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A solar hold-up

So that is what happened to those solar panels on the Carter White House!

I have often wondered and it is good to know that they have been rescued from a dusty warehouse and put to the purpose for which they were made.

I was, you see, in those days a Sr. Energy Management Engineer for the state of Connecticut which, along with nine other states, was part of a government-funded, 18-month pilot program on energy conservation and management.

The Carter administration also had other pilot programs within various federal agencies — NASA, BLM, SERI, etc. — which were complementary to the state programs.

Conclusions reached at the end of the pilot programs clearly showed which ones best would substantially reduce our dependence on foreign sources for oil. Had voters not been seduced by style over substance and given President Carter a second term, we would today be where we are optimistically projected to be by 2030. We lost 30 years and even today, foot-dragging by vested interests is slowing what should be a concerted drive toward improved and alternative technologies.

For his part, once ensconced in the White House with old oil magnates pulling his strings, Mr. Reagan began de-funding and disassembling the energy programs initiated under the Carter administration. Removal of those solar panels were among the first and most visible signs of Mr. Reagan’s deconstruction of progress towards a sane and realistic energy program.

The panels were, the White House press announcement falsely said, “broken.” Nonsense — what was broken was a workable plan for freedom from dependence on foreign oil sources.

Thank you, Mr. Marbach, for your part in putting those panels back to work!

Climber thoughts

I am still spellbound by last December’s story of three missing climbers on Mount Hood. My thoughts and prayers still go out to the climbers’ families. The body of Kelly James was eventually recovered, but the remains of the other two climbers weren’t.

Have there been any recent updates on plans to recover the remains of Jerry Cooke and Brian Hall? I think this will go a long way in providing closure for the other families, as well as those of us who mourn with them.

A family’s day

I’d like to share with you a special memory. A kind of an “Independence Day” story.

Yesterday was a glorious day. Why? Because of five people who came in to Gorge Heritage Museum late in the afternoon. They were not wealthy folks. They weren’t all dolled up. They didn’t have money for pretty tours or for our nice raffle. They were a mom, and a dad, and two little girls and a little boy (mixed ethnicities).

Dad didn’t even speak English. But do you know what? They were all spanking clean and all fascinated with what Mom had prepared for their special day out. She was so clever — what she thought up, coming from a town I didn’t know was on the map and can’t “remember the name of,” was a trip across bridges. They went over The Dalles bridge, and she told them what she knew about that. And they went over the Hood River bridge, and she told them about that.

She delighted them with their tour in GHM, and then she asked me if they were close to the Bridge of the Gods. So I asked if the kids would like a kind of shorter story about the Legend.

Everybody sat down and I started the legend. But oh! Oh! The littlest one swallowed her butterscotch candy whole! She was still trying to listen, little sweet thing. I asked mom if a little drink would help. It would. It did. I had a fresh, new bottle of pink Gatorade handy, and they all had some — littlest one feeling some better now. The boy asked if that bottle was theirs: “Sure.”

So they wanted the rest of the dramatic story and Wy’East’s terrible denouement to the love story. And then they were off to see the sleeping maiden for themselves. But first when I asked if they’d like a picture of themselves in there with the camera Dad was holding in his hand, they got happy and picked out the blacksmith’s shop for their snapshot.

Gosh, they were gorgeous with their black hair and their shiny dark eyes and hugging each other and mother obviously expecting another little one. So anyway, I know this is long, but it’s not every day you get to share in a family’s intimate outing like that, and I knew you’d think so too.