Several flew over the cuckoo's nest

Yikes. Some wing nut over at wing nut central, NorthCoastOregon.com, thinks I'm using pseudonyms such as CDG (which stands for what, I wonder?) and posting "LIES" (what lies?) all over the Internet. Like I have the time to bother with such nonsense, much less the inclination.

Patrick McGee has been accused of the same silliness. I bet he's as baffled as I am. By the way, Pat, thanks for the kind words in my defense.

So here you have it for the record: I'm not CDG. My opinions are right out there in the open, and always have been.

I am against LNG for more reasons than are worth articulating yet again, so I'll just re-state one, for the moment: It is simply idiotic to put LNG tanks in an active subduction zone.

Three county commissioners need to be recalled before they can do any more damage by pandering to outside interests and ignoring their constituents. That may or may not happen. We'll see about two of them tonight.

Once again, for clarity, since some seem to be a bit dense on this particular issue: These are solely my opinions. I do not represent anyone or anything but myself.

Wing nuts: Don't bother to post any of your loony, vicious "Anonymous" comments and rants. I won't publish them on my blog - you're not going to get an audience for your hate-mongering here. Go shit in your own cuckoo's nest.

Ship of ...

I was away for a week, so I missed the letter to the editor sent by the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce Board, and the Seaside Chamber Board, against the recall of Commissioners Samuelson, Roberts and Hazen.

Nobody says it out loud, it seems, but being against the recall is the same as being for LNG. These commissioners are being recalled because they refuse to listen to the voters who put them in office, and are pushing forward to have LNG terminals built on the Columbia River, which is against the will of the people (as shown in the pipeline referendum).

What I can't figure out is: No. 1, why the hell do the Chambers of Commerce think they have the right to try to tell people what to do in regard to local political decisions; and No. 2, are the chamber boards really that stupid, or have they been bought?

I mean, aside from the obvious idiocy of putting LNG tanks anywhere near a major subduction zone, LNG on the river would destroy the tourist industry in this area, and Astoria businesses (and members of the chamber) are increasingly dependent on tourism. I suppose Seaside doesn't care, because the LNG tanks won't be visible from there if they are built.

I, for one, would like to know which businesses support the chamber boards' stance against the recall, so I can be sure to not shop at their establishments again. And so much for my thoughts of joining the chamber - they don't represent what I want for the future any more than the commissioners under recall do.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Sold Down the River

Our Clatsop County Commissioners' move to sell their constituents down the river with the 4-1 decision in favor of NorthernStar's Bradwood Landing LNG project, and a letter about the situation by Ned Heavenrich, inspired Marc Auerbach to create the new, more accurate Clatsop County Seal, above.

The dead salmon, dollar signs and "For Sale" sign say it all, but the LNG tanks are a nice touch, too.

A pal of mine mentioned that the other day she saw one of the county commissioners recently, at a local restaurant, writing with a Bradwood Landing pen. The commissioner was utterly oblivious to what people would think, and I'd wager my friend wasn't the only one who noticed.

Incidents like that, and all of the ex parte conversations witnessed by many ... Gee whizzikers and oh my golly, do you think there's a whole lot more to the county commissioners/NorthernStar connection than meets the eye? Surely I'm not the only one who wonders why there isn't an official, and thorough, investigation.

Something smells mighty bad in Clatsop County, and it ain't the fish.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Dancing on a String

Just in case you're wondering who's pulling several of the Clatsop County Commissioners' strings:

From The Daily Astorian, July 8, 2009, by Cassandra Profita, about today's Clatsop County Commission hearing on NorthernStar's liquefied natural gas project, remanded back to the commission by the Land Use Board of Appeals:

"The disagreements reached a crescendo toward the end of the afternoon, when NorthernStar attorney Ed Sullivan told [elected] county commissioners that their job in addressing the LUBA remand was not to do what 'the clappers' told them to do, referring to the [LNG] opponents in the audience.

