PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

This – the Just Saying Department — is a new one I run because I am doing well with the others which gives me enough time to create a new enterprise.  The others are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, and the Department of Bits and Pieces.  I am the director of each, with full and complete authority to do what I think needs to be done, without regard to the perspectives of others, though it is important to add that I benefit from the well-written perspectives of my favorite newspaper columnists.

In the case of the new department, I will point out what, for me, are basic questions swirling around life these days.  The cases will begin with the phrase “there ought to be a law,” then will end with a usual post-script  – “Just saying.”

CASE #1: There ought to be a law against using the word PROGRESSIVE when it does not deserve to be used, such as in relating to persons, who, on a political spectrum, new to the left, often the far left.

The word conveys contains far more positive impressions than the left deserves.

You are a progressive – so that means you want to move forward, to progress. But, when the term is used to describe politicians on the left, moving forward is one of the last things they want to do.

Let’s limit the use of the word progressive to instances where it is deserved.

Just saying.

CASE #2: There ought to be a law about what words you can use in the TITLES OF PIECES OF LEGISLATION as they being moving through the process in Salem or Washington. D.C.

If you are an elected representative intent on passing a piece of legislation, you want to attach a name that will achieve at least two objectives: First, it will roll off the tongue in order to be memorable, and, second, it will convey a positive image.

Consider one example – the “Affordable Care Act,” which came to be known, perhaps a bit derisively, as ObamaCare.

To put a point on it – whatever else it was, it was not and is not affordable.

Just saying.

CASE #3: There ought to be a law against using the word NEGATIVE when you get a call from your medical provider reporting results of your recent test.

Here’s the likely sentence: “Hello, Mr. Fiskum, I want to report to you that your test was negative.”

When I hear that, I flinch.

There are at least two meanings for the word negative. One, in medical parlance, is that the tests do not show anything negative, thus the report that “they were negative.”

In everyday usage, however, the word negative can mean something else. It can mean that there is something bad or foreboding to report to you about your test.

I know the medical professionals mean well and are just doing their job. But perhaps a better phrase, if there is nothing bad to report, would be:  “I have good news about your recent test.  There is nothing wrong.”

Just saying.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

This topic came to mind earlier this week as I read a story in one of my favorite golf magazines, Links. It detailed what the author called the “Five Toughest Walks in Golf.”

A summary of the five appears below, but it got to me to thinking about tough walks on golf courses I have played in Oregon.

Two stand out.

• One is The Oregon Club in West Linn, a track designed by Oregon’s own, Peter Jacobsen.
• The other is Chehalem Glenn in Newberg, a public facility that says it is one of the most difficult courses in Oregon measured by what golf uses to make such measurements – “slope and rating.”

There may be other tough walking courses in Oregon, but, for me, these two rank as the toughest, so much so that, if I have a choice, I will not play them again. There are so many excellent courses in Oregon that allow, if not encourage, walking, so why, I ask, go places where walking is so difficult.

Here is a bit more information on both courses, along with a memory or two from my own experience.

The 18-hole Oregon Golf Club was designed jointly by Ken Kavanaugh and Peter Jacobsen. It measures 7,052 yards from the longest tees and has a slope rating of 145 and a 74.8 USGA rating. The course features six sets of tees for different skill levels.

But all those statistics don’t tell the whole story. The course is built on a series of hills in the West Linn, which make it a tough walk. When the Fred Meyer Challenge was based there for several years, I always was impressed by the fact that the late Arnold Palmer, then an “old golfer,” managed to walk the entire 18.

Of course, he had a caddy to carry his big, but, still, a tough walk. And the last hole, #18, goes uphill for its entire length.

The other tough walking course, Chehalem Glenn, is nowhere near as good a course as The Oregon Club. It, too, is built on hills, this time west of Portland.

Further, as is the case with some other courses, there often are long walking distances between a green and the next tee. Here’s an on-line description of the course:

“Chehalem Glenn Golf Club sprawls across beautifully hilly terrain, providing a course that is not for the faint of heart. The course is defined by the dramatic changes in elevation, which can make it tough to walk. The steep hills make this a tough golf course even for high handicappers. Uphill, downhill, and side-hill lies abound and you’ll also face forced carries to narrow landing areas as well as blind layup shots. The more open front nine is player friendly and the back nine is where it gets tougher with mostly tree-lined holes and more strategically placed bunkers. The golf course is as scenic as it is challenging with elevated tees and greens that overlooks the surrounding hills and valleys.”

