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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 2001)
Page 2 The INDEPENDENT, December 5, 2001 The INDEPENDENT Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published twice monthly, on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge Street, Ver nonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper. Editors and Pub lishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax: 503-429- 9410, e-mail: noni@ vernonia.com OH NO ! Wrr UA& WE Opinion With friends like this who needs enemies? Apparently Attorney General John Ashcroft doesn’t have anything important to do. In between providing absolutely no direction in find ing the source of anthrax that’s floating around our post offices, and deciding that public records should no longer be public, and fighting terrorism by using meth ods the Taliban would be proud of, he decided that Oregon doctors should be prosecuted if they adhere to an Oregon law he disapproves of. Yes, his statement said he made the decision. There was no “they,” no consultation, no discussion. This is n’t surprising, really, because he did the same thing, as a Senator, when he blocked the appointment of Mis souri Judge Ronnie White to a federal post. That one was a beauty! He asked no questions and made no statements opposing White during the hearings of the Judiciary Committee. Then, when the nomination went to the floor of the Senate, he attacked the judge for be ing soft on crime. Of course the reason he waited until it went to the floor is because White couldn’t respond there, as he could have in committee. In somewhat archaic terminology that’s called a “Sunday Punch.” In other words, he blind-sided White, he blind-sided Oregon voters, and he is blind-siding the Bill of Rights. Most of us learned as children that only bullies hit people when they aren’t looking. If nothing else, he has certainly opened our eyes. Thanks you, Gladys and Debbie, for your efforts The cooking column so faithfully submitted each month by Gladys Sharar will no longer be quite the same. Gladys’s last column is in this issue. There will be a cooking column, however, and it won’t be totally different. Gladys’ daughter, Debbie Johnston, is taking over where her Mom left off. Thank you, Gladys, for your commitment and the in credible contribution you have made over so many years. You will stay in our hearts. And thank you, Debbie, for continuing the tradition. We can always open our hearts wide enough for one more. By Dale Webb, member Nehalem Valley Chapter Izaak Walton League I have always found that Vernonians are the nicest people; we treat everyone as if they were our brothers or sisters. W hat brings this to mind is a couple of events that occurred this year dur ing deer season. We all know about our celebri ty neighbor who owns Larry Steele’s Sports Camp on Keasey Road. I have met Larry on sev eral occasions and he seems like a nice, likable guy. He seems just like the rest of us when he in teracts with the locals. I guess that’s why we don’t treat him any differently than our regular neighbors. The first event, related to me by an eye w it ness, occurred just before dark. It seems some locals had been hunting all day and, upon driving by Larry’s, they saw one of his pet does. Know ing Larry wouldn’t mind, they stopped in the roadway and shot the doe. As the next door neighbor walked up to the hunters, for some rea son, they seemed to be in a hurry. They were try ing to load the kicking and bawling doe into the back of their pickup. The neighbor suggested they should finish the deer off and started talking with the hunters about how neighborly it was of Larry to let them hunt on his land, even though his buildings were only a hundred yards or so away. The second event was nearly the same as the first, except the neighbor still wonders how the hunters could see, since it was almost dark. Hearing the shot almost in his front yard, Larry’s neighbor walked across the roadway to congrat ulate the successful hunters. This time, the sportsmen and women were wandering around Larry’s place looking for their trophy doe. Upon seeing the neighbor, these sportspeople discon tinued their search and decided to leave the doe for Larry - a present I’m sure (The gun-shot doe was found the next day by the neighbor.). The neighbor mentioned new signs around the prop erty that say something about “No Trespassing," but these sportspeople said that a neighbor on Eden Road had given them permission to hunt “on Larry’s.” Oh yeah, I forgot, that’s how we do it in these parts. I am sure that Larry is going to be a staunch supporter of hunting rights the next time there is an anti-hunting ballot up for a vote. Who knows, with neighbors like us, he might even support our cause financially. W hat do you think? The deer season went just about as I had pre dicted. Buck harvest seemed lower, a fact con firmed by our local butcher, who noted a signifi cant decline in meat brought in for grinding. My other prediction that the buck harvest would be lopsided toward older bucks was also borne out. I kept my ears open for all buck harvests and came up with 26. The breakdown was nine 4- point, eight 3-point and nine forked horns. I group deer in two categories, young bucks and older bucks. To me, the young bucks are the lit tle forked horns, yearlings and two-year-olds. The three and four-point bucks and the big forked horns (greater than 14-inch spread) are the older bucks. If we put the 26 bucks above into these groupings, we find that 73 percent, or 19, of the bucks fell in the older category. Only seven (27 percent) fell into the small forked horn Please see page 12