"'Your job is to apply your own plan,' he said. 'You're not here to apply the will of the people.'"

Sure sounds like an terse reminder to the commissioners to continue to ignore the wishes of their constituents, doesn't it?

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Kitchen Floor Glop

My mother, being a classic old Yankee, didn't go for new-fangled luxuries like gas or electric stoves when I was a child. We lived in the bottom two floors of an old Victorian-era hotel on Long Island Sound (the top two floors were closed off), and the stove was a four-burner cast iron model, very similar to the one pictured above, but black.

The stove originally ran off an old coal furnace, which was another cast iron monster lurking in the basement, and was used for burning trash. I don't recall how the stove was heated after being disconnected from the coal furnace, but I do know the stove was on all the time - there was no "off" switch. To cook at a higher heat, you'd remove the rings in a burner, which had four rings you could remove with a little hook tool.

Baking required a knowledge of the wind speed and for some bizarre reason, barometric pressure. We had barometers all over the house, so that part was easy to figure out. Wind speed was another matter, usually requiring going out on the back porch, wetting a finger by sticking it in your mouth, and holding it up in the breeze. Needless to say, in the winter time, this was a tricky business. As I recall, baking was best in a southwest wind.

Consequently, any kind of baking that required the oven to be a specific temperature for a specific period of time was a head-scratcher. We'd read the directions on the box, check the barometer, go outside for a wind-check, and then decide whether or not to proceed. Some times of year the oven was hotter than others (winter, when the furnace was going), which also had to be factored into the equation. No, we did not have an oven thermometer.

So you'd just pour the brownie (or whatever) batter into a pan and wait. After 20 minutes or so, you'd have to get a potholder to open the oven door (it was a cast iron latch), grab a toothpick, and poke whatever it was in the baking pan. And you'd keep poking it every 10 minutes or so until the toothpick came out clean. Worked every time.

I learned to cook on that stove, and my first piece de resistance was two eggs, sunny-side up, cooked in an old cast iron frying pan (we had several). My parents were at the neighbors' for cocktails, and for some reason, I just had to try to cook on my own. I think I was about 6.

I cooked the eggs, and I was soooo proud of myself. I called my mother and told her what I'd done, and she asked me if I'd eaten the eggs. I said no, I didn't like sunny-side up eggs, I just wanted to see if I could do it. So she had me bring them to her at the cocktail party, and she ate them.

Casseroles were easy with an oven like that. I remember one night mother was having a dinner party, which she did often, even with that awful stove, and the casserole was ready. It was very heavy, and in a huge cast iron pan, so I had to help her get this damn thing out of the oven. We dropped it.

Everyone was waiting for dinner and seated at the table. We looked at each other over the mess, and both grabbed big spoons at the same time. We scooped it back into the casserole dish, sprinkled new cheese on top, and served it.

The guests raved about the casserole and asked my mother for the recipe. She said, "It's called 'Kitchen Floor Glop,' and the recipe is a secret," she said with a smile.

She finally got an electric stove in the 1960's. Which, in my opinion, took all the fun out of cooking.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Where Old Hippies Go to Die

I remember, when I was very young, watching this really impossibly idiotic black & white TV show called "Ramar of the Jungle." About the only intriguing part, in my book, was the myth of the mysterious Elephant Graveyard. Old elephants supposedly had an internal radar, and wandered there to die when they knew their time had come. I really believed there was such a place.

Many moons and many graveyards later, the time had come to bury my parents. They were staunch old Yankees (although my father was a transplanted Confederate from Kentucky) who died in 1990 within six months of each other at the very respectable ages of 85 and 91.

At the time of my mother's death (she went last), I flew back to Connecticut from Los Angeles, where I had been sunstroking my brain for 8 years, to meet with the venerable funeral director, Earl, who was no spring chicken, himself.

