Author: paedwards

Sweet Lorane Community News, June 1, 2017

June 1, 2017Newspaper Columns, Leave a comment

Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
June 1, 2017
By Pat Edwards

Graduation time is here again. I want to personally congratulate each of the seniors from not only Crow High School, but all local high schools, who are nearing the completion of their secondary education in order to transition to further studies in college or to set the goals that will define who they will become in their adult lives.

Looking back over my own “transition,” it was not an easy time for me. I did go to college for one year at Linfield in McMinnville. I loved the independence even though I lived in a dorm. I made long-lasting friendships, but I was still very immature and did not apply myself well to my studies. Maybe if I had made better grades, I could have earned scholarships that would have allowed me to continue after that first year. It’s one of those things that you don’t think about as a “just-barely” 18 year old. In those days, young high school graduates tended to live in the “now.” Looking to the future, in those days for girls especially, wasn’t the focus other than how it pertained to settling down to raise a family. Things are so much different now for those students who have been raised to further their education and plan a career; but, there are still those like me who are not prepared to set goals and look to the future or who are not suited for college. They must get their education from life, as I did. We make mistakes and we learn from them… or we don’t. For those who do learn from them, we are able to grow. It’s a slower process, but I believe that we can still achieve and set goals. We don’t end up with a degree in our hands, but we can take pride in setting the course for our lives that will allow us to be responsible, knowledgeable citizens and productive members of our communities.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that in order for our society to work, we cannot all be the queen bees in the hive. It takes a lot of drones and worker bees to keep the hive viable and alive. College is extremely valuable, especially now, but no high school graduate should feel that if they can’t or don’t go to college for any reason, they cannot succeed in life. There are still a lot of opportunities for growth outside of academia if you are willing to apply yourself to whatever interests, abilities and talents you possess… and that includes higher education later on – down the road – once you have figured out what it is you really want to do.

Congratulations high school grads! You’re on the threshold of the rest of your life. Whether you are heading for college or not, keep in mind that as you experience life as an adult, you may find that your interests change course. That’s as it should be, because you’ll be experiencing new things and finding new interests that you didn’t know existed. If you come out of high school believing that you want to be a welder, but take some computer or science classes that open your eyes to another career path, allow yourself to explore those other options. You are the captain of your life. You can be whoever you want to be. You just have to be willing to work for it and set goals for the course that you sail.

Sweet Lorane Community News, May 25, 2017

May 25, 2017Newspaper Columns, , Leave a comment

Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
May 25, 2017
By Pat Edwards

Once again, I owe my editors and readers an apology. I completely missed my deadline last week. I find that being retired allows my days to roll by without always being classified as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Frequently, someone at our bank will ask, “Did you have a good weekend?” and I have to pause and think what the current day is and when the weekend was. No longer are weekends defined as the days when I don’t have to head for work.

Consequently, I’ve found that the only way I can keep track of events and happenings in my life is to put it on my computer calendar which reminds me of what’s coming up in the next 1-3 days. (I set my reminders for 3 days in advance and again, 1 day ahead.) It works most of the time, but some of the more routine deadlines, such as my column submissions, have become rote and are no longer on my reminders. If I get deeply focused on something like last weekend’s Lorane Community-wide Yard Sale, I forget what day it is.

Oh, the joys of aging! All of this is not meant to be an excuse… I don’t take slip-ups such as missed deadlines lightly. This is more of an observation of some of the things the rest of you can look forward to in your advancing years.

This provides me with a smooth transition into talking about what took up much of my attention last week. We were blessed with beautiful weather for the community yard sale. I decided that I’d open up our Dew Drop Inn building – the one I used for awhile as an office for Groundwaters. It has a long history in Lorane. It was once a very popular tavern run by Chancy Davis, and sits just north of the Lorane Family Store. Ever since I stopped using it as an office, it’s been sitting there serving as nothing but a storage unit for all of the tubs of historical research I’ve done on Lorane and my own family genealogy. It also was housing the Lorane memorabilia removed from the former Lorane Elementary School after it was sold to a private party. In addition, it has been home to hundreds of books that I had been collecting for a hoped-for community library at the school should the community be fortunate enough to retain it as a public building. That didn’t happen, and even though the Lorane Community Association maintains a little exchange library at the Lorane Family Store, they don’t have room to display or store the additional books I had collected.

I used the yard sale as a means of selling a few of the books to raise money for community projects. It took all of last week to get my things moved to a storage unit and the building cleaned out enough to set up tables for the sale. The Lorane Grange kindly agreed to take over the caretaking of the Lorane memorabilia, including a time capsule put together by Lorane students in 1986 that is slated to be opened in 2061 – the next appearance of Halley’s Comet – and long after many of us expect to be around.
Now that the sale is over, the building is going to be used by Karen Pidgeon and Alix Mosieur to paint the beautiful mural that they designed and will be hanging on the side of the Lorane Family Store.

When they are done, I’m thinking that maybe Lorane can have its little community library – at least until Jim and I decide what to do with the building down the road. I no longer want it to stand vacant. I’ve already talked to a member of the group that is overseeing the little exchange library and if things work out, I’d like to see them give a purpose to the Dew Drop Inn once again. I think Chancy Davis would like that.