Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1642 - 1666 of 2504
The Columbia County Fair is coming up this weekend, so I've been in sales-pitch mode all week long. (In fact, I would pitch to all of you, but there are some thorny ethical issues in- volved with using my column as an advertising vehicle. Bummer.) It feels so odd to have the fair-court season com- ing to a close so soon. Wasn't it just yesterday that I learned that, for the second time, I would be Hostess Emma, travers- ing Southeastern Wash- ington in cowboy boots and a satin sash and way too...
This weekend, we marked Labor Day with some work on a rental we own. Kar- en, Rainier and Niko helped me clean and paint the three-bedroom home where tenants had dwelled for almost a decade before moving on. To make these mun- dane tasks more enjoy- able, we brought the boom box from the house and the boys got to play their favorite tunes. Niko chose several dub step artists and rappers. Rainier opted for Smashing Pumpkins. All of it was too rau- cous for my taste, but lo and behold Rainier...
How many players line up on offense on a foot- ball team? For our sports-challenged readers, the answer is eleven. For a high school team, it doesn't matter if your school has 200 students or 2,000, the answer's still 11. (Okay, there's such a thing as eight-man football at RE- ALLY small schools, but we'll ignore that.) And how many sports are there for kids to play at Dayton or WP? Just in the fall, there are four: Football, volleyball, soccer and cross country. All year long there are more than a dozen. Young athletes at our local high schoo...
You can pick up the fragrance in the fields and the woods. It's the smell of fall in the air, and for many athletes and fans alike it heralds the first sports season of the school year. The Times will be previewing all the fall sports teams starting next week, but before we get all excited about the Cardinals/Tigers or Bulldogs, there's something else I wanted to draw your attention to before everyone goes back to school: college sports. This year, we have the highest number of Waits- burg,...
Dear Editor, What was the City think- ing when they were redoing West 7th.and decided it would be nice to put the 4 foot of rock between the sidewalk and the curb? Not only does it serve no real function, it is also danger- ous for me and others with medical devices, I.E. walk- ers, crutches, wheelchairs. I was expecting to see the strip filled with dirt, grass and trees, but, no, it was river rock. A law suit just waiting to happen. Jim Wills Waitsburg...
Dear Editor, I would like to update our wonderful community on my medical status. With the help of friends, family, local business and many, many community members, we were able to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota in June, expecting to have brain surgery. After three very long and extensive days of testing, the surgeon (Dr. Link) along with sev- eral of his associates made the decision to put brain surgery on hold. He felt he would do more damage than good, due to the location of the tumor. At this point I have the entire...
Some weeks, my ex- perience doesn't lend itself well to a nicely organized, cohesive piece. On those occasions, I string my thoughts together in the order they enter my brain. This style of organization is known as 'stream of con- sciousness'. It's sort of the 'fruitcake' of writing styles - some people can't stand it, while others think it does the single truest job of capturing the human experience in all its raw, gritty glory. If you fall into the latter category, prepare for dis-...
This time each year in our hometown The county fair comes our way Where the folks gather round to be happy and spend theirday ~ from "County Fair," by The Beach Boys F airs are as old as civilization. In ancient Rome, special holidays - which allowed a break from work - were marked with gatherings they began calling Fairs. Fairs in the middle ages often included markets, where farmers would sell their goods and craftspeople would sell their wares. (The word fare is a variation that now often refers to food and drink.) Wikipedia's entry on...
Last night, when I took Dizzy for a walk up the alley, past the el- ementary school and back down Main Street, I looked up at the night sky. The moon wasn't quite full since it had an oval side, but it was bright. Around it, stars hung quietly above Preston Hall. One of them was on the move. Or, wait, it had a very small flashing light that hinted at its linear progress across the sky at least a mile high: a jet making its way west, probably to Portland International. In Waitsburg, I had never s...
Summer is finally winding down. With mere weeks until school’s back in session, it’s time for me to start panicking and finish up all my break-time projects before I’m saddled with classwork again. At the end of every summer, I like to take stock of all the little things I’ve learned, if only to reassure myself that I haven’t entirely blown my vast expanse of free time. The (partial) list is as follows: • If you attempt to make divinity candy on a humid day, even if the weather looks perfe...
