There's no "they" here

It's a common occurrence.  You drive or walk around your town and you notice changes.  Look at the new dress shop downtown.   Suzie's cafe has reopened.  We have a new photography gallery in the old hotel.  Someone is moving in or out of the old travel agency building, the one that was so cleverly painted as a giant suitcase, then sadly painted over, then vacated.

In most places, big places, where change just seems to happen, we always wonder what "they" are doing.  I wonder what they are doing to that building.  Why are they changing that sign?  When are they going to finish paving this street?

But here in GroveAtopia we usually know who "they" are so instead we say, Karen finally opened her dress shop, and Julie and Brinsley's photo gallery is open, and, well, Suzie - but we know this time it's her daughter - has reopened the cafe.  

We don't live under the cloud of uncertainty "they" can sometimes bring.  We know the people, and their stories, so our happenings make sense.   We have context, background and oftentimes personal or second-hand knowledge of the people who are behind the changes we see.

It would be easier if "they" were responsible for everything.  Then we could blame "them" for things we don't like.  But they aren't.  We are "they", as are our friends and neighbors, and their friends and neighbors, who are practically your friends and neighbors because they are theirs.

"They" don't live in GroveAtopia.  We do.  You and I, and those we know and those who know us.  We don't even know who "they" are.  All the "theys" here have names and stories.  That's why when things happen here, whether we agree or disagree, whether it makes us happy or sad, we nearly always understand, because we usually know exactly who "they" are.

Trashing our trail

GroveAtopia has one of the best bike trails in the state.  It's the 15.6 mile Row River Trail.  It starts at the center of town, at Trailhead Park, and runs all the way to past Dorena Reservoir to Culp Creek.

The whole trail is paved and it's flat as a board for a good portion of the route.  Bicycle heaven!  Anyone can enjoy this trail.

The Row River Trail was converted to a bike path under the Rails to Trails program.  The path runs along an abandoned rail line - the one that used to carry the scenic passenger train "The Goose" between Cottage Grove and Disston.  

I've never ridden the entire trail, but I've ridden the portion that runs through town between Safeway and Wal-mart a fair number of times.  That stretch of trail is both lovely and functional.  It provides a safe and tranquil way to get between these to major shopping hubs.

The other day I was riding my favorite stretch - the one where the trail goes into this heavily wooded area just before it crosses Gateway Blvd.   And guess what I saw?  Trash!  Lots and lots of trash.

It is truly sad to think that there are those who care so little for our trail that they treat it like their personal garbage dump.  I doubt those leaving this much trash are cyclists - they don't have the time or right number of hands to toss this much trash and still be riding their bicycle.

I'm guessing the trash is left by people traveling on foot.  And there is no excuse.  There are trash cans along the way and seriously people, how much effort does it take to wait and dump your trash in those instead of on the ground?  Are you so overcome with the urge to toss it that you simply cannot delay?  Must it be tossed right here and now?

The city is responsible for cleaning the part of the trail that runs through town, so technically it is their responsibility to clean this up.

But you and I know whose responsibility it really is.  

So bicycle trail people who drop your trash here, please stop.  Your garbage belongs in the trash can, not on the trail.

A Big, Red, Juicy Competition

The people on the stage in this picture are holding up numbers.  2, 1.5, 2.5, 4, and 3.5.  Clearly they are rating something.

Perhaps it's a beauty contest.  Or a gymnastics meet.  They use numbers when they judge, don't they?

But no.  This competition had nothing to do with beauty or gymnastics.  

No, this competition was about all about tomatoes.  Big, red, juicy tomatoes.

It's called the Great Northwest Tomato Taste-Off and it's part of the yearly Gathering of Gardeners that happens at the Village Green in September.   The winner got $500 and a 2-night stay at the Village Green so this was a competition worth competing in.

This year there were 68 tomatoes entered into the competition.  The judges tasted each and every one of them, and rated them on a scale of 1-5.  It took them about an hour to taste them all.  I wonder if they are "tomatoed-out" by the time they are finished.

There was a tie for 1st place so the judges had to do a tie breaker taste-off.  One more round and the winners were announced.  

Second and third place went to a husband and wife - she won third place for her variety, "Truffle."  He won second place for his variety, "Ernie's Faux."  Both Truffle and Ernie's Faux are seed varieties grown at Territorial Seed Company, right here in GroveAtopia.  They sponsor the Tomato Taste Off.

The winner, whose name is Don, won for a variety called "Hillbilly." His tomato was not grown from seed from these parts.  No, Don had traded for the seed with a friend from Texas.  

So a tomato that came from seed from Texas won the Great Northwest Tomato Taste-Off, but no one seemed to mind.  The winners and their tomatoes still got a hardy round of applause, whether they were from around here or not.   

And it was even better than a beauty contest.

