Recipe For Indian Frybread

Recipe for Indian Frybread, courtesy of Maureen Bergman.

Ingredients:...

4 cups of flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tbs. powdered milk
1 ½ cups warm water
1 cup shortening
Extra flour to flour your hands
Directions:
Put flour in bowl, add baking powder, salt and powdered milk. Mix.
Mix in warm water to form dough.
Cover hands in flour.
Knead dough by hand until soft but not sticky. Cover with a cloth and let stand for 15 minutes.
Shape dough into balls about 2 inches across then flatten by patting and stretching the dough.
Melt shortening about an inch deep in frying pan. When hot put dough in pan. Fry one side till golden brown, then turn and fry the other.
This is a wonderful bread that can be used as a dessert by topping with honey, powdered sugar, etc. or can be used for main dishes such as topping with taco ingredients for an "Indian Taco".
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Boa Constrictors And Muscovy Ducks

    Today, I took Jalani, my pet red-tail boa constrictor out in the back yard for some "exercise" on the grass. Today is one of the last days of the year when we can expect sunny and mildly warm weather. I never use Jalani to tease or provoke our other pets, but it is comical nonetheless to view their reactions.
     The Blue Swedish ducks and Brown Chinese geese tend to gawk at Jalani. Their heads perked high, their necks angled to view this seven foot-plus reptile slithering on the grass, is about all they'll do. The ducks might let out a warning quack, and they'll either stay where they are like statues or they'll move farther away from Jalani.
     The Muscovy ducks, a breed that originated in South America, have a different reaction. (Muscovy ducks are the ones with a red comb on their bills, and they "hiss" instead of quack.) The Muscovy ducks literally come running toward Jalani. I position myself between the snake and the ducks, out of concern that the ducks will attack Jalani.
     After I've made it clear to the ducks that they're not getting the snake, they just stand alert, heads cocked in the direction of Jalani's head, following her every movement. When the snake moves, the ducks move, in conjunction with the direction that Jalani's head is pointed in the yard.
     I wish I knew the Muscovys' interest in reptiles. More specifically, would the ducks actually attack the snake if I weren't present? Who would win such a battle? Somewhere in my memory, I remember hearing one time about Muscovy ducks being a good "watchdog." There was presumably some rodent or predator that Muscovys would attack and kill. Was it a mongoose? Or am I confusing Muscovy ducks with the Rudyard Kipling story Rikki Tikki Tavi, about a mongoose that saves an Indian family from a venomous snake?
     In any event, Jalani is a gentle and harmless (from my perspective) animal. She gets her name from a Cheetah that Wildlife Safari in Winston acquired about the same time that I acquired Jalani. A news story that aired when Jalani (the cheetah) arrived at the game park, said the name means "the mighty one" in some African language.

