Editorial: Roses & thorns

Rose

The pain of loss may ease over time, but the memories of those who are gone stick with their colleagues, friends and families.

We offer a bouquet of roses to a group of former telephone company employees who spent a lot of time in recent weeks refurbishing a memorial in Canyonville’s Stanton Park. The memorial was built just months after a 1974 landslide buried seven Pacific Northwest Bell telephone repairmen and two employees of a Gold Hill contractor, all of whom had been trying to repair a cable on a hillside weakened by torrential rains.

Though it’s been 34 years since the disaster, the members of the Pioneer Life Member Club decided to spruce up the park memorial.

The retired workers said people have gathered at the site on various anniversaries of the slide, though as time has passed and the poignancy of the memory has softened, the number of people who gather to remember the tragedy has dwindled. For others, however, the memories are still fresh.

“We just wanted to clean it up, you know, it was getting moss pretty heavy,” said former phone company worker Donald Dilbeck of Roseburg.

We appreciate their determination to ensure that the workers lost that day will not be forgotten.

Thorn

We love fireworks, and we’re looking forward to the annual displays of patriotic fervor in the sky and on the ground as the Fourth of July holiday approaches.

But there’s also a dire need for caution. Hot weather is arriving after a season of heavy rain that has left plenty of vegetation that can easily catch fire.

So we offer a thorn to a Roseburg man accused of starting one of the first fireworks-related fires of the season on Tuesday. Fire crews that day responding to a 50-foot-square grass fire found the remains of a “crackle ball” firework at the ignition point of the blaze.

It was a case of using legal fireworks in an unsafe manner, and we advise extreme caution from now on for all of us. Always have a hose or a bucket of water handy for emergencies, fire officials advise, and we concur.

Let’s have fun. And let’s be careful out there.

Rose

Using old resources to fill new needs is a great idea, and we offer a rose to Pacific Power for working to re-energize and update an old electrical power line linking Canyonville and Riddle. And for building new lines along the old right of way that will supply South County’s electrical needs for a long time.

South County is growing, and the new lines will also provide a more stable source of electricity in the event that a power outage occurs in either of the communities.

The line once served the old Hanna Nickel Mine and was abandoned by the Bonneville Power Administration nearly a decade ago.

Using the existing electrical towers will help Pacific Power offset substantial costs, and in turn, save ratepayers money in the long run.

We love that kind of thinking.

And a tear

Sometimes there are almost no words.

A terrible tragedy occurred late last week, when little Jessica Lee Weinhold, a 6-year-old-child from Yoncalla, was bringing a cold drink to a tractor operator working on the gravel road in front of her home and was struck and killed.

The pain her family is feeling right now is unimaginable. Likewise for the driver of the tractor.

All of you are in our thoughts. And we’ll depart from the roses and thorns normally offered in this space, and just offer all of you a tear.