A Proclamation

GroveAtopia's city council meets this next Monday and among other things, including a second reading on an anti-nudity ordinance, (yes you read that correctly) the mayor is being asked to sign a proclamation that proclaims September as American Legion Month.  

That seems like a lovely idea, now doesn't it?  

GroveAtopia is fortunate to have a very active American Legion post.  Ours is Post 3473, and there is just no way to not know they are here.  

First, there is the building itself.  It's here on the west side of town, right there on Main Street next to the Sunshine General Store - our own natural food store that since 1976 has always, always been there, despite the comings and goings of other bigger, natural food stores.  Until very recently the American Legion building was a nondescript - dare I say it? - ugly building.

Then suddenly a few weeks ago someone started painting the side of the building, and it quickly became apparent that this was not a tagging activity.  Someone was painting something big, very big on the exterior walls of the American Legion building.  Day by day, detail by detail, the image emerged.

We also know the Legion for being the ones who make sure GroveAtopians do not forget the services of veterans.  They arrange the flags that appear up and down Main Street on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day.  They conduct the ceremonies that honor the military, veterans and their service to our country.  They don't let us forget and we shouldn't.

And they have the Tuesday night spaghetti feed, and the indoor garage sale, and see to it that the scholarships are given out.  We love the American Legion.

So then, let's approve their proclamation and get on with things.

But wait, let's read the proclamation first.  Oh dear, we can't.  It isn't on the city's website.  So we rely on our friends to let us know what the proclamation says.  Then we look it up and find that we are not the only ones who have been asked to approve such a proclamation.  Many, many cities in Oregon have been asked to do the same.  And by the looks of things they have gone ahead and signed the proclamation.  

I wonder if they read it?  I bet they did, but I also bet they were the only ones.  If their constituents had read it, things might not have gone so smoothly.

Here in GroveAtopia we tend to read these things, and when we read this proclamation we saw something that simply doesn't belong in a proclamation.

If I recall correctly, the last proclamation signed by the mayor declared September 28th to be Family Day - a day to eat dinner as a family.  Who could argue with that?

Proclamations run from serious to silly, but they rarely deal with items of real substance.  So one would think the proclamation declaring September to be American Legion Month would be the same.  And by and large it is.  

The one we are being asked to consider has lots of wheras's - 7 to be exact.  The first 4 are merely statements of fact, as are the last two.  It's the 5th whereas, that, while a statement of fact, the fact it states involves more than a recitation of the group's accomplishments.  Instead it tells us that the American Legion "continues to work for a constitutional amendment to protect the American flag from desecration..." 

That's a fact, but signing this proclamation says we agree with all the whereas's it contains.  And we do, except for that one.

The right to desecrate our flag is protected by the 1st amendment of very Constitution our flag represents.  To use the flag to limit the freedoms that the flag itself represents defeats the very freedoms the flag stands for.

So should our council simply pass this proclamation and have the mayor sign it, thereby throwing the support of the citizens of GroveAtopia behind this constitutional amendment?  Of course not.  We should sign the proclamation, but without that particular whereas.

Guess what the painting on the side of the American Legion building turned out to be?  A huge, beautiful American flag.  The kind with golden fringe.  It doesn't show the stars, but the stripes are so huge and billowing you don't need the stars.  You know just what it is.   And it's enough for all of us to know how the American Legion feels about our flag.  But the great freedom of our country is that we don't all have to feel the same way.   

American Legion, we know you love the flag.  We love the flag too.  We love your flag.  But don't make everyone feel the same way you do.  Don't make us proclaim our support for your feelings about what the constitution should say about how we must treat our flag.  Let us each go our own way in this matter, because to do that is to truly support our flag.

Just another day in GroveAtopia

I had some errands to do today and the weather was ideal, so I rode my bike into town.  Pedaling down the road, the air was clear, clean and fresh, the sun was warm but not hot, with just a hint of autumn in the air.  Just a hint mind you.  It was 75 degrees, so I'm not talking about the autumn chill.  I'm talking about the hint of autumn.  That's different than the autumn chill.  

I had to go to the post office, then the middle school, then the print shop.  These errands were connected by various events in my personal and community life.  The coupons we promised the garden tour survey respondents had to be mailed out, the certificates of appreciation for work done on Stewart Park needed to be mailed and delivered, my son needed to be registered for 8th grade at the middle school, and I had to pick up the door hangers for a block party I was helping to organize.

But as I rode my way toward these separate destinations, pedaling down Main Street, there, I saw Julie and Brinsley had at last opened their photography gallery and studio in the Cottage Grove Hotel, and thought about stopping by.  But first things, first.  I rode on toward the post office.

I passed Rally, Cottage Grove's Coffee Connesieurs.  They are new in town, but their coffee is freshly roasted and their drinks are devine.  We hope they are successful here in our little town, where we already have 3 other privately owned drive-thru coffee houses.   

