For some time now I’d been feeling a pull to have some solitude. Occasionally this is possible near our urban area even though I usually prefer going to the mountains. The regional park across the Willamette River is often very crowded on a nice day. The forecast was for 87-degree weather, not the best for hiking, but the parking lot was filling at 9:30 a.m.

Within 20 minutes I was beyond the main, graveled, trail to the summit of Mt. Pisgah and pleased to be dodging poison oak bushes, shiny reddish spring growth reaching out into the trail. It was quiet. No dogs straining at their leashes, no one sweating their way along beside me. The grass was bright green, camas showing as many seeds as flowers, a few patches of pink plectritis below the narrow trail. The pathway crosses open grassy space and a tiny stream, that will soon be dry, before entering a heavily wooded area where Douglas fir competes for space with big leaf maple and ash. It was cool and dark here and I took off my hat and dark glasses as I zig-zagged up the hill; then another bright green meadow before entering a second patch of forest.

The trail emerges about three-quarters of the way up the mountain toward the summit and winds through much drier conditions on the southwest slope. Here poison oak bushes were way above my head, fortunately well off the trail, and I saw a lizard scurry across the rocks. Here too I met the only people I saw on this trail, two men who were hiking the opposite direction. This is the one stretch of trail where I think about mountain lions. It just looks like good mountain lion country. Sometimes I’ve seen deer and this day I saw deer tracks. There are rocky outcroppings, good for spotting prey below. The hillside above and below the trail is steep with  views down to the valley floor. Just before crossing under power lines there is a spring that is damp most of the year and yesterday was decorated with birth yellow monkey flowers.

From the powerline to my goal of a peripheral stream as a lunch stop, the trail deteriorated even further. It really needs brushing and some erosion control where winter water runoff has scoured a ditch in the topsoil between relatively smooth rock surfaces. Approaching the stream area I could see white blossoms on ceanothus bushes (buckbrush) and, as the heat had increased coming down the mountain, I was happy to hear and then see water in the creek. This small stream will be dry earlier than usual this year because of our low rainfall.  This is the same place I saw a coyote a couple of years ago but today my only wildlife was a towhee buzzing warnings from his perch amid the ceanothus flowers.

I am firmly convinced that finding solitude in the outdoors is what keeps me sane, particularly if part of that experience includes running water. I found a rock perch, partially shaded by an ash tree and delved into food and drink. The only sound was the gurgling stream giving a silky sheen to smoother rocks and bubbling over others in little cascades. Water striders skittered across the more placid pools.

After lunch I took my boots off and cooled my feet. A mountain stream would have been bone-aching cold but this little creek had been running through open, sunny areas and though cool was not cold. When I stood up I noticed two equestrians, who soon disappeared, riding up the trail I’d come down. Refreshed, I gathered up my belongings and followed the stream a short distance to where the path crossed it. Here was a little pool separate from the creek and fed by seeps from a boggy area. And in this little pool were pollywogs. I hope they become adults before the water evaporates. Just then, something hopped from the grass onto the edge of the creek—a bright green Pacific tree frog, like a jade carving against the dark rock. I snapped a quick picture before it jumped into the stream and wriggled between some rocks.

From this spot I walked back into the meadow, where camas was still blooming, and took a different trail that I knew soon paralleled the Willamette River on a mostly shaded, though muddy, pathway and would eventually bring me back to my car. The little creek follows along the path for about a quarter mile before running into the river.

Finally I emerged into a large meadow that is being restored as flood plain and it was here that I met two different runners sweating along on this hot afternoon. From there on people were out enjoying the day, although to me the heat was beginning to feel oppressive.

It is important to be grateful for those days that we are able to be outside. To be grateful for our sight and to truly see that which is around us. I saw very few birds but did see towhees, juncos, a turkey vulture soaring overhead, two lizards, and a frog. There were monkey flowers, trilliums almost past, camas, white fuzzy cats’ ears, ceanothus, fern fronds curling up toward the sun; new, soft green tips to the fir branches, bright green meadows, moss and licorice ferns on tree trunks and water reflecting the sky. To be grateful for our hearing–I heard a black-headed grosbeak singing from the top of a tree in the forested area, the buzzing warning call of towhee, the leaves disturbed by a lizard, the wind softly stirring the trees and the greeting from the two other hikers. And the silence.