We exchanged the usual terse New England pleasantries, did our business, then settled in for a proper chat. I don't remember much of the rest of the exchange, but I will forever remember one thing he said about my future demise. "A real Yankee has no damn business being buried in California. You need to be buried on Yankee soil, where you belong."

There was no way I was going to go back to New England, for several reasons, the least of which was I had no one to go back to. But what Earl said stuck with me through the years.

When I finally got my shit together, as it were, and decided to move to Astoria, Oregon, my friends in L.A. were appalled. One of my best friends, Harry, finally called me on it, and demanded to know why the hell would I even think about leaving L.A. The answer that fell out of my mouth, unbidden and unexpected, was, "I don't want to die here." And that was the bottom line. I just didn't know I had drawn it until that moment.

So here I am, five years later, still in Astoria, and still loving it. Today, I was walking my dog on the Riverwalk, and happened to notice at least five other geriatric hippies. They still have their long hair, bandanas, and other badges and accourtrements of our era. My hair won't grow long any more, but I still have my 5 ear-piercings in each ear and I don't remember how many tattoos.

And the first thing that came to my mind was "so Astoria must be where old hippes must go to die." Well, I can't think of a better place to live, or die, for that matter. With apologies to Earl, it looks like this old Yankee will stay in Astoria for the duration.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Pour it on at Pier 11

Although I am not actually a fan of the cocktail per se (I'm a beer drinker), I love the art of the pour.

Remember Tom Cruise in the movie "Cocktail," tossing glasses and bottles around with great elan and scary coordination? Hell, even a stodgy old fart beer drinker like me, parked at the bar, can appreciate the fun of a good performance.

Rich, aka Nacho Bizznez, who holds forth on KMUN, and used to be at The Schooner on 12th Street, is a cocktail artist (read about him here). I do not say this lightly. Not only that, he's a nice guy.

So naturally I was horrified when The Schooner put up the announcement on the door that all they would be serving was breakfast.

I'm sorry, but who gives a crap about breakfast? Where's the fun? Where's the show? Where's the bartender?

He's at Pier 11, at the bottom of 11th Street in Astoria, that's where he is. Hallelujah.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

When the Phone Rings, Run

I was thinking the other day about telephones, and how much they have changed. When I was a child, there were no cell phones, no push buttons, no Internet phone service and nobody used local codes like 503.

There were operators who were actually live human beings. If they weren't busy, you could call them and chat, even if you were six years old. You could call information, and someone would even look a number up for you. It was called "directory assistance," and it was free.

To call out, you dialed four numbers, not ten. The phones were rotary-dial (does anyone younger than 50 even remember that?). Often neighbors had what were called party lines, which meant you shared a phone line with your neighbors.

There was always a ring code, i.e. if the phone rang once, paused and started ringing again it was for one family, and if it rang twice, paused, and started ringing again, it was for the other family on the line. Which meant if you picked up the phone on the wrong ring tone, you might accidentally overhear some really juicy gossip.

My father was a pediatrician, so the phone rang all the time. I had to learn at a very tender age how to answer phones and deal with crazed mothers (whose children had put a marble up their noses) who wanted to speak to my father whether he was "on duty" or not.

Father and three other doctors formed a little group and would take turns covering emergencies on weekends. I had to know when it was father's weekend off, and to tell crazed mothers to call the "physician's bureau," and give them the number, so they could call the physician on duty.

The Physician's Bureau was actually a lovely lady who had an old-fashioned switchboard in her apartment, and she would take the messages and call the on duty doctor at home. She was also available for children of doctors (like me) who wanted to chat with a kind and caring adult.

Some of my father's patients were too savvy for this arrangement, and would call him directly at home, and to hell with the Physicians Bureau. I was told to be stern and turn them away. It didn't occur to anyone that it might be difficult for a child to disobey one adult (the crazed mother) to appease another adult (my mother, who hated the interruptions on father's free time ... father didn't really care).