History Of Muirhead P.O. Boxes

     I must be desperate for material to post a blog entry on post office boxes. Actually, my insurance agent got me to thinking about it this past week, when he was confused as to whether I'm at P.O. Box 3 or 401.
     Before I go any further, it's important to note there are different sizes of post office boxes. At the Oakland post office, they have three sizes: 1, 2, and 3. One is the smallest. At the larger city post offices, I believe the box sizes go up at a humungous size 6.
     My family for years had post office box 817, a size 2 box, at the old post office on Locust street. Then, around 1976, my family moved to Winchester Bay for half a year and closed out box 817. When we moved back to Oakland, for a few weeks we had a size 1 box (606, 616, or 626?). We then switched over to box 636, a size 2 box, at the old post office.
     The new Oakland post office opened around 1991, and that's when things really began to get complicated. The new post office had more boxes, but the numbers didn't go as high. Box 740 is the highest box number at the new post office. I believe the old post office went into the 900 range. I asked George, a former Oakland postmaster about this one time.
     He told me to look at the boxes. Some numbers were missing. In other words, there aren't actually 740 boxes at the new facility, because some numbers are skipped. The same was apparently true at the old post office, although I had never paid attention before to the discrepancy.
     When box 636 transferred, it became a size 1 box, due to the configurations of boxes at the new post office. 636 remained our box number for over a decade. Then, I ran for Douglas County commissioner in 2002, and I rented a new box number for my campaign. I asked the postmaster at the time which boxes were available. Numerous boxes ending in "5" were available for rent. The lowest number was 3. I liked 3 for several reasons. It was higher up than the other boxes, and therefore easier for me to see into the box; it was a single-digit number, which would make it "stick out" as a mailing address; and more importantly, it was a size 2 box.
     After my campaign was over, my Mother gave me permission to close out our 636 box, and transfer to box 3. This may not seem like a big deal, but when a person has newspapers and magazines with torn pages, because they're crammed into a dinky size 1 box, having a larger size 2 box suddenly makes the world a whole light brighter!
     Box 3 has been our box ever since, UNTIL I discovered that our family was eligible for a free post office box, because we live in town. A free box definitely sounded better than paying $54.00(?) a year for a rented box. Unfortunately, the free rate only applied to size 1 boxes. Box 3, a size 2 box, would have to go. That's when I rented box 401 (I liked it because it was on the top row and easy for me to reach) and began to transfer mail to the new box number.
     Unfortunately, I had forgotten why I enjoyed box 3 in the first place: its larger size. When mail began arriving in box 401, I began to see once again the torn pages on mail that was too big to stuff into the tiny box. At some point, we kept our magazine subscriptions and newspapers directed to box 3, and made 401 our "business" mailbox for bills, etc.
     I'm sure at some point, we'll close out one of the boxes and use only one for our mailing address. But which one? Due to financial cutbacks, we don't receive as many magazines and catalogs as we once did, so the need for larger box 3 has somewhat diminished. Still, there's a certain charm with having box 3. I've had numerous people exclaim, "Wow, how'd you get a box like that? You must have been one of the first people in town to rent a box." No, I simply was at the "right place at the right time" when it came time for me to rent a box.
     So where is this blog entry going? The Oakland post office, which does not have residential mail delivery in town (which is why everyone rents post office boxes) has recently begun delivering mail to homes on Cypress Street. Due to my cancer treatments, I don't have the physical stamina to install a mailbox post in the ground. It would be nice to have mail delivered across the street and not have to pay for a post office box anymore. But until I recover from my cancer, I'll have to be content getting my daily exercise, walking three blocks to the post office to collect the mail from boxes 3 and 401.

Garbage Dumping Fees (Again)

     All six candidates for Douglas County commissioner attended a forum sponsored by the Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce. Three of the candidates support creating a new garbage dumping fee at the county landfill and transfer stations: Chris Boice,  Mark Garcia, and Dale Rogers. Three candidates oppose a new fee: Jeff Admire, Rita Harris, and Gary Leif (whom I am voting for).
     I'm not surprised this topic has come up again for discussion, as Douglas County scrambles to pay for county services amid an ever-declining revenue stream from O and C federal timber lands. What does surprise me is the split on the fee proposal. Both Boice and Garcia are Republicans who proudly use their involvement with the party as a reason to support their candidacies.  I thought that the Republican doctrine in general was against the creation of new taxes?
     During these tough economic times, I believe it is ludicrous to discuss imposing new taxes on citizens, especially regressive taxes that hit low-income people the hardest. How about creating a new fee at the county libraries or parks? Those fees would be optional, unlike a garbage dumping fee that everyone must pay.

Vote Yes On Oregon Ballot Measure 92

      I have decided to vote yes on Oregon ballot measure 92. It would require the labeling of GMOs (growth modifying organisms) on food sold in Oregon. It is simply an extension of current requirements for the labeling of ingredients on all commercial food products.
     GMOs are a serious health concern for people with some diseases, such as cancer. Livestock are routinely fed growth hormones and given antibiotics; both can stimulate the growth of cancer cells in people with cancer. Produce as well is sometimes genetically modified, which again can play havoc for the compromised immune systems of those fighting a disease.
     People have a right to know what they're putting in their bodies. And for some, the presence (or lack of presence) of GMOs can be a life and death issue. Please vote yes on measure 92. It's not a political issue. It's a health issue.