For me, the trouble with Chehalem Glenn is the hills, some of them extreme. They make for tough landing areas for your golf ball, not to mention for your next stance.

The first time I played the course with my golfing buddy from Salem, Dick Haglund, we did take a golf cart, so, obviously, we weren’t walking, but still, to put a point it, “it was a difficult ride.”

With options for other courses in the area, Dick and I decided then and there to try to avoid Chehalem Glenn in the future.

For all the hilly, Northwest beauty of The Oregon Club and Chehelem Glenn, my view is that there are better options, especially if you want to do an important golf two-step – have fun and play well.

As for the Links Magazine, it rates the toughest walks around the country as:

PIKEWOOD NATIONAL/You can’t help but take a few minutes to admire the views from the highest points at Pikewood National, which not only sits atop a mesa in the mountains near Morgantown, West Virginia, but has been continually climbing in national course rankings. The panoramic pit stops aren’t just because you’re treated to views of three states – Pennsylvania and Maryland as well as West Virginia – but also because you’ll probably need to take the occasional breather during your round.

Pikewood National is regarded as one of the most challenging courses in the U.S., with a 155 slope rating, a 78.9 USGA course rating and a brutal 109.4 bogey rating from its championship tees. It’s also one of the toughest walks in golf – a 9-mile hike up and down a mountain; and that’s if you’re hitting it straight. The course, which is spread over 650 acres and features elevation changes of hundreds of feet in just a few holes, is as taxing physically as it is on your scorecard.

BETHPAGE BLACK/There’s a sign just behind the first tee at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course warning that the layout, a two-time U.S. Open site, is an extremely difficult course and should be reserved for highly skilled golfers only. There should probably also be a disclaimer on the sign about how challenging it is to walk the A.W. Tillinghast-designed course that takes on the rough-and-tough personality befitting its New York location. There are plenty of golfers who won’t play the Black because of its walking-only nature. Fairly substantial elevation changes are found on almost half of the holes, including a handful of memorable climbs. Among them is the approach to the green at the 15^th hole, one of the hardest par-4s in the game. Several years ago, I was playing the Black with a good friend who, winded (and humbled) after the hike up the hill at No. 15 and over to the 16^th tee box, plopped down on a bench and said simply, “Never again will I play this (bleeping) course.” He would, of course… because it’s a taxing, yet utterly intoxicating stroll in the park.

CHAMBERS BAY/The first thing you’ll notice on the drive into Chambers Bay, which was built in an old sand and gravel mine on the Puget Sound outside Seattle, is the sheer size and scale of the layout and its topography. Course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. has proudly boasted that the walking-only links-inspired layout is a 10-mile hike, with more than 600 feet of elevation change and significant distances between greens and the next tee. The views are spectacular – from the sparkling waterfront to the snow-capped Olympic Mountain range – and the steep climbs are equally impressive. When the U.S. Open was held at Chambers Bay in 2015, then USGA executive director Mike Davis described the course as an “endurance test,” and other tournament organizers said it would test both the physical and mental capabilities of competitors. If you go, bring comfortable shoes, and possibly a Sherpa.

I have played Chambers Bay several times and have vowed not to make a special trip to do so again. I also was there for the U.S. Open a couple years ago and, without trying to come across as a golf course architect, I thought the course was not worthy of hosting an open. It also has a links style, but, for me, it was, at best, a faint imitation of real links-style courses in Scotland.

WHISTLING STRAITS/Sculpted into two miles of uninterrupted shoreline of Lake Michigan in Kohler, Wisconsin, Whistling Straits can be an unforgiving brute. Designer Pete Dye isn’t known for his warm and fuzzy layouts, but if a golfer is errant on The Straits, which has roughly 1,000 sand bunkers, an already challenging walk can quickly become grueling. When looking at the bluffs and massive sand dunes, it’s hard to conceive that the site in the 1950s was flat farmland used by the U.S. Army as an anti-aircraft training facility. More than 7,000 truckloads of sand – approximately 105,000 cubic yards – were brought in to create the rugged, windswept terrain seen today that’s hosted three PGA Championships. You may need to be as sure-footed as the Scottish Black Sheep that call Whistling Straits home.