My mother died in March of 1998 and today I finally sorted and shredded the last of a box that held some of my own files plus a few of hers–one of those boxes that floats about in an attic or a garage or some hidden corner. I also have been copying pictures of her ancestors that I am fortunate to have and several pages of what she remembered about family history.

The papers in the box included her death certificate, copies of pharmacy bills, income (mostly outgo), some of the assisted living bills (a couple with terse notes of refusal from me to give permission to release certain information), her prepaid cremation bills, etc.

I also have some letters of hers that she wrote to her parents when she had two little boys and I was on the way. The mixture of reading does strange things to both head and heart and it takes some willpower to remind myself to be living my own life while, at the same time, honoring hers. To pay close attention to the now.

Seeing her life as a young woman, at least as she portrayed it through her letters and through some others of her writing, makes me wish I’d paid more attention to what she used to tell us but we are kind of self-fixated in our teens and then busy with our own lives and families later. Maybe it takes a certain ripening time to have that curiosity about our parents come to the surface. Of course this brings back memories from, as she would have said, “long ago and far away”–the times and activities that I do remember growing up and even knowing her as an adult, although by the time I was less busy with my own family she had suffered a stroke and communication was more difficult.

There must be some really strong genetic force going on from one generation to the next through her side of the family to be compelled to write. My siblings and I are all quite verbal as well as writers and some of this has extended to the next generation after us. For me writing helps me keep track of my life and who I am. This “who I am” does a lot of changing over the years and looking back I sometimes find myself thinking, “Oh, that was an interesting chapter”.

We had a celebration of life for her here and, in these same files, I came across photos that a former sister-in-law, and others, had taken. We weren’t a family that had reunions, and get-togethers seemed to occur only at weddings and deaths. My former in-laws had gatherings several times a year for all those who could attend, a good lesson for me in the value of family gatherings, and one that I think my children will be more inclined to continue. My eldest brother showed some of our mother’s slides, photos of when we were still living at home, accompanied by classical music. I played my accordion and my youngest brother and his wife danced a polka. It was a good party. Our mother would have enjoyed it.

February is a short month and this year seemed even shorter because of the snowstorm followed by freezing rain that took so many branches and trees in the Willamette Valley. February also brought another loss.

It was in early February that I heard Dave was very ill with ALS. I sent him an email and he said he couldn’t talk well so emails were better than phone calls. I notified a couple other people who had worked with him and they sent emails to him as well, expressing their concern. Along with my email I sent a couple of photos I’d taken.

It’s a struggle that differs each day. My eyesight is going because of the muscles in my eyes.
I’m still driving though, I drive around in nature, I call it GOD’S TV.
Thank you so much for your offerings,

I first met Dave when I went to work for Easter Seals Oregon at a job here in Eugene that was meant to be for only a short while. I’d just left a fulltime job that was fairly demanding and doing clerical work half-time seemed like a good way to spend some time working for a good cause while looking for other work. I ended up working full time and staying for 10 years and added community outreach to my job description.

At that time Dave was site manager and custodian at the facility, which served senior citizens as well as many people of all ages and all abilities. Within a year our boss had left and Easter Seals was going to either shut the place down or sell to someone. They were closing many facilities because of financial problems. Clients were determined to keep the 92-degree, wheel-chair accessible pool running and raised enough money to keep it going for a while. I won’t go into details but the facility was sold and the pool kept running as a separate non-profit.

As time went on there were three of us and a supportive board running the pool. Our other co-worker, Diane, was in charge of pool staff and supervising chemicals. We called ourselves The Three Musketeers. It was a time of high stress and was a bit like supporting a family without enough money. Finances were grim. Through it all Dave saw the glass as half full.

I learned early on that Dave loved the pool and what it could do for the clients. And he loved the clients, all ages…all abilities. I didn’t know much about him outside of the job although he told us some really entertaining and sometimes wild stories of his youth. He played guitar and had friends who got together to sing and play. He liked good beer. He loved his wife, son, and grandchildren. He spoke of coming from a family with many siblings and of reunions. He was an interesting mix of contradictions. Dave wore a special bracelet that was supposed to keep one healthy. And he and I had an on-going but light-hearted disagreement about the validity of the moon landing. Politically, even with my left tilt, he leaned to the left further than anyone else I’d ever known.