Cable TV Complaint Conundrum

     This is a long entry today about a mundane, superficial subject, but I'm venting because my sleep patterns were disrupted last night.
      Our Charter Cable TV was out last night. From 1:20a.m. until approximately 8:00a.m. Don't get me wrong; I'm not up watching TV at that ungodly hour. But my mother sometimes is.
      Surprisingly, I got a live Charter representative on the phone at that late (or is it early?) hour. She said there was an outage due to "maintenance" issues. In other words, Charter technicians were busy finding ways to re-arrange their channel line-up and annoy their customers once again.
      This the SECOND time in less than a month that our cable TV has been out during that time period. Who knows how many other times the cable TV was out when we weren't watching at that hour? To Charter's credit, they gave us a 24-discount on our next bill for the TWO nights that we were without television.
      My 20-year broadcasting career was mostly spent in the analog era of television, before we had high definition TV and digital converter boxes attached to our sets, that the cable TV company now charges its customer an extra $5.00 a month for. Why don't they just add it to their "regular" charges?
     (In the 1970s, we paid $5.00 a month for about 12 channels. Today, the lowest possible fee is over $39.00 a month for about 20 channels. In contrast, when Star Trek came out on videotape in the late 1980s, it cost $14.99 to purchase ONE episode of Star Trek on VHS. Today, a person can purchase an ENTIRE SEASON of a television series on DVD for sometimes the same price. What is wrong with this picture? Are the cable TV monopolies raking in a profit somewhere?)
     I'm tired of waking up and trying to guess where our channels are on the line-up. For example, this past month Charter switched Medford PBS-station KSYS from channel 8 (its over-the-air frequency) with one of the home shopping channels on channel 7. WHY is that necessary? Don't tell me its because the Channel 8 over-the-air frequency interferes with its reception on cable channel 8. That excuse might have flown back in the days of analog TV, but not in today's digital era.
     And when a person only receives about 20 channels on their basic TV line-up (which is what we receive due to the high cost of the "upper tiers"), is it REALLY necessary to put one station on channel 187? I mean, come on,...if our remote ever runs dead on batteries, it plays havoc trying to change from channel 22 (the weather channel), up to the next nearest channel on 93 (the Catholic channel, which we don't watch anyway), up to the next nearest channels in the 180-block.                     
      I sometimes think the cable companies just play around with things, to try and aggravate customers enough, to get them to subscribe to higher-paying options. And I don't care how many "bundle" promotions we receive in the mail each month...I am NEVER going to trust Charter with a $99.99 offer for cable TV, internet, and phone service. After one year, the price goes up, and it's next to impossible to go back to the way things "were."

    

Roseburg Valley Mall Revisited

     As I stated in a previous blog entry, I have rarely visited the Roseburg Valley Mall in recent years. The only time I go there is to accompany my mother to PayLess Shoe Source (formerly Volume Shoes). I made such a visit to the mall this past week.
     The last time that I visited the mall for myself was when I was beginning Graduate school at the University of Oregon in 2010. I needed to get a new cell phone, after happily being without a cell phone for the first 44 years of my life; I found what I wanted at AT&T. Now, all of the cell phone stores (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon) have left the mall. Only U.S. Cellular remains.
     I was shocked this past week to discover that even more stores have left the mall, with no one taking their place. With more than half of the store fronts vacant, the mall is now a hollow shell with an occasional shopper wandering the corridors.
     One of the two jewelers at the crossroads has left (1). The bookstore that replaced Waldenbooks has left (2). So has the upper-end bookstore at the other end of the store (3). One of the few remaining original stores, Hallmark, is no longer at the mall (4). Visiting the Hallmark store to check out their latest Christmas tree ornaments had been one of the diversions that I used to make, while my mother shopped for shoes. The camera store that replaced Kit's Cameras, inside the former Taco Time space, has also departed the mall (5).
     Warm Oven Cookies at the crossroads has now changed to Warm Oven Café, reflecting the (apparent) decreasing demand for cookies. Surprisingly to me, another one of the original mall tenants, Orange Julius is still at the mall. Somehow, seeing Orange Julius at the crossroads always provides a sense of stability for me, letting me know that the mall perseveres, despite the departure of numerous businesses.
     I don't want to say "I told you so," but the Roseburg Valley Mall seems to be on a self-fulfilling prophecy of abandonment. When anchor store Sears recently left, the mall decided to replace the space with three outside-entrance businesses. The new outside façade may attract shoppers to those three businesses, but it bypasses the corridors to inside tenants. With fewer people walking from one anchor store to another, there is less demand for services from the inside merchants.
     The situation reminds me of a longtime grocery store that operated in Oakland. For decades, Bob and Lorraine Russell operated Sanitary Market. After Bob passed away, Lorraine sold the store to a family that had recently moved here from Hawaii. The new owner thought the store was quaint and she was happy to buy the store because she had never operated a grocery store before.
     Because Bob Russell, who was a butcher and had operated a meat counter at Sanitary Market, was no longer around, the new owners decided to convert the butcher cooler into a deli. The soup and sandwiches were so popular that the new owners decided to take out some coolers in the back of the store and install several tables for people to sit down.
     I watched warily as the grocery store shelves gradually went away, while the encroaching deli took over the new space. Sanitary Market had been a very small store to begin with. By removing the grocery shelves, the market became less of a grocery store with needed daily commodities, and became more of a convenience store with only a handful of needed groceries. I began to wonder if it was a grocery store or a deli? I'm not sure if the new owners even knew what direction they were going.
     As it turned out, both the deli and the grocery store went out of business. There wasn't enough room inside the cramped building to sustain both businesses. I see the same situation occurring at the Roseburg Valley Mall. Is it an indoor mall, or an outside shopping plaza? I'm not sure which direction the mall is going, and with fewer businesses now operating inside the mall, I'm not sure how much longer both an indoor mall and an outside shopping plaza can co-exist in the same space.
     I hope the Roseburg Valley Mall survives. It'd be a shame if I had to go to Dairy Queen to purchase an orange Julius in the future. Of course, now that I'm on a naturopathic diet, I sadly cannot enjoy the beverage anyway.