...to err: human. A hundred years from now, scholars and anthropolo- gists who dig through the archives of The Times (and why wouldn't they?) will think that most of the content in last week's issue was published on July 18, rather than August 15. All of the proofreading that was brought to bear last week didn't catch the fact that the date listed at the top of each page - except Page 1 - contained the incorrect date. One thing we love about newspaper publishing is its per- manence. While we regret our error last week, we promise it won't be...
The purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. ~Sydney J. Harris S ydney J. Harris wasn't anybody particularly important (he was a newspapermanhellip;in Chicago) but he was well-known for his pithy quotes. We like this one. Over the next couple of weeks, nearly 1,000 students in the Touchet Valley will be back on campuses in Waitsburg, Dayton, Prescott, Starbuck and at Jubilee Academy. And for many local students recently graduated, they'll be back on campuses throughout the country. Hopefully many mirrors will be converted. For...
We want to thank all the volunteers that helped put out the lightning fires that hap- pened Saturday night. From the McCaw Group...
MILTON-FREEWATER - The 33rd Muddy Frogwater Country Classic Festival and Corn Roast in Milton-Free- water, Oregon will take place on August 16-18 at Yantis Park. This old-fashioned family event includes every- thing from a Kid Zone to an art show. There are activities, events, contests and games for all. Two local bands will rock the bandshell at Yantis Park. Bring your own lawn chair or claim a bale of straw and enjoy Shank's Pony on Fri- day night and Backroads on Saturday. Admission is free. A local talent show competi- tion rounds out the...
Whenever I see a clump of clover in the middle of a lawn, I habitually stoop down and examine it, look- ing for a four-leaved speci- men. I've done this ever since I found out that these actually exist in the wild, rare genetic mutations of the workaday three-leaved variety. Well, this weekend, while on a kayaking trip, I actually found one on the banks of the Snake River. It wasn't all pretty and perfect like the bizarrely symmetrical versions that rear their plasticine heads ev- ery Saint Patr...
Fair season is just around the corner, and so is the Pendleton Roundup: Sept. 11 - 14. Around here, that annual event within easy driving distance needs little introduction, but it's worth re- membering how the first Roundup more than 100 years ago was billed: "A frontier exhibition of picturesque pastimes, Indian and military spectacles, cow- boy racing and bronco bust- ing for the championship of the Northwest." Why? Well, we here in the Touchet Valley may want to zero in on one aspect of the...
When Dale Polla was hired last fall as CEO of the Columbia County Health System, we at The Times, along with most other community mem- bers, breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that finally a long stretch of turmoil at our local healthcare provider had ended. Apparently it hadn't. On August 1, Polla agreed to resign during the regular Columbia County Health System Board of Director's meet- ing. In interviews given after the resignation, board chair Lisa Naylor indicated that the board was...
When our country was founded, Thomas Jefferson declared that governments should only derive their power from the "consent of the governed." Four score and seven years later, at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln reminded us that ours was a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." Last week, the House of Representatives paid worthy tribute to the legacy of our Founding Fathers. We have renewed our commitment to putting people before politics. Last week, House Rep...
Techno- Savings While we all know that computers, smartphones and app purchases cost us money, I wonder how many of us take advantage of the ways they can save us mon- ey. If you become familiar with a few good resources and are willing to spend an extra couple of minutes prior to making a purchase, your computer or smartphone can nearly always save you some cash. At the very least, it can let you rest assured that you're getting a good deal. Retailmenot.com is a website that I visit frequently...
This month's book re- views are provided by Amy Rosenberg, manager of the Dayton Memorial Library. Northanger Abbey It seems to me that when most people discuss Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice gets all the attention. Every other summer or so, I like to revisit my pal Jane and I reread all six of her published books. P & P has a well-deserved place in the literary cannon. It's arguably the first modern novel. Every formulaic rom-com you've ever seen has Pride and Prej- udice to thank, because...