I can’t play guitar now. But the pictures I love.
Thanks,

Diane left to go back to school and Dave became the person in charge of the pool. He studied for the exam and was licensed to do the pool chemicals, which now included salt water and ultra-violet light. He was in charge of the lifeguards, the condition of the pool, maintaining the facility indoors and out, and was the “go-to” person for special events, ideas on fund-raising, etc. It was hard at first for him to learn that to be the boss you can’t always be a friend. He taught himself how to use a computer. And if you gave a talk for an organization, you wanted him to be along to tell some of the good client success stories. He was generally cheerful and had a ready smile. He couldn’t sit still for long and with cell phone to his ear would race from one problem to the next. But above all Dave was a man of integrity.

I remember one special client who also loved the pool, supported it financially, and faithfully used it to maintain her health. She thought the world of him and vice-versa but once, when she was too overbearing with others in her class, he gave her a time-out for a few weeks. He could do that and still be loved and respected by her. His heart was enormous and his compassion overflowing for those less fortunate.

Things changed. We did get another good person (Thank you, Pat!) who took care of data entry and scholarships. But our once cheerful office became much less so. I went from working two days a week to retiring. Someone else was put in Dave’s position and he began to work elsewhere, coming in only to do the site management and chemicals.

The morning of February 24th: Thanks for all the emails. I can’t type well now, because of my vision and my hands. If I don’t answer keep them coming. 

I thought that if driving around looking at scenery was what Dave had wanted to do as eminent death approached, then maybe more photos, my feeble attempt to bring some of “God’s TV” to him, would be comforting and immediately sent a variety of pictures.

The next afternoon came the phone call that he had gone to the hospital the night of the 24th and had died that morning. My regrets? That I hadn’t gone to see him (I’d asked just before his last note if there was a good time) and lieu of that hadn’t sent a letter telling him what a terrific person he was.

R.I.P. Dave………

I hope you are being appreciated in a place of beauty with a good guitar and plenty of beer.

Sometimes  brown manila envelopes bring back some pleasant memories of long-ago events. I’ve been trying to go through some of my overly numerous paper possessions and now and then there are surprises.

Yesterday I opened an envelope to find a number of water-color paintings and a few pencil sketches that I created many years ago. I think most were done during high school years and perhaps a few when I was in community college (called junior college then). And most were on rough, gray paper that has darkened with the passage of time.

A couple of these are not bad but most I will toss. What I remember from this though is that during one of my high school years, perhaps the senior year, my two class advisors let me skip study hall, where I couldn’t get anything done anyway, and go to the empty home economics room to try to paint and draw. It was a wonderful escape time for me. It was a small high school in Dunsmuir, California. The pictures that I did there were mostly copying wildlife paintings by other people, if memory serves me correctly. Most of the wildflower pictures I did at home during high school summers. A few of the better ones may have been as a young adult.

There is a mule deer skull drawing that might have been done during a college zoology class and a pinecone that may have been from a dendrology class.

I haven’t painted or drawn anything for years! I do remember, when I was the mother of very small children, painting illustrations of plants used by Native Americans for the Historical Society Museum in Weaverville, California squirreling in some time after they were all asleep at night.

Brings back appreciation for those two teachers, Mrs. Samuelson (who taught home economics and who sometimes worked at her desk when I was there) and Mr. Wright (who taught algebra, geometry, trigonometry and English).

Yesterday folk-singer Pete Seeger died at the age of 94 and today many of us are posting our memories and our thoughts about him on Facebook and elsewhere. Unlike some of the writers I never had the pleasure of seeing Seeger perform in person. But he occupied an important place in our household when my first husband and I were married, and our children were raised with many of his songs. Later John Denver joined our albums. Somewhere during this time came the Clancy Brothers and Harry Belafonte. I’ve also always like Swiss and Scottish music. All that mixed with classical albums. But Pete Seeger was one of a kind.

It was from Seeger’s album of How to Play the 5-String Banjo that the children’s father learned to play and although his repertoire was small he learned those few pieces and the accompanying words quite well. Old Dan Tucker was one of his favorites. I played an accordion, mostly polkas, Irish music, a few folks songs, but did not have the capacity to sing as well as play. For me it was too much like patting one’s head and rubbing one’s belly at the same time. He was good at it.

