Definition: Armageddon: n. the scene of a final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied in the Bible.
The forces of evil struck in our little section of the Edison district of Centralia this month. As always, those sinister forces came at night sneakily and their victims were the innocent.
Fortunately, the forces of good were there too, and I declare them winners in many ways.
The bad guys, evidently members of a gang trying to spread their infamy on other’s property, came with some paint to smear their symbols. My daughter, who has done some work with police volunteers, said they were symbols of a Los Angeles gang.
The unsightly mess they created posed quite a challenge to the victim, especially in our home, where the daughter is wheel-chair dependent and the ancient father gets around only with a cane. That’s not much promise for getting rid of the scrawl.
So sound the bugle call for the Forces of Good.
This time it was Leah Wegener, with a paint roller and tray and a paint she hopes is of the same color as the offending marks. Sometimes one of her sons, whom she home-schools, or her husband goes with her.
Leah began this crusade against the forces of the night in Bellingham 20 years ago, when her teacher husband was attending Western Washington University. Then when they moved to Centralia and the city’s Kim Ashmore put out a call for volunteers, she was among those who answered the call.
She also belongs to a group in the Methodist Church called TAG (Together Against Graffiti).
Both groups believe in getting the graffiti off as soon as possible because if it is left there it will encourage more desecration.
“It’s kind of like dogs marking their territory, ” Leah says.
So thanks to her and others, the fences along Rainier Avenue are restored to their pristine non-advertising of gangs. And we hope that anyone so inclined will pee in their own backyard.
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One of the problems facing us old fellows is accepting change, and retirement represents just that. So it shook us when we learned that two of the “giants” of the Twin Cities, Dennis Waller and Tom Zuber, announced they’re leaving their jobs.
Denny grew up newspapering, with his father owning the Algona, Iowa, paper, and he never left it. He worked with and managed five Midwestern newspapers, including that in Ames, Iowa.
Twenty years ago he was lured to the Northwest by the Lafromboise family to manage their Chronicle in our town. He took a newspaper that was inferior in its journalism and its written communication and turned it into a role model for the whole state. Publishers of bigger newspapers seek his advice.
I have said that a person shouldn’t retire unless (1) he is tired of his job and wants to escape it or (2) there is something else he is eager to do. With Denny, forget about number one: he still loves his job. But (No. 2) , he is in the middle of writing his memoirs of a group of small town kids on bicycles and their shameful taunting, then regret with the town character, “Walkin’ Joe. It will soon be published.
Over in Chehalis, they are still shaking their heads at Tom Zuber’s dropping out as head baseball coach of one of the most successful coaching programs in the state and his qualifying to be one of the Role Models in Coaching in the county. “Too soon! Too soon!”
But the same edition of Denny’s Chronicle that announced Tom’s retirement proclaimed that Lyle Overbay, Centralia’s current pride in the major league and also mentioned as a Role Model type, might be leaving professional baseball after several great years and might be looking to stay in the game close by.
Can you say “serendipity,” W.F.West school administrators?
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Gordon Aadland, Centralia, was a longtime Centralia College faculty member and publicist.