While at the post office, I was there when there was basically no line - just 2 people in front of me.  One of the happiest sights in my day is if there is no line at the post office.  If we lived in the big city, we could never expect that.  But here it happens often enough to hope for.

Just past the post office and across the bike path is the Public Works department.  I had a few certificates to leave with them so I rode on over.  No one was at the front desk so I left Melissa a note and explained what I was doing.

Now, over to the middle school where the secretaries were harried but friendly.   One had made sure my son had the schedule he wanted.  The other took the time to tell me how great my youngest son's new teacher was, because she had known her since she was a little girl.

Riding back to the print shop, I found that Kurt had once again given us a big discount on our order and made our print job look better than we imagined.

Riding home past the church, there was the car of my friend who teaches the classics at the Ace Charter School, parked in the lot.  Another school year has begun.

Across the street at the library, look!  There is another friend's car!  I'll stop and go in and look for her.  I was astonished when I didn't find her inside, but took the opportunity to get a book on horses for my son who is just learning to ride.

Outside, while I loaded my bike basket with books and other loot from my trip, a man on a bike pulled up behind me.  A joke he said.  Would I like to hear a joke?  He told me two, and to tell you the truth, I didn't think either of them was funny.  But that wasn't the point.

The point is that in GroveAtopia, you aren't scared when a stranger pedals up to you and tells you a joke.  You don't worry if they are crazy and going to hurt you.  They might be crazy, but they definitely will not hurt you.  Chances are they are just being friendly.  

That's because in GroveAtopia it's people that count.  You carry their stories in your head as you pass through town.  The house over there that has recently been painted.  Your friend knows who lives there and why they are now suddenly able to fix the place up.  

The house on the corner of N and Main is an absolute mess, yet you know the man who lives there and he will be building your cabinets.  The American Legion Hall sure has a lovely new mural painted on its side.  It may be a bit heavy on the flag, but it looks so much better than it did, no one minds.

These are the thoughts you have and the people that go with them as you ride through town.  Someone once said to me, our town doesn't look like much, unless you know the people who live there.

I have to agree.  After living in GroveAtopia as long as I have, I can no longer separate the two.  The people are our town.  Without them and their stories, GroveAtopia is just another place.  Those of you who pass through looking for what our town is may very well miss it.  You will merely see buildings and businesses.  

What GroveAtopians see is people, their stories and their lives..

Machine guns in my Radio Mail

Well here we are again, talking about machine guns in GroveAtopia.  We've done it before, starting way back in March.   That's when we first unveiled the fact that lovely GroveAtopia sports a machine gun shop on Main Street.

Now we all know gun shops are pretty common. Any town can have one.   Heck, you can buy a gun in Bi-Mart.  

But a machine gun.  Now that is quite a different matter.  I'll bet most of you, even those of you who've lived in the big city all your lives have never seen a machine gun shop.

But here in GroveAtopia, we see one every day.  It's so much a part of the scenery of Main Street, that usually we don't even notice it.  

Our children, when they are babies, don't notice it, but we see it slowly unveiled to them as they grow, then perhaps notice the barred windows and ask why, then a little while later, when they can read,  they ask entirely different why.  

So for those moments, we adults again notice that our Main Street has a machine gun shop.  We answer our children's questions as best we can, silently knowing that even though the Constitution says it's okay, it's still Just Not Right. So we wait, until the storefront once again fades into the background.

But then, suddenly out of the blue, there is another reminder.  

Radio Mail is Coming!  Radio Mail is Coming!  

Anyone who listens to KNND has heard this ad.  Radio Mail is a coupon book that is mailed to every home in GroveAtopia by the radio station.  It contains coupons from our local businesses.  If you use the coupon you get to enter into a drawing for a fun prize.

Year after year, the usuals are in the Radio Mail coupon book.  Shoestrings, the shoe store on Main Street, Cosmos Cafe, the latest restaurant in the old Coffee Grove building, and many many others.

But this year, Radio Mail had a new coupon.  It's from West Coast Machine Guns, our very own Main Street machine gun shop.  If you take your Radio Mail coupon into West Coast Machine Guns, they'll give you 1/2 off a second box of ammo, or $20 off any purchase of $150 or more.

Normally the prospect of a "cents off" coupon is exciting.  Who doesn't like to save a bit of money?

But face it.  This is different.  You shouldn't save a bit of money when you are purchasing a machine gun.  It should always, always cost at least full price.  And so should the ammo.

I don't like the prospect of someone who is a bit short, needing to use a coupon to finally, finally get that machine gun they've been, what, wanting?? needing??? saving up for??? Why???

I want it to be hard to get a machine gun.  And one way to make it hard is to make sure that a machine gun costs every single cent of its price because you and I know there is no good reason to need, want or have a machine gun in GroveAtopia.