As the children grew older some of these songs helped us get through road trips and livened up the days of young childhood at home. I still have several of Seeger’s records including two children’s records Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Little Fishes and Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Bigger Fishes. They include such songs as Fly Through My  Window, I had a Rooster, Frog Went A-Courtin’, I Know an Old Lady, Skip to My Lou in the Little Fishes album and The Keeper and the Doe, The Fox, The Frog and Old Blue in the Bigger Fishes. The Little Fishes album cover is held together by masking tape. Peggy Seeger’s children’s album is also in my collection.

There was a time when people like Pete Seeger, Joan Baize, the Weavers and others were able to express through their music much of what some of us had trouble expressing in the spoken language. He spent his whole life addressing social issues through song. What a different place this world would be if all humanity could do that!

I must admit it brings tears to see people whose words and music were such an important part of my life disappearing. My children remember Pete Seeger’s music and their father’s ability to sing and play. Their children won’t have these memories although I’m sure they will have their own nostalgia. Perhaps I just haven’t been exposed to them and am just showing my elder-person bias but, so far as I know, none have since performed with such talent and meaning.

With a song Pete Seeger helped clean the Hudson River. Just that one deed could be a sufficient accomplishment in a person’s life. But he helped “overcome” or bring to attention many more important social issues in his lifetime. He was there. And he noticed. And he sang.

Winter Hike

Looking toward the east

I’m thinking of walking across the thick layer of fog

that lies just beneath this sunlit crest.

I’m thinking of leaping,

of bounding,

each step springing me higher

above the creamy softness

as I cross the valley that lies 1,000 feet below.

I will reach the horizon’s snow-capped peaks in moments.

Such are dreams,

but I am wide awake

having just emerged from the cold, damp darkness

that has been our lot for days now;

having witnessed bars of sunlight filtering through

the clutching fog near the summit;

having heard the cries of joy from others

who gather here,

who drink thirstily from the brightness.

Surely anything is possible

if begun on this rounded hilltop

where sun warms body and soul.

My thermos of hot tea and bites of a late lunch

are not nearly as nourishing as is this gift.

“Andy be careful!” a mother calls to her child

when he approaches the wispy edge.

Perhaps this is her first visit.

Perhaps she thinks that below

that vital meeting place of slope and cloud

lies a steep cliff

and below that an icy lake

or a storm-tossed sea

or, at the very least, an unknown–

dragons perhaps.

I think of calling across to tell her all is well

but sometimes we each must

find our own way.

Three geese fly across, dark silhouettes against the shimmering white,

heading west around the south end of the mountain.

Shortly they return, wing north,

swerve again to the west and disappear behind the trees.

Sorting through some boxes a few days ago  I came across a bright orange “D” wrapped in tissue paper, a relic from my days at Dunsmuir High School. There were 38 students in my graduating class.

Today, women playing competitive sports are not unusual. Haven’t they always played? No, indeed. When I was in high school (1952-1956) girls in our school played only within the school. We didn’t travel. Perhaps we were lucky, at that time, even to be given opportunities outside of the gym classes.

I was never that good at sports but loved to play. After all, I’d grown up with three brothers and we’d always lived outside of town so my presence as a person to fill a position was at least grudgingly appreciated. We played baseball (workup), football, and basketball. Our dad had put up a basketball net along the edge of the parking lot at  the shop building at Castle Crags State Park where we lived. We hiked, skied, and swam occasionally in the Sacramento River or in a very cold, spring-fed pool near Castle Creek, outside of the park.

There were limited sports available for high school boys. I don’t remember there being tennis courts at our school but we played badminton in the gym. Nor do I remember a track. There was a field of some sort and downtown a football/baseball field near the swimming pool. In looking through the yearbook I see no baseball or track photos, just football and basketball (perhaps a reader can correct me on this).

Our girls’ teams were allowed to use the gymnasium for games during the lunch hour and more than once we got in trouble for being late to the next class after playing, showering and eating during this one hour. I played basketball and volleyball during these times. I participated in athletics all four years and my photo is in the yearbook, along with the rest of those who belonged to Girls D, wearing my borrowed sweater. Such things as class sweaters and class rings were not in the family budget during those lean times. In some ways it was good that we didn’t have funding for girls to play other schools because I wouldn’t have been able to stay after school to practice nor been allowed to go out of town for games. Our parents told one of my brothers he could play basketball if he could fine a way home after practice. For three weeks he ran the six miles home, sometimes along railroad tracks, and taking shortcut through the woods. It was too much.

