. I’ll see ya around. “Really? You don’t think so, why is that?” '4 9 <