ERIN HILLS/The first time the USGA’s Mike Davis saw Erin Hills in Wisconsin, the site of the 2017 U.S. Open, he said it looked like Shinnecock Hills on steroids. The brawny course is routed over the kettle moraine areas left by receding glaciers that formed the property’s rolling and undulating terrain. A walking-only course on 652 acres, Erin Hills is immense in scale. While you don’t have to play the tees that made it the second-longest U.S. Open course in history, you’ll still have many substantial walks past those other teeing grounds. And plenty of golfers have talked about the shin splints they’ve experienced after tackling the course’s uphill approach shots. The website for Erin Hills says to plan on a 4 hour, 55 minute round, and when the wind is blowing – and it often is – the walk can feel even more exhausting.

For me, I feel forever privileged to be able to play my home course in Salem, Illahe Hills, which, to put a twist on a common golf quote, “is a good work not spoiled.” I play Illahe to my heart’s content and I mean that in two ways – golf is a great past-time, plus it helps my heart.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Everyone wants better health care and that includes me as I have traversed the present system so many times in recent years.

In this country, the health care solution, whatever it could be, appears out of reach. Political leaders can’t find the middle ground.

The best approach would be for smart people on both – or all – sides of the political aisle, to gather around a table (yes, make it a round one) and devise a solution from the middle.

If you are involved, leave your biases at the door. Come prepared with your best ideas worthy of consideration, not absolute adoption. Purpose to give something and get something in the transaction, the true definition of compromise in politics.

Republicans become good as just saying no. Democrats advocate for huge government solutions.

Where do the two meet? Nowhere.

All of this came back to my mind this week as a read a piece in the Wall Street Journal by James Freeman who writes about issues from the perspective of what he sees on the Internet.

This time, he is seeing what he calls “BernieCare.”

Freeman starts this way:

“Former President Barack Obama doesn’t draw crowds the way he used to do. But Democrats are fortunate to have another political rock star hitting the trail for candidates in swing-state races. And just like the former President, he’s giving voters inaccurate information about his plans for their health care.

“Bernie Sanders may have been mistreated by the Democratic National Committee when he sought the 2016 presidential nomination against establishment favorite Hillary Clinton, but the party is now fully embracing him.”

Among other things, Sanders is advocating a so-called “Medicare For All” health care plan, which really is not Medicare at all, but a new, very broad government-run health care system.

But public opinion surveys show that support erodes when people hear the arguments that the plan could increase taxes or government control. And nearly half of adults surveyed last October falsely assumed they could keep their current insurance under a single-payer plan, which is not true.

“The notion that it’s popular is premised upon people knowing almost nothing about it,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank, Third Way. “That’s a problem for a very complicated thing that would transform one-fifth of our entire economy.”

Along with ending the Medicare program in favor of a new government-run plan, the Sanders bill also prevents competition against the government system, which, I suppose, is not surprising for a avowed socialist.

Will the Sanders’ plan make progress toward enactment? Well, who knows in the current world of politics where a carnival barker, Donald Trump, can get elected president and a socialist, Bernie Sanders, can make a run for the country’s top political job.

According to the columnist, Freeman, the White House Council of Economic Advisers is explaining the gargantuan costs of government-run health care in particular and socialism in general.

In a new paper, Freeman reports, the council notes that, in order to pay for BernieCare, “with the same spending cuts across all existing Federal programs, cuts would need to be 53 per cent across the board in 2022. In other words, without additional taxes, all other programs of the federal government would need to be cut by more than half.”

Beyond the enormous spending burden, the council also explored the impact on patient care. The paper notes the better survival rates after a cancer diagnosis for patients in the U.S. compared to various European countries often presented as models of more socialized medical systems.

Embedded in the text of BernieCare is the one Sanders’ promise voters can be confident he will keep: If you like your health plan, you won’t get to keep it.

Democrats running for office, by the way, have been advised not to use the phrase “single payer” in any of their advertising. Call it something else like, I guess, health care for all.

Now, lest someone say that all I do is criticize someone else’s proposal without any ideas of my own, let me replay the four ideas I have that I think should be discussed and resolved:

1. Require all citizens to have health insurance. [Think of this way. All of us who drive cars are required to have automobile insurance. If we don’t, we pay a price. The same policy should exist for health insurance – if you have insurance, you will pay a price.]
2. Provide a catastrophic health insurance plan for those who cannot afford regular insurance and who need a lower-cost option.
3. Accommodate people with pre-existing health conditions.
4. Allow broad access to health-savings accounts.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I have often thought about leadership, a trait we look for in politics, but rarely see.