Title IX came into being in 1972 and required gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding. Up until then the primary physical activities for girls were “cheerleading and square-dancing” according to one source. Only one in 17 girls played high school sports before passage of the bill. Senator Birch Bay of Indiana was the author and chief Senate sponsor of Title IX.

Yet today there are still some quibbles about this bill, which also addressed other activities such as access to higher education, career education, math and science, etc. Some think it takes funding from men’s sports by requiring equal funding. Some think it doesn’t go far enough. I’m sure this legislation will continue to evolve.

As for me, when I watch women playing sports–and I especially like to watch volleyball or downhill skiing or track–or when I see my eldest granddaughter playing soccer, I  nearly always think “YES! You go girl”.

“Thank you for making me drag my butt up here,” a man’s voice said. Wow! When you hear something like that you know the view is terrific and it’s not just your own personal bias.

We’ve had a week of mostly cold and fog, even though the forecasts all say a cheery “Sunny”. Christmas Day was no exception. So this afternoon, I decided that if people around me are to survive, I needed to find sun. In the parking lot of the Mt. Pisgah Arboretum, a rather scruffy fellow driving a rather scruffy older model VW bug (my first car was a bug so I’m quite fond of them, scruffy or not) smiled and said, “There’s sunlight up on top. It’s beautiful!”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” I answered. I unlocked my car, reached in and grabbed one of my poetry books to give to him in gratitude. Hope he likes at least one poem.

Howard Buford Recreation Area’s major feature is 1,516 ft. Mt. Pisgah This is a regional park, owned and operated by Lane County Parks, containing 2363 acres located between two forks of the Willamette River. The Arboretum is 210 acres leased to the non-profit Mt. Pisgah Arboretum. The main trail to the summit is located at the Arboretum parking lot although there are two other trails leading to the top as well.

I took the longer route (.4 of a mile longer one way) branching from the main trail because it offers an actual trail, before rejoining the gravel-surfaced main route. It was somewhat surprising to see so many people out on such a cold, gloomy day but I suspect they were all hiking with the same goal as I had. SUN!!

Winding up the mountain it was hard to see more than 75-100 feet ahead. Trees were ghostly shapes emerging from the fog and then disappearing almost immediately after I passed. As I walked next to trees, I thought it might be raining because there was a constant patter like raindrops on leaves. This turned out to be frozen droplets melting from the tree branches as the day warmed ever so slightly. As I neared the summit the fog thinned and soon rays of light beamed across the pathway.

And then there it was. Blue sky! Sunlight! And the excited voices of children and adults exclaiming over the miracle that greeted us. We were on a small island surrounded by dense fog below. Gone were the farmlands, the buildings, the trees. It looked solid enough to walk upon. Miles away, to the east, were forested mountains and beyond them the snow-covered volcanic peaks of two of the Three Sisters. A little further south was Diamond Peak, also white with snow. To the west was another very large basin of fog with just the top of Spence Butte (2,054 ft), part of a City of Eugene park, forming its own sunny island.

Sitting on one of the two benches that face to the east I took off my pack, took off my gloves, unzipped my jacket, poured a cup of hot tea from my thermos, and ate a late lunch.

The return trip was cold, damp and dreary. But as I write this several hours later, my mind and heart are still filled with sunlight on mountains and the brightness of that silent sea of fog below. The man was correct in thanking his spouse for making him “drag his butt up here.”

My father had a pistol. And he once marched a poacher in to the sheriff, using that pistol as incentive for the poacher to keep walking, when he’d caught him with his bear traps. My dad was a ranger in a northern California state park. I believe he may have owned a 22-rifle as well.

When we were children my three brothers and I played “guns” out in the woods near our house. We’d run through the trees shooting with wooden pistols one of my brothers had carved or shooting imaginary bows and arrows. I’d often circle around to ambush one of them and end up getting distracted by a bird’s nest or a cocoon and carrying it home. But we ran, we hid, we dodged: “Bang, bang, fall down, you’re dead.”

My two older brothers did some deer hunting although one had to stop because of allergies. And when I was in college I dated a fellow who hunted ducks and geese and possibly other things I wasn’t aware of at the time. He also had artistic talent for drawing waterfowl. He took me on a hunting trip once and had me shoot at a coot (mud hen), the first time and the last time that I ever shot at anything alive.

