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To the editor, Life in these United States–2019. We sit in our comfortable living rooms or dens, watching TV. We read the sports pages and enjoy drinking and partying at tailgate parties. We overeat and try to lose weight by buying weight-watcher’s subscriptions and enrolling in well-equipped gyms. We drive our gas-guzzling SUV’s from one store to another to shop. We love to call, text and search on our smart phones. Wow. What a hard life we have. In the meantime, our country, supported by our tax dollars, has rounded up over 70,000 child...
Shopped some big-box stores in the Big City last weekend and was enjoying striking up conversations with fellow, wild-eyed men who were making a valiant attempt at not-last-minute Christmas shopping. One guy I encountered was deep in the giant discount store and still had nothing in the shopping cart. I marveled at how he got clear to the back of the store without being compelled to throw something in the cart. His answer, on this last weekend of shopping before Christmas, was that he and his wife had only a short list of things to pick up. Tha...
Christmas is the most joyful of seasons for Believers…when publicly we are closest to God…birth of Christ. It is also a time when we can open our hearts and remember the “second great commandment” as mentioned in Matthew 22:39, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Sometimes that’s hard to do. Years ago I received a call from a close friend. He was excited because I was coming to his town to put on a cowboy poetry performance. I looked at my calendar and told him it was a mistake, I WAS NOT booked th...
By Todd Myers Called by some the most important environmental issue we face, climate change has recently dominated environmental policy debate in the Northwest, the United States, and the world. Signed by more than 160 countries on Earth Day 2016, the Paris Climate Accord lays out the need to take action to reduce carbon emissions. Noting that “climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries,” the accord commits sig...
He got his first horse at Christmas this year from good ol’ Uncle Stephen. For Wrangler-in Charge, he looked pretty young but looks can be deceivin’. He topped out his bronc ‘fore cook lit the fire with lots of loud Ty Yi’ in’ And if he laid off or slighted the horse it weren’t for lack of tryin’. He rope broke him quick and taught him to back and hold tight any bad actor. No critter escaped the reach of his loop; Pooh, Big Bird or the tractor. They covered the range from sofa to rug and ruled t...
To the editor, Theater at Its ‘Best!! From the front rows I witnessed a full house at Dayton Liberty Theater, the presenting of Disney’s “Mary Poppins Musical” One could not have enjoyed more if seeing it on Broadway. The cast of 59 was magnetic, makeup artist, costumes, staging, design, pianist, everything was suburb and, selfishly given. Team work was professionally over the top. More powerfully presented then one experiences today in most churches Phillip Montfort. Waitsburg, Wash....
By Roger Stark The authors of a recent opinion article in The Wall Street Journal found that improper spending in the Medicaid entitlement increased over 300 percent after the passage of Obamacare. (here) They made this conclusion after examining the most recent Medicaid data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Prior to the Affordable Care Act, funding for traditional Medicaid was split more or less 50/50 percent by state and federal governments. People eligible were low-income families with children, the disabled,...
Everybody has a Christmas that stands out in their memory like dandruff on Superman’s cape! Mine was several years ago. Bah Humbug Bill, the cow buyer made a deal on a set of cows down below Snowville. Leroy, Tom and I were to go down, work’em and ship’em back home. Bah Humbug set it up for December 23. He, of course would not be able to be there to help. Leroy and Tom were both members of the Owyhee County Sheriffs Possum. We borrowed Albert’s new blue pickup and headed out. Leroy was raised...
To the editor, Every year Nancy and I start vegetables indoors in little cups. Within a few months we take them outside to plant. We have gotten very good at nurturing our plants from sprouting to harvesting. And, come planting time, we love the fact that we chose exactly which vegetables to grow and are not limited to what some store business plan decided is best. Our vegetable garden gets better every year. Sometimes it seems attractive to have a neighbor take care of our seedlings if we want to take a little vacation. Doing this, however,...
Like a song taking you back in your mind to a different time and place, the recent dedication ceremonies commemorating the giant Green Giant on the valley's hillside, and the Highway 12 vehicle pullout, brings back memories not only for the "regulars" who spent their careers with the Giant, but also those of us fortunate enough to have been in that time and place, and to have the now-unattainable opportunities that company made possible. Green Giant Company had plants here and in Waitsburg,...
Diana, goddess of the hunt, stands as a Roman heroine to a long line of female hunters. Even today there are many who have followed in her spoor that deserve to have their name written in mythology. Our Diana, we’ll call her Center-Fire Charlotte, is well known for her prowess up and down Hyde Creek in the high and wild country of central Idaho. The legend goes that one morning Charlotte was on her way to work in town when she spotted a bunch of does grazing by the reservoir. She climbed out o...
Unlike Washington, D.C., the scary apparitions of Halloween are nearly a month in the rear-view mirror and the Thanksgiving Holiday is here. We’re reminded of all that we have to be thankful for. We’re thankful that NBC stopped broadcasting the Impeachment Inquiry last week, returning to something more substantial, more interesting than watching sand through an hourglass, like Days of Our Lives. We’re thankful that Rep. Adam Schiff doesn’t represent us, although we are puzzled about Schiff’s chairmanship of the “Intelligence Committee....
For some reason this Thanksgiving, I’m thinking of sheep. The sheep industry is havin’ a fair year. One factor is lamb being included and advertised in specialty dog food. The sheepman’s equivalent market to fast food burgers. How to strengthen the market, you ask? Breed more dogs, you say? Or get humans in Canada and the U.S. to eat more sheep and wear more wool? So how do you get people to buy more lamb? You either change the people or change the product. We are living in a time of unima...
DAYTON–One of the hallmarks of southeastern Washington up until about ten years ago was the novelty of its horse-racing circuit. Dayton, Waitsburg and Walla Walla stood apart from communities around the nation which generally boast an annual parade and rodeo or some-such community showcase. Each town has its own exciting, worthwhile and significantly meaningful celebration, yes, but there’s nothing like horses flying down the home stretch, cheered on by wild-eyed bettors. Just as teens in the 1950s and 1960s prowled around town in their hot...
We all have great memories of ‘the best party’. I had a party. It lasted 48 hours. I lost my socks, my dignity, two days of my life, six ping-pong balls and four pounds. I broke my G-string, achieved a new “personal best” and learned to dog paddle in a bathtub full of beer. The occasion for this all-out, climb the walls, cowboy shindig was in celebration of my new book. The party honored the world’s best cowboy cartoonists who contributed cartoons for the book. We gathered under one roof some of...
To the editor, People dying across our nation is becoming the new norm we see As Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers tells us everyone having guns is what “ normal” should be This is not about the 2nd Amendment; our founding fathers would never agree That any kind of person with any kind of firearm will make our country free! The deaths are heartbreaking; it angers us that our representative just doesn’t care She values her firearms industry payments; of that we are aware! So, what to do? Believe people deserved their death because the shoote...
One of the most important traits of a good feedlot manager is the ability to assign blame. That is the reason they often employ consulting vets and nutritionists. It keeps them from having to fire regular employees. Unfortunately it also pits the vets against the nutritionist in their everlasting battle to decide whether a problem is “nutritional” or “medical”. The feedlot manager sat across the desk from his nutritionist of the month and his Vet de Jour. He spoke, “I’ve been looking at...
To the editor, I just received this week’s copy of the Dayton Chronicle and noted with great interest and sadness that the pool that so many enjoyed is no longer functioning. As Superintendent of the schools from 1998-2004, I was blessed to be able to serve this great community. Those were six of the greatest years of my career. For the first couple of years, I lived just a short distance away so I saw how much the pool was used and enjoyed. Fortunately, I have been able to continue to serve students, staffs and their families. Of my own childr...