That’s the point. Leadership is hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

Now, we see so-called political leaders competing for our time and attention without standing on principles that deserve our attention. As voters, we often don’t opt support real leadership when we see it , believing that, unless someone agrees with us, they are wrong.

We opt to support someone who happens to believe as we do, or who stands on a street corner, figuratively, and shouts for attention.

As a private sector lobbyist in Salem, Oregon, I looked for political leadership for about 25 years in the business.

I defined leadership this way:

1. First, you can tell a leader because he or she has followers. In other words, leadership requires followership – not as blind puppets, but as those who recognize that someone is worth following.
2. Second, leaders are office-holders who have the ability to bring disparate parties together to solve public policy problems. Call it the ability to lead toward compromise – or as I often call it, “the smart middle” – a lost art in the way politics is played these days.
3. Third, leaders demonstrate a sense of honesty and ethics, which, so often, appears to be missing from politics these days. They also have the ability to admit when they are wrong, which should be a credential, but often gets trumpeted by the media as an indication that a political leader doesn’t know what he or she is doing…otherwise, why the revision.

One of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, whose work most often appears in the Wall Street Journal, wrote about leadership this weekend.

Her analysis was telling. Here are the points she made:

• A leader is someone who first of all means it, and you can tell. He or she sincerely holds the views he or she espouses: He or she is serious. Advancing them is his or her project and purpose.
• The ideas he or she stands for are not merely policy points on an issues matrix. They are held together by a central overarching intention. The new nation called America will survive and thrive while holding to its liberties. The Union must hold. The Cold War will be won, and we will win it. The intention springs from a general, but discernible political philosophy.
• Politicians who can’t turn the dots into a picture are not artists but failed pointillists. They don’t present a full picture. In the end it’s all just dots. No one ever voted for long for a dot.
• Great leaders are capable of arguing for the things they believe in. They can make the case. They can make you think along with them, logically, from point A to point B and beyond. Their words aren’t emotional, as politicians’ tend to be now in an attempt to make a sated audience feel something. (And also because they’re confused about what eloquence is; they think it means fancy.) When leaders rely on logic and fact, voters do feel something: gratitude at the implied respect, and a feeling of warmth at membership in a community of thought and belief.
• Eloquence in political leaders is desirable but not necessary. Too much is made of it even as the real thing disappears. It’s good if you can make the case in a way that is memorable, and that voters can hold in their heads. FDR and Reagan were great and eloquent. But Dwight Eisenhower led American forces through World War II, managed the early days of the Cold War, and built the interstate highway system. Yet listening to him talk was like making your way through children pillow fighting—lots of noise but nothing that made an impression. His actions were eloquent.
• Good leaders live in the real world. They don’t insist on grand ideologies they can squish down on your heads. They know the facts and work within them. They respect reality.
• A leader is aware he or she is the object of many eyes. This puts a responsibility on him or her to act in a certain way—with respect for his or her own dignity and yours. Even if he or she is not in the mood, he or she must uphold standards of presentation. Children are watching and taking cues. That means the future is watching.
• A leader isn’t just trying to survive for himself or herself, to hold on to power. Yet ,a leader tries always to survive. Good leaders are survivors: That’s part of how they show loyalty to what they stand for, by being there to stand for it. How to survive? Shift strategies and tactics but not principles. And admit when you’re wrong, in part because it’s refreshing. Politicians so rarely do it.
• A good leader knows the difference between stubbornness and perseverance. When you’re afraid to look like you backed down, to yourself or others, it’s stubbornness. When you’re willing to pay a price for where you stand, every day, it’s perseverance.

Noonan asks: “When you, the voter, aren’t presented with candidates who look like real leaders, what do you do? Pick the closest to the ideal. Fall back on the practical. Make do with what you have, which is what we usually do. “

In an excellent new book, “Presidents of War,” Michael Beschloss, says this about voting (even as we prepare to do so, or already have cast our ballots in Oregon’s vote-by-mail state):

“Choose a candidate whose values and heart and life experience you feel comfortable with, so that you can feel confident about the vast majority of political decisions they will make, if elected, that you will never hear about.”

So, as I vote, now that I am retired from lobbying, I am looking for aspirants who value leadership. The question is whether they can lead, not whether they agree with me or me with them.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

When you read this blog, you may reach what, I guess, may be an obvious conclusion: I have too much time on my hands.

