by Paul Haeder / February 18th, 2021
If I were asked what I want to accomplish as a writer, I would say it’s to contribute to the literature of hope. Barry Lopez,
A passing. A death. Moving on. Back to earth. A new journey.
He filled the air with lyrical words and ideas grafted to our role as writers and people living inside and with our natural world. He was steadfast in his role as a naturalist of sorts, but through and through he was a word conjurer.
He came to me when I was young, inside his book about wolves. I was in Arizona jumping the skeletons of saguaros with my 360cc Bultaco and learning the art of passage: working with ministers and laypersons helping Central Americans cross that political line between USA and Mexico.
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OSU releasing winter series of music, spoken word mini-concerts that call for action on extinction
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University is publishing 20 four-minute concerts that weave together music and the spoken word to celebrate the creatures that fill the air with sound – frogs, wolves, songbirds, growling grizzly bears – and inspire action to save them.
Videos in the “Music to Save Earth’s Songs” series will be posted online at 6 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays through the end of March. To watch, visit https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/feature-story/music-save-earth-s-songs.
The series, which is free and open to the public, is inspired by a new book from OSU Professor Emeritus Kathleen Dean Moore called “Earth’s Wild Music.”
BARRY, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? You and I have been friends for almost forty years now.
We’ve donned hip waders and walked together in the whitewater of your beloved McKenzie River. We’ve walked the woods and hills of the Goldstream Valley. One snowy afternoon, in the crepuscular winter light, as we hiked up the mountain above Cynthia’s and my house, you told me at length about your idea for a sprawling book that would somehow encompass the whole earth with the same intensity and specificity as
Arctic Dreams. A few years later, while you were working on that book,
2020: Pandemic, natural disaster and upheaval
December 24, 2020
Megan Whitermore celebrates graduation from the back of a truck on Main Street during Tuesday s parade. The ceremony was altered due to COVID-19 restrictions.
As I sat down to write the 2020 Year in Review, I thought: I don t want to relive this year, nor should anyone else. But tradition dictates an annual recap, which if left unwritten, would end my positive relationship with CVN bookkeeper Jane Pascoe. Plus, the newspaper is a weekly black hole of white space that must be filled. So here it goes:
A January 2020 blizzard that brought 50 inches of snow in two days prompted then-borough manager Debra Schnabel to declare a public safety emergency. She told the CVN she hoped the public would hunker down while public works crews cleared roads. The term would soon reappear in a different context two months after the severe weather event that, in hindsight, seems miniscule.