Editor's Note
On the Road in May
I'm naturally kind of a slug. If it weren't for this newspaper gig, I'd probably just sit around every day eating dry Cheerios by the fistful and watching ultimate fighting on the satellite TV.
But my job forces me to get out and around our area, and what a great thing that is. Let's look at a few of the places it's taken me in the past month.
Wayne and Dawn Meicher live only a couple of blocks from my office, so I got to take a walk down one of the beautiful tree-lined streets in Dayton to their home to look at and photograph their equally beautiful classic Chevy trucks. Wayne has a spotless shop, and he and I spent some time there reminiscing about the days when there was enough room in a car's engine compartment to actually work on the engine.
Mae Schrey and Charlie Schorner live a bit farther away, so I took a nice Sunday drive out Highway 124 to their lovely home in the country, just outside of Prescott. Then I got to ride shotgun in Charlie's Toyota Prius as we drove around Prescott. I tried to photograph the high-tech screen on the dashboard, which I discovered is not an easy task in a moving car.
A few days later I sat in on Roseanne Groom's first period class of seniors at Waitsburg High School and listened to Haily Larsen and Jeff Hofer give practice presentations for their Senior Projects. The kids did a great job and put up with my questions – and my camera.
On Friday before Memorial Day Weekend, I rode in the Croft's Floral delivery van with Cara Breland and her dad, Bill Beckmeyer, out to the Dayton Cemetery to help place flowers on gravesites. What a beautiful place that is before Memorial Day. It was very moving to see many hundreds of flower arrangements, flags and crosses. Given only a person's name and a section ID for each grave, it took us awhile to find some of the spots for the flowers we needed to place. A couple of times, Cara nearly gave up in exasperation.
Also shortly before Memorial Day, I drove up Kellogg Hollow Road to Starbuck, and then out to Lyons Ferry Marina. It was a sunny and tranquil morning on the water and I took some time to walk around the beautiful grounds and look out over the Snake River. I also visited with manager Jim MacArthur while I ate a great breakfast at the new Snake River Grill there. I highly recommend it.
We live in a wonderful "neck-of-the-woods", as they say. It's a privilege to be able to go out and see so much of it and meet so many of the great people who live and work here. Now I get to take a break and dig into a new box of Cheerios. But come June, I'll be out on the road again, looking for new adventures to share with our readers at Blue Mountain News.
Ken Graham