So, with that time, I have thought lately about some of my language biases. They are as follows:

1. USE OF HYPHENS

I fall down on the side of over-using hyphens because I think doing so contributes to readability.

Consider just one example.

The word bi-partisan, which is used a lot these days as we anticipate another national election in only a few days. If you don’t use a hyphen, someone could pronounce the word as bip – artisan. What is a bip – artisan anyway?

2. USE OF COMMAS

I am one who no doubt could be accused of over-using commas. As with hyphens, I do so because using commas contribute to readability.

3. SPACES BETWEEN TYPED SENTENCES

This is very arcane issue, I know. But I started my professional career as a journalist. Using the Associated Press Stylebook, we always were taught to put two spaces between sentences.

Then, for some reason, AP Stylebook writers decided recently that one space would so. Well, not for me. I got used to two spaces and so that’s what I continue to do – just because I have the freedom to do so.

4. CAPITALIZATION

This is one of the least understood aspects of language. Some people over-use capital letters. Others under-use them.

I try to err on the side of over-use. Examples are the uses of the words governor and legislature. Often, they are not capitalized. But I believe there is a solid rationale to do so, so I do.

5. ABBREVIATIONS

As a journalist, I was taught to abbreviate a lot of words. Representative, when attached to a person, became Rep. _______. Senator became Sen. ___________.

Names of states were abbreviated in almost every circumstance.

As a master of my own destiny in retirement, I choose to avoid most abbreviations because, again avoiding them contributes, I believe, to readability. 

6. SPLITTING INFINITIVES

The advice here is, don’t. If you remain focused as you write, it is relatively easy to avoid this common, but, for me irritating, tendency.

7. LINKING NOUNS AND VERBS

This is another of the most common violations of solid language use.   Think only of this sentence: The committee did ______ work. Should the pronoun be “its” or “their.” It should be “its,” but many people, either in talking or writing, end up using “their.”

If, in this example, you think the word “their” sounds better, then change the sentence to read, “The committee members did “their” work.” In this case, “their” is accurate.

Enough already. Those are, for me, a collection of seven hot-button language issues. With so much time on my hands, I may find more.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I cannot fathom how the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) could put high school students lives at risk.

How?

By mandating that high school student athletes from Bend and Salem must play in the same league.

Stupid? Yes.

But the worst part of the decision is that students, who ride on often-old school buses, have to cross dangerous mountain passes, either West to the Salem area or East to the Bend area.

The unfortunate reality is that this stupid decision will only be overturned in response to an accident – and I hope no one is killed in such an accident over tough roads in the winter.

For context, I live in Salem and my kids played sports for South Salem High School. If the OSAA decision had been in effect during my kids’ athletic tenures, I would have tried to prevent them from playing.

Safety matters. For your kids and everyone’s kids!

For the OSAA, no!

What mattered for the OSAA was preserving competition. Safety be damned.

All of this came flooding back yesterday as I read an account on the Oregon Public Broadcasting website. While it was solid human-interest story, it gave short shrift to the safety issue.

In a very long story, all it said was this:

“Many parents and school officials argued trips over the pass in big buses were too dangerous. That argument was later given fuel when a bus carrying South Salem and Sprague cross-country runners suffered a mechanical failure hear Sisters. Runners and coaches spent three hours waiting for another bus — and that was in August. Winter snow and ice could make for a different story.”

Earlier this year, the Salem-Keizer School District, armed with parent concern, filed an administrative appeal of the OSAA decision. Nothing happened. No apparent recognition or consideration of the safety issue.

Michael Gillette, a former justice on the Oregon Supreme Court, heard the appeal, eventually deciding that “discretion, when it comes to reclassifying athletic leagues, ultimately rests with OSAA as an independent body.”

Then, he turned down the appeal.

I have no idea what prompted Gillette to rule as he did, but the short shrift he gave to safety galled many concerned about the decision. Among them, me.

In his opinion, Gillette found it telling that Salem-Keizer wouldn’t consider canceling school sports even with OSAA’s decision.

“High school athletics are, in Oregon as in most of the rest of the country, as much a part of American life as breathing,” he wrote. “… If competition is that valuable, then it needs to be available everywhere—in cities and towns, in large schools and small.