One particularly persistent mother called during the cocktail hour on one of father's "off" weekends. She was not going to take "no" for an answer, particularly from a child. She told me her two-year old son had swallowed a safety-pin, and she needed to talk to my father immediately. She would not let me hang up, and I was too polite to just do so.

My father was about 1/4 of a mile away at a cocktail party. This woman convinced me to get on my bike and go talk to him, and she would just "hang on."

Bigod, I got my bicycle, which was one my mother had in 1912 (no, I'm not kidding) and heavier than whatever Atlas had on his shoulders. I struggled up a large hill, and down the other side, ran into the large cocktail party, and found my father.

After I finished panting for air, I told him that Mrs. Pain in the Ass was on the phone, at home, holding, and that she needed to know what to do about sonny-boy, who had swallowed a safety pin.

My father asked,"Was the safety pin opened or closed?" If it's closed, it's no big deal, and will pass through. If it's open, it can be problematic, indeed.

I jumped on my bike and tore back to the house, ran inside, grabbed the phone, and gasped the question. The reply? "I don't know."

Back on the bike, back up the hill, back down the hill, back into the mob to find father. Yes, she was still holding on the phone. "She doesn't know," I told him.

Perhaps it was my crossed eyes, perhaps it was the fact that I was reeling ... I'll never know, but father took mercy on me. He got into the car and drove home to take the damn call. I followed on my bike. Yes, she was still on the line.

I caught hell every which-way that day. For letting a patient bamboozle me into tracking down my father. For disrupting my parents' "social life." For tying up the party line for more than an hour.

I should mention that all the hell-catching I got was from my mother. My father was an old-fashioned doctor who thought a doctor should be available at all times for his patients, and yes, he did house calls. Every night after work. And any time there was an emergency.

Okay, he probably wasn't the most attentive husband and father, because he was never around, but he was one hell of a doctor, and everyone loved him.

But I still don't like telephones.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Anyone who has lived through a major earthquake can tell you how traumatic it is, but they probably can't tell you how long the fear stays with you. Probably because it never really leaves.

I went through the magnitude 6.7 Northridge Earthquake Jan. 17, 1994, and lived only 8.5 miles from the epicenter. What a lot of people don't know is that earthquakes are incredibly loud. The noise of what sounded like a gigantic freight train approaching my bedroom at high speed on very bad tracks woke me up seconds before the quake actually hit, and made me sit up straight.

The second the quake slammed into the house, I was thrown flat while the house buckled and rolled and the walls shimmied all around me. It was beyond terrifying.

When the shaking finally stopped, two of my three dogs were on top of me, and my son was screaming in his room. My son calmed down, and the third dog was found in the kitchen happily snacking on the pot roast and other goodies that had been literally thrown out of the refrigerator onto the floor.

Like an idjit, I got into the car as soon as it was daylight and started driving around. The only word I can think of to describe the landscape is "eerie." Everything was unearthly quiet, especially for such a huge city. Stray dogs and cats were running about madly, fences were down, none of the traffic lights worked and naturally, there was a lot of rubble everywhere.

What was most disconcerting, though, were the aftershocks, which ranged in magnitudes 6 and below for days and days. Even so, things returned to "normal" rather quickly, but then, L.A. is used to earthquakes, and well prepared for them, and repairs started almost immediately.

Everyone was spooked, of course, and for years, every time I got stuck under a freeway overpass on a red light I would break into a sweat, terrified an earthquake might start and I'd be buried in tons of concrete. Post traumatic stress disorder, I guess.

Anyway, when I moved to Astoria, I thought, "At last, I'm out of an earthquake zone." Hah! I had never even heard of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and was in for a very rude awakening. The Cascadia is capable of a rupture that can produce a magnitude 9 earthquake and a 100-feet high tidal wave, which makes the Northridge Quake's shaking seem like the effect of a big truck driving by in comparison.

