Stephanie says

Sad to see the Douglas County Library measure fail.   The county has historically funded the libraries but with ever decreasing timber revenues from the State, library support has suffered cut after cut for many years.       Drain and Yoncalla have 33 weekly operating hours between them, spread over six days. Residents can check out books, movies, use the internet for a few hours at whichever location is open.     The current county budget eliminates funding for library services at the end of their fiscal year, June 30, 2017.   There will be further cuts to service hours beginning January 1, 2017. There is no Plan B. Closures will follow.   While I appreciate the need for police and fire protection, not supporting library services is a step back in time, a further blow to the education of our children in this poverty stricken community.     We’ve lost sight of the value of education in fighting that poverty ...

I’d been visiting my Broadbent cousins and somewhat randomly attended a revival meeting at the Egyptian Theater in Coos Bay.   I was around age ten and thus far my religious experience was low-key services in community churches in Sitkum, Broadbent, and Powers, Protestant all.   A Catholic church in Powers intrigued me with mysteries of holy water, rosaries, and making the sign of the cross.   I could only speculate on an actual Mass with priests swinging incense burners down the aisles while chanting Latin. This revival was something entirely different.   The dimmed theatre jam-packed with raucous believers marching to the drum of a spell-binding minister spouting brimstone, hell-fire and damnation to those (to be pitied) non-believers.   It was a spectacle.   A film on the evil pitfalls of heroin addiction played at one point, a truly frightening look at a life of addiction.   I vowed then and there to never use heroin – and I never did....

The spate of male sexual assaults against women in the news of late jogged a memory of an assault against me.   My assailant was neither Donald Trump or Bill Clinton or Bill Cosby.   Just another misogynistic man asserting his power over the lesser species.   I was a newlywed pushing my shopping cart down the cereal aisle at the local grocery, vaguely aware of another shopper behind me.   My peripheral vision caught a movement, then a hand caressed my ass, before the figure passed ahead.   I was stunned but not too stunned to identify this person as a totally unknown man. I was at a complete loss of how to proceed.   I was frightened that he was waiting ahead of me.   Or waiting for me in the parking lot. I panicked but found the store manager, told the events, and was walked out to my car.   I was shaking so hard I could barely drive.   This was long before the age of cell phones so there was no recourse except to drive home. ...