“And, if it is to exist everywhere, it needs an umbrella organization that is dedicated to governing it. OSAA’s mission is to try to achieve that goal, however thankless the effort may be.”

So, pursuing athletic completion at all costs trumps safety.

I say let Salem area schools play “lesser schools.” Same for the Bend.  Preserve safety.

Let me provide one more example of the safety issue. I have two cars, one that accepts chains and one that doesn’t. The owner of the store where I buy tires told me straight out: If the weather over the pass is bad enough to require chains, don’t go!

I wish Salem and Bend schools had that option. Now, in the old buses, the only option is to risk life and limb by heading East or West.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

My belief, honed after more than 30 years as a member of Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in Salem, Oregon, is that the course superintendent, Bill Swancutt, is one of the best.

For each of those 30+ years – not to mention eight more on top of that – Swancutt has, not only watched over a golf course, he has been my friend.

He took care of the golf course as if it were one of his children — with the care and concern that would mark a father. It was even said that Illahe was Bill’s second wife, which would be only a faint comparison to Bill’s real wife, Kathy, who has stood by him at Illahe for 38 years.

As of tomorrow, Halloween, Bill is retiring from a job he loved.

He is looking forward to being involved in some pursuit other than making sure a golf course was playable for all members.

At Bill’s retirement ceremony, I had the privilege to make a few remarks, so I provide excerpts here as a way to honor Bill.

• It was my privilege to chair the Green Committee at one point in the past and that gave me my best chance to get to know Bill as we spent time each month reviewing golf course conditions. He was the expert. I was one of those who got to sit by his side. It was through this experience that we became friends.
• Through that experience – and every other since then – I have found bill to practice a management style that is open to suggestions. Put another way, he does not have what I call an “artist’s mentality,” which, to me, means someone who always thinks he knows best and is not open to suggestions. While Bill knows his business, he always has been open to perspectives from others, a critical trait in a member-driven operation like a golf course.
• Bill has presided over many major improvements at Illahe over his 38 years. I remember when we were considering the installation of a new sprinkler system, Bill was often out on the course jerry-rigging the old system because parts were not available for a 40-year-old relic.

Another major project during Bill’s tenure involved re-building greens, which we had come close to losing in wet winter months. This occurred during my tenure as Board President, so I have a special affinity for Bill’s work on this project.

I remember the first green scheduled to be torn up was #7. On the morning the work was due to start, I walked down to the green from my house and, no surprise, Bill was there, too. As we saw the old sod get torn up by various pieces of power equipment, I remember telling Bill – “Hey Bill, you know if this doesn’t work, both of us will get fired and it will mean more to you than to me…yeah, thousands of dollars more based on your paycheck and, for me, zero based on mine.”

The rest is history. Illahe’s greens are among the best in the Northwest, attested to by many visitors who show up to play our course. Give credit where credit is due – to Bill for presiding over a successful project that has made Illahe the envy of many regional players.

Bill and wife Kathy have my wife’s and my best wishes as they embark on the next stage in life – retirement. They deserve high plaudits as they leave, but the good news is that, based on their 38-year commitment to Illahe, they have been made “lifetime members.” That means Bill and I still will see other on the course — this time playing, not tending to the turf.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

In many ways, I owe my life to Earl Bakken?

Say what?

Who is Earl Bakken?

He is the medical device innovator who co-founded Medtronic, one of the major companies in the industry and the maker of the combination pacemaker/defibrillator that I had implanted several years after my “episode,” my word for a phrase I don’t much like – “heart attack.”

Bakken, 94, died over the weekend. Here’s the way Wall Street Journal editorial writers commemorated his passing:

“America’s affluent generation of millennial socialists don’t realize it, but they are living off the prosperity created by earlier generations of capitalists. One of them was Earl E. Bakken, who died last week at age 94 having invented the first wearable, battery-powered pacemaker. He also co-founded Medtronic, the giant medical-device company.

“Earl Bakken’s business life is an American classic. Born in Minnesota, he took to electrical tinkering at an early age after seeing the movie ‘Frankenstein.’ He wrote in his autobiography that he was fascinated, not with the horror, but with the spark of electricity that brought the monster back to life.

“He and a brother-in-law founded Medtronic in 1949 out of a garage. He worked with local hospitals, and in 1957 a surgeon asked Bakken to create a pacemaker for the heart that wouldn’t depend on the hospital’s electric power. That was the spark for what later became an implantable pacemaker that has improved and saved countless lives.

