My mother lives alone in her own home.  She will turn ninety this summer.  Now, I do not normally go to my front door if I am not expecting invited visitors.  I am generally just too disheveled and unexpected knocks on the door send my dogs into doberman mode. But Mother is from a different generation, and not answering her door would seem inhospitable  to her.  Nevermind that nowadays it takes her a bit of time to get out of her chair and maneuver her walker down a couple of hallways.

She has been repeatedly visited in recent months by a team of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Now, Mother, like most of us, has her own religious views and see’s no reason to change them at this point and has no interest in discussing them with strangers in long skirts or suits and ties, very eccentric apparel for Pecos, Texas.  She has asked them repeatedly not to return.  She called their meeting house and made the same strong appeal, to no avail.

Yesterday as she was just getting dressed after her shower, she looked out her window and saw these folks coming up her walkway once again.  She went right to the door and opened it — in her bra and panties.  I bet it worked.  I am sorry to report that no pictures were taken.  This will have to do:

I did appreciate your various comments about guns. I think people from Texas have a unique viewpoint. Many serious hunters in Oregon do too.  (Not to mention some neo-nazis hoarding weapons out in our woods.) I admire you for taking the proper classes to become a “concealed carrier.”  Still, those squirrels damaging your roof might respond adequately to a BB gun.  Here at 1880, I can just say, “Roxie, squirrel!” and my personal body guard dashes through the doggie door and takes care of things.

I will say, I respect people’s Second Amendment rights. In evaluating these sorts of issues, I always try to consider the “original intent” of the “framers” of our Constitution and weigh that against what all those wealthy white men could not possibly have imagined regarding life in 2013.

I get really annoyed when I hear some redneck, you should pardon the expression,  standing in front of my Capitol yelling that he doesn’t want me to take away his guns. I have absolutely no interest in taking away his guns. Clearly, if he wants to be properly checked out and go out in the woods and fire off multiple rounds with his multiple automatic guns in an attempt to be sporting and try to keep the black-tailed deer population under control, he can just buy a hunting license and do so. That I “don’t get it” is not a valid argument, and I know that.

As a teacher, would I have felt safer if I’d had a weapon in my pocket? Are you kidding me? Would I feel safer if someone broke into my house in the middle of the night and I pulled a gun out of my bed-side drawer. Are you kidding me? ( I’ll just yell, “Roxie, squirrel!”) Would I feel safer if my neighbor heard some rustling around in the alley and thought it was a raccoon and fired at it and it was this old woman out there taking her old dog for a bed-time walk? Seriously?

But I do have a couple of questions I would like answered. Is it sporting to hunt with what, for brevity’s sake, I often refer to as an UZI? And what is it about “concealed” weapons? If you’re packing, I want to see your weapon. I want it to be a six-shooter in a holster on your hip. And I wouldn’t mind hearing you say, “Hi-Ho, Silver, away!”

There has been a lot of discussion since we saw The Quiet Man last week about how young girls of my generation grew up having been tricked into believing some very wrong ideas about sexual relationships. Men were strong, commanding, controlling, abusive, if you will, and that was all depicted as being acceptable.  In The Quiet Man, John Wayne actually dragged Maureen O’Hara over hill and dale and threw her on the bed, and this is not presented as brutal, abusive or in any way unacceptable in that milieu.  But that is not my point.  My point is that we never guessed what happened when the camera panned up or faded to black at the crucial moment and the music rose.  (I actually did not figure out the crux of The African Queen until I re-saw it as an adult, having first seen it when I was eight.)  I have to wonder if I am the only one who was just a little disappointed to learn that there would be no music and my hair was going to get all messed up.

These are two things I love.  I would probably tear down a bank before I would chop down a tree.  Still, the answers to such issues sometimes are not so simple.  On my favorite street down town, there is an historic building known as The Ladd and Bush Building.

William Ladd and Asahel Bush II had this Italianate-style bank building constructed in 1868 to house the new Ladd & Bush Bank, the first bank in Salem, which opened on March 29, 1869.  Now, it is inhabited by a US Bank branch.  Recently, US Bank decided that the row of Japanese Zalkovas lining the street in front had to come down because they had grown so big that they were obscuring the facade of an historic building and were causing the sidewalk to buckle.  They went though the process of getting approval from all the necessary entities to take the trees down.  This was well-publicized and a group did stand in silent protest as the first trees came down.  The two remaining were discovered to contain nesting birds, so they will not be taken down until after the baby birds have fledged out and flown away.  Sweet.  I snapped this picture this morning while I was in the neighborhood buying flatbread at Cascade Baking Co.

Then, when I got back home and back to the morning paper, I read, “Restaurant owner arrested in incident.”  Apparently, David Rosales, (son of my neighbors Pedro and Anne Rosales, proprietors of La Margarita’s) and owner of two restaurants of his own down town, Andaluz and La Capitale, was running a day or two late when he showed up, stormed into the bank in a pique, and began a protest of his own that was somewhat less than silent.  He was arrested and is facing charges of trespassing,  disorderly conduct, and criminal mischief.  I hope Anne and Pedro see his bail in time for him to get to La Capitale tonight.  Best pommes frites in town.