My first husband’s family were descendants of pioneers in Northern California and hunting was a part of their tradition. One fall, before we were married, I was invited to go along on one of their trips. I loved the preliminaries—hiking in to a beautiful spot and staying overnight near an old cabin, the campfire, the wonderful stories. They had even packed in my big accordion so I could play a few tunes.

The next morning we were up before dawn and after bacon, eggs and strong coffee for breakfast, we set out up the trail, speaking in low tones. The sun rose as the hunters in our group spread out to agreed upon sites. My fiance and I crept silently up a hill, edging through or around dense brush until we came to an opening where we could see across a small canyon. We waited, watching and listening. Suddenly, to our right, a large buck appeared. It walked slowly out into the open on the end of a small ridge that dropped off into the canyon below. Slowly he raised his rifle. A shot rang out and the buck fell.

I like venison and learned to appreciate the backstrap and the mincemeat pies that family members made from their hunting excursions. My husband decided he didn’t want to hunt anymore after that trip even though he had often gone with his parents. And a few years later they stopped because there were now so many hunters in the woods that they felt it wasn’t safe. I remember that Vernon, their very good friend and a wonderful teller of stories of the old days, went hunting by himself when he was in his 80s. He had to go just one more time. He got his buck. But he had to come home and get help to carry it out the next day.

One of my brothers gave me a derringer when I was living alone in an apartment in a small town. I got my permit and kept it handy for some time but finally decided that unless I knew ahead of time that bad things were about to happen it would do me no good. Usually when a woman is attacked it’s unexpected and to get a weapon out, a bullet in the chamber, the gun cocked and ready to fire, it would be too late. And the chance of it then being used by the attacker would be high. I sold it. My brother still feels badly about that I think.

After I was married we lived off and on in a very isolated spot. The first year there was no phone. Later there was a phone but it was easy for someone to cut the line way down near the highway at the beginning of our 4-mile road. And, indeed, this happened a couple of times. Not for any reason except vandalism. We had a 22-rifle that I was supposed to use for protection. Again, you’d need to know someone was coming in order to be prepared. The rifle had to be put up high to be out of reach of children. I remember taking it down one night after the children were asleep when we were there by ourselves and firing it into the night just so I would remember how it worked. One year someone broke into the house when we weren’t home and stole that from its place on top of a corner cabinet, wrapped in newspapers, along with a knife or two and a favorite quilt.

One of the boys in a 5th grade class I taught, a sweet kid, was killed several years later when he was hunting with another boy and they were going between the wires on a fence. The other boy’s gun went off accidentally.

This year I’ve had some discussions with family and friends about the merits or lack thereof, of the National Rifle Association (NRA). I’ve decided that, for me, it isn’t the guns themselves (I think it’s fine for people to go hunting, even though that’s not something I’m interested in doing, as long as they eat what they kill). But that organization sets my teeth on edge. This came to a head for me after the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings when one of their vice presidents took to the news to recommend, as he pounded on the podium, that every school have an armed guard. I know a few people quit the NRA after that, and some quit after the NRA came out against improved background checks.

I think originally the NRA probably served a good purpose, uniting hunters and target shooters in an organization that offered support for their sport. But owning guns is no longer primarily for sport or target shooting. We have become a nation of people who see danger around every corner. Not just any danger, but armed and dangerous people who are about to attack. Some parts of some cities probably fit in that category. But by becoming hyper-vigilant and expecting the worst we are painting ourselves into a corner that is surrounded by fear. Yes, fear is a good thing to have in some places. But even with the horrific shootings in recent years our world is still relatively safe. We read about these events and see them replayed over and over again on television so that they seem much more common than they really are.

You can get hit by a car or be in a car wreck any minute. Yet we still walk along roadways and get into our cars to travel. We use seat belts to make it safer. Should I have shot the man who ran a stop sign and totaled my car this year? We require driver’s licenses and obedience of traffic laws. Why not comprehensive background checks to lower the incidence of people with criminal backgrounds or psychological instability being able to get guns so easily?

I am told that there are people trying to eliminate all private citizens from owning a gun. There probably are some of those. But most people who disagree with the NRA are not trying to require that. Just tightening up the laws and requiring background checks any time guns change hands. This isn’t some kind of game we’re playing here. People advocating caution about the proliferation of weapons and advocating more strict background checks are not doing this so NRA advocates can be amused. This isn’t a political move by Democrats and Republicans; people of both persuasions have voiced similar concerns.