“Medtronic grew into a star of American innovation with a market capitalization of some $121 billion. Based in Minneapolis, it makes cardiac stents and monitors, surgical tools, neurological shunts, drug infusion systems and much more. Bakken retired as chairman in 1989.”

When it came time for a pacemaker/defibrillator device to be implanted in me, I was told by my cardiologist in Salem that I had three options for a maker of the device – Medtronic, Boston Scientific and St. Jude.

I didn’t care which company because all had positive reputations, so my cardiologist chose Medtronic for me. My device worked for several years until, for some reason, it didn’t. I didn’t blame Medtronic for the failure because the implanted device had worked for several years.  And, if you think about it for a moment, such devices represent a critical step forward in treating ealth care issue.  Devices can be put inside the body and report back that everything is working?

Then, for me, good news emerged — I didn’t need the device anymore anyway.  So, it was extracted.

Back to the Wall Street Journal: “In our frenetic celebrity culture, the lives of people not in politics or entertainment often aren’t duly recognized. That’s especially true of entrepreneurs who built the foundations of America’s postwar economic success and global competitiveness. They benefited from what was then a better American education system and sometimes the GI bill after World War II (as Bakken did).

“But they also prospered in a free-market system that offered ready access to capital and rewarded innovation and success. Too many Americans see Medtronic today only as a large corporation, rather than as a success born of ingenuity and hard work. As we recall Bakken’s contributions, we need to promote policies and a larger culture that nurture this spirit of innovation and capitalist incentive.”

I, for one, am thankful for the “innovation and capitalist incentive” illustrated by Bakken. We should acknowledge him on his passing.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

What a name — “The Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?”

What is it?  Well, it is a golf course cut out of the beach grasses on the Southern Oregon coast that, for a golfer, is unlike anything else you might have played.

I was reminded of all this when I read an on-line story from Links Magazine under the headline, “What’s Next for the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?”

I’ll reprint excerpts of the story below because I could not do justice to the report on my own.

But, before that, I will recount a treasured personal memory.

A few of us got access to the Sheep Ranch about 10 years ago or so when our excellent home course superintendent, Bill Swancutt, used his connections to get us a “tee time.” That phrase – “tee time” might be stretching it a bit.

Four of us got into one car for the four-and-one-half hour drive south from Salem to the Bandon area. Rather than going straight to the Bandon Dunes Resort, we took a turn – only Swanny would know where that turn was – into the “Sheep Ranch.”

There were four of us, but I only remember three – Swanny, my late friend Dick Rowell, and me. [The late Dick Rowell was one of my best friends, a linkage – pardon the play on words — which we forged on the golf course at our home track, Illahe Hills, in Salem. Sadly, Dick suffered from chronic depression and, while many of us tried to help him, we failed in the end when he took his own life. Our trip to the Sheep Ranch is one among many great memories of Dick.]

Back to my story.

At the Sheep Ranch, we parked our vehicle near the Sheep Ranch (there was no parking lot) and we entered through a make-shift gate. Before long, as he came out from behind a hill, we met the “superintendent” of the course. He may have been the same one as is mentioned in the Links Magazine story — Greg Harless, most commonly referred to as the course’s “caretaker.”

We introduced ourselves, said how happy we were to be playing “his course,” and asked for his summary of what to expect and how to play course.

Before he said much, he offered this comment, with tongue firmly planted in cheek – “I have one of the best jobs in the world. I am a golf course superintendent without many golfers on my track.”

Yet, here we were, ready for a unusual, but great, round of golf and, as they would say at Bandon Dunes, play “golf as it was meant to be played.”

The super stood with us on a promontory overlooking about a quarter-mile of land before the Pacific Ocean. Pointing West, he said, “there, that’s the course.”

We looked in that direction and, with concentration, could make out, even with just a bit of fog, 18 pins with red flags on what looked, from afar, like 18 greens.

He pulled out a piece of scratch paper and scrawled out, with his own hand, a routing for about 12 or 13 holes. Then said, follow that if you want, but if not, make up your own itinerary. Plus, he said, we’d have to do so anyway to get in the last five or six holes.

After playing one hole, “just find a piece of flat found near a green, and flail away from there toward what you want to be the next hole.”

Distance markers? No. Tee boxes? No. Manicured grass? No.

Just golf “as it was meant to be.”

