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Show Comment Review - Wednesday, October 25, 1989 - Pago 2 BPMMMMBIMMMMII 1 1 M W I I Election offers many reasons for voters to register There are several reasons North Utah County voter- - vmII interested in participating in next month's municipal elrcUon. That's why anyone who is not registered or who has moved into a new voting district since the last general election should take the necessary steps next week to register to vote on Nov. 7. NextTuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, are the last two days voters can register. Individuals who voted in the last general election and who still live in the same voting district are automatically registered. Those who have recently moved, as well as residents who have turned 18 since the last election - or local residents who simply failed to vote, must register on those two dates or they will not be allowed to participate at the polls. County and mail-i- registra-tion is over for the 1989 election. This year's election offers a variety of issues for local voters. In the first place, municipal elections are some of the most important town residents can participate in. Mayors and city council members make decisions that affect us daily. They establish property taxes, set water bills, in some cases determine other utility payments and establish the ordinances that regu late lll.'inv pa r t . "f i ur !: ll municipal elections this in. ii, i.A.il the year are generating an unusual amount of interest, with voters' attention focused on old issues with new concern. If that - nut enoug h, this year north Utah County votershave a chