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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