Part 2, November's Commissioner Race

      I'm not actively campaigning for, or writing any letters to the editor for, the November election of Douglas County Commissioner. But I have decided to put a Gary Leif campaign sign in our yard. I have nothing against any of the other candidates and I wish them all well in the upcoming election. I hope all of them (there are now six) each receive at least ten percent of the vote!
     When I ran for county commissioner in 2002, Gary Leif took my photo to be used in the voters' pamphlet. I don't remember much of our conversation, but I've always remembered one comment that he made to me: "There can only be one winner." Leif was referencing the fact that the 2002 Republican primary for county commissioner was highly competitive among four candidates, including myself. Each of the candidates had qualifications and experience from different backgrounds, but there could only be one winner.
     I believe Leif's point was that the race for Douglas County Commissioner isn't (or shouldn't be) a popularity contest among winners and losers. Even though only one person wins the job, that doesn't mean that the other candidates wouldn't be equally effective and do just as good of a job as the winner. In the end, the "winner" is the person who is able to get their message out best to the voting public.
     When I ran again for Douglas County Commissioner in the May, 2014, primary, there were seven candidates vying for the job. One of our candidate forums was before the Liberators group at Round Table Pizza in Roseburg. During the candidates' remarks, the person who ended up winning the election was comparing himself to the other six candidates. He stated that among his six opponents, two were "retired," two were (something to the effect of unable due to lack of experience), and two were "unemployed."
     As I sat there with a smile on my face, my mind was quickly trying to determine which one of those categories that I supposedly fell into. I concluded that I must be one of the "unemployed." It was true, I was not working at the time. But that was because I had just recovered from a 17-month battle with CANCER, and had become cancer-free right before the filing deadline to file for county commissioner.
     I had never considered myself "unemployed" during the prior 17 months. I had been disabled, as defined by the federal government who had issued me Social Security disability payments. I thought it was a cruel and thoughtless comment to make, for a political candidate to use one's prior illness as a reason as to why voters should not vote for them. (Of course, my candidacy all became a moot point, as I was diagnosed with having a stage four cancer tumor the week before the election.)
     When I ran for office, I made positive comparisons about my qualifications against my opponents. For example, I said I was the only candidate with a Master's degree. I didn't say that all my opponents were uneducated boobs. I did NOT feel that way about my opponents; I am simply giving a comparison between positive and negative campaigning.
     I believe Gary Leif is that kind of an individual: Someone who is pro-active about campaigning and pro-active in addressing solutions to problems. History may prove me wrong in that assumption. But for now, I am happy to place a Gary Leif sign in my yard. Besides, I think his green tree-lined campaign signs are the most creative, colorful-appealing signs that I've seen in awhile. But that should NOT be the reason for placing one in a person's yard. :)