The super left us and we headed out, traversing in all directions for 18 holes, seemingly without a care in the world.

Here are a few excerpts from the Links Magazine article:

• It has become decreasingly mysterious with every passing article—and there have been many—but the Sheep Ranch still possesses sufficient intrigue and anonymity to ensure the golfer recounting his experiences of the place speaks mostly to a hushed audience. Images and stories have been filtering through for nearly two decades, and its 200 or so rugged, cliff-top acres are clearly visible on Google Earth. But he who is lucky enough to have walked his own undefined route across this stretch of links-land has a story few of his friends can ever match.
• Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch appeared in 2001 about the time Tom Doak was putting the finishing touches to Pacific Dunes, the second course at Mike Keiser’s implausible, yet hugely successful, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the Oregon coast.
• The land on which it sits, site of a former wind farm, came up for sale shortly after the resort opened in 1999. Phil Friedmann, co-creator of the greetings card company that made him and Keiser wealthy, had decided against becoming a partner in Bandon Dunes, thinking Keiser’s plan unlikely to succeed, but did go in with him on this new parcel splitting the $4 million asking price down the middle.
• To be one of the 50-100 golfers per month who take advantage of the opportunity to explore this Shangri-La, you need to speak with Greg Harless, the superintendent but most commonly referred to as the course’s “caretaker.” Harless cuts the greens fairly regularly and keeps the fairways in check (because there is only basic irrigation surrounding the greens, the course closes in summer when the fairways become excessively dry), but that’s about as far as the maintenance operation goes.
• You can play A to B to C to and so on, but the routing is merely a suggestion. Some like to string the F, J, E, C, B, and M greens together to create a stirring sequence of cliff-top holes. The massive E green, covering 20,000 square feet of ground at the course’s western-most point, is the most fortuitously-positioned.

It took us about five hours to make our way around “our 18 holes.” It was great fun – because of the lay of the land, because of the commitment to feel the uneven ground on your feet, because of the makeshift character of finding an 18-hole routing, and because of the personal bonds between and among friends that will last a lifetime.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Back in the day, when I was hiring for positions in state government or in my firm, CFM Strategic Communications, one of the most important questions for me was this: Can you write, and if so, prove it.

I remember asking this question and even subjecting applicants to a writing test to assure that, if they said they could write, they could. It was a way to test their perceptions about their own skills.

But, to mimic the headline in this blog, what comes first – clear writing or clear thinking?

For me, it would be that clear writing indicates an ability to think clearly. So writing is first.

For two writers of letters to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, it was the reverse. The two letters appeared under the headline:

Clear Thought, Practice Yield Clear Writing

American students begin their higher education with poor writing abilities and are seldom given reason to improve them.

In one letter, a writer from Annapolis, Maryland, said this:

“It is disheartening that college readiness in math fell to its lowest level since 2004, but I am baffled by the absence of interest in crumbling writing skills. When writing was introduced to the ACT college-entrance exam in 2006, the average score was 7.7. It then fell. Now, the writing test is optional, and the average score isn’t reported, perhaps to save everyone embarrassment. The optional essay-writing section of the SAT is required by a declining number of colleges.

“So American students begin their higher education with poor writing abilities and are seldom given reason to improve them. Few universities concern themselves with teaching practical writing skills for the workplace. Poor writing skills have been identified as the biggest disconnect between academia and what employers need, in some cases desperately. Our digital age doesn’t reduce the need for well-written, everyday communication, ranging from customer correspondence to marketing materials to presentations.

“The Center for Plain Language, which pushes federal agencies to write more clearly and usefully, just gave them an average grade of C, down from B.

“Should we care the about quality of writing? How can we not?”

A second letter writer from Phoenix, Arizona said this:

“When I taught journalism lab classes for a professor at Arizona State University, I spent the first two weeks teaching students the difference between ‘they’re,’ ‘their’ and ‘there,’ as well as when and why to use apostrophes.

“School districts in many states, including Arizona, scream about higher pay for teachers and wave their banners as they beg for more money. Your article and my experience show that most teachers lack the ability to teach students what they need to know to pass the ACT or SAT, probably because the teachers were never taught. We baby boomers were probably the last generation to receive a really good education.”

So, which comes first – clear writing or clear thinking? Well, in many ways, it doesn’t matter.

Write clearly to indicate your ability to think clearly.  Or think clearly, then illustrate your ability to write clearly.

Have it both ways!