The last time the Cascadia did its dance was Jan. 26, 1700, which we know from records kept by the Japanese of the resulting earthquake and tidal wave there, and from Pacific Northwest Indian legends. But Japan is a long way from the fault zone ... Astoria is less than 100 miles from it.

I kept wondering why I couldn't find anything about what happened to Astoria during that 1700 quake. What happened then could tell us more about what might happen here the next time the Cascadia Subduction Zone blows. There was nothing written, which isn't surprising, but the land itself should speak of its history.

Finally, in frustration, I wrote to Robert Witter, Regional Coast Geologist in the Oregon Department of Geology & Mineral Industries in Newport and asked. His prompt and thorough reply was:

"We don't know exactly what happened in Astoria as a result of the 1700 earthquake and tsunami because there is no written record of the event here in North America. From geologic evidence, native American legends, and geophysical modeling we can make some educated guesses. Damage to the area probably resulted from the following:

(1) Strong shaking during the earthquake;
(2) Liquefaction of soil causing extensive settlement and lateral spreading along river banks;
(3) Landslides triggered by earthquake shaking;
(4) Land subsidence (~1 m drop in elevation) caused by earthquake deformation;
(5) Tsunami.

"A tsunami probably reached Astoria based on computer models that simulate tsunami inundation in the Columbia River. Outcrops along the Lewis and Clark River, west of Astoria, expose thin sand layers that may have been deposited by tsunami currents in 1700.

"The easiest maps to get a hold of that show how far a tsunami might reach near Astoria were produced in 1995 to implement building code statutes that restrict development of new buildings in the tsunami inundation zone. The map for Astoria can be found on this page: http://tinyurl.com/astoria-tsu"

He also sent a link to earthquake hazard maps: http://tinyurl.com/astoria-quake (scroll down to IMS-10). Just above IMS-10, you can buy a tsunami hazard map for Astoria (IMS-11).

I found an interesting publication about how to survive a tsunami here: http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1187/

Yikes. Very scary stuff. Buildings in L.A. are built with the earthquake factor taken into consideration. Not true in Astoria, from the looks of it. So I jumped from the frying pan into the fire earthquake-wise, but oh my, what a beautiful fire it is.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site

A Cat by Any Other Name ...

I recently rescued a young marmalade-colored tomcat we named Buster (as in ball ...). I thought having him neutered (which I would do anyway) would have the beneficial side-effect of perhaps calming him down. Hah!

Buster throws a paw over the shoulder of our elderly Cocker Spaniel, Mackie, and wrestles the totally bewildered dog to the ground. Mackie now flees when he sees Buster. I should clarify ... Mackie waddles for shelter as fast as a very fat spaniel on arthritic legs can.

The Butterscotch Blur chases and torments all of the household geriatric female cats (two of whom have now ganged up on him). He unrolls paper towels by the yard, shreds them and drags the remnants around the house. What he does to toilet paper is unspeakable. He tucks pens under carpets. When he's bored, he leaps out in front of us from behind curtains, trying to startle us. It is quite effective, especially on the upstairs landing, at the top of the stairs.

The last time I had a young male cat was a decade ago. I had an old dresser that the drawers didn't quit fit into after warping in the Calfornia climate, which is quite unkind to anything wooden. Consequenty, the drawers were always open an inch or so. The kitten tore all of my underwear and socks out of the drawers and tossed them all over the bedroom on a daily basis.

When he wasn't engaged in undergarment sorting, he was busy overturning the cats' water and food dispensers and tossing aromatic lumps out of the catbox and sporting with them in batting practice.

He was such a frustrating little bugger I kept yelling, "You little shit!" repeatedly at him. His name was actually Banjo, but to this day, he thinks his name is Little Shit, and he will only respond to that.

Now that we have a new terrorist in the house, Little Shit prefers to nap on the back of a couch and observe from the sidelines. I swear he is smiling.

Click here to see Elleda's photography at the Astoria Photografpix web site