The NRA has a frightening amount of power, to my way of thinking. It’s as if it has become a third political party. The organization is very rich and has power over many politicians through threatening to make sure they are not reelected or are, as happened in Colorado, making sure they are recalled. No organization in a democracy should have that kind of power. It might be worrisome if even a charitable organization doing good deeds had that influence.

What kind of nation are we forming if people feel that they have to pack a gun to go about their daily affairs? What kind of people are we who feel it’s ok to draw a gun in the belief that everyone else will be grateful for your protection? Have a gun in your home, if you feel so inclined; keep it locked up except when you are going to use it for some specific purpose. Are you going to answer your door with a loaded gun in hand? Is this the kind of country those Sandy Hook children and their teachers died for? Guns are designed to kill. Go on line and look at this website to see how many children and others die every week because of our fixation. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/18/1261009/–I-can-do-anything-I-want-on-my-property-he-screamed-and-fired-three-more-rounds-GunFAIL-XLVIII?detail=email#

And if you do support the NRA, help those at the top see that you too have concerns. Show that you are tired of the talking heads on various radio and TV programs encouraging us to get out there and start shooting at each other, which is exactly what is going to happen one of these days when a shooting occurs and no one knows the identity of the bad guy. “Bang, bang, fall down; you’re dead.”

We have just experienced a week of very chilly weather that included a couple of days of powder snow sifting down from the sky. Measurements depend a bit on your microclimate including which way the wind blew, but we received seven inches. Down the block it might be six. Usually the snow in this city is wet and doesn’t get very deep or last very long so this was an unusual event. Even more unusual was how long the cold lasted and the fact that one night temperatures reached 10 degrees below zero.

We awoke one morning to find about an inch on the ground and small, dry flakes drifting down to pile up rapidly on fence posts, cars, tree branches and shrubs. Snow transforms the world into a basic black-and-white print, an etching. Tree branches on an oak that you hadn’t noticed before become a prized view to be enjoyed before the snow melts. Here in the Willamette Valley where we are used to rainfall that at times can be compared to waterfalls pouring from the sky, where the sound of running water is often inescapable, we are somewhat astonished by the silence of snow. And yet there can be muted sound. I love the crunching underfoot of powder snow and the light swish-swish of cross-country skis. Nighttime walks in the snow are a delight, particularly after the storm passes and if there is moonlight. Even starlight seems brighter than normal.

Most of the places I lived while growing up received snow, the exception being parks along the coast. So I know how to drive in it, what is needed for snowballs and snowmen and snow forts (powder snow doesn’t work), when it’s time to put chains on the car and when to leave the water running a trickle at night to keep pipes from freezing. I know that a snowfall means it’s time to keep an eye on the bird feeders and make sure they are well-supplied with food. It brings an urge to be sure that we are also well-supplied with food “just in case”. My granddaughter and I did make a tiny snow lady and her younger brother and a friend helped with gathering snow and trying to pack it hard enough. But a larger one was out of the question.

People are driving more now than they were the first few days. The packed snow on the roads is deceiving though and many drive as if it were bare pavement, not thinking about how impossible it is to stop suddenly if a child darts out or someone suddenly brakes in front of them. Yesterday I drove across town to get my hair cut and stopped at a nearby store there to pick up a few groceries, saving having to make another trip to our nearby store. We may have icy rain tomorrow.

This afternoon I walked up into the field. Others have been there during this time and there are footprints, cross-country ski tracks and many tracks of off-road vehicles that have churned through the powder down to the earth. I hope this hasn’t done damage to the field that the owner will plant with wheat in the spring and hope that this won’t result in no-trespassing signs. We are all lucky to have the use of this open space. There were a few birds in the chill, not above 28 degrees today—robins, fluffed against the cold, scrub jays, a Steller’s jay, juncos, one wren and a few sparrows. In some places the snow is melting. Gopher mounds are appearing like small brown volcanoes in a sea of white.

As I was heading home I heard it. An ORV. Vroom, vroom, vroom. A teenager roared past and began to do a slalom course through the nearby filbert orchard and the air smelled of exhaust fumes. He sped over to the next field and I silently wished with all my heart that he—have a wreck?—no, too harsh, at least he was outside enjoying the outdoors in some form—but to run out of gas so he’d have to walk home listening to the nice sound of dry snow crunching under his boots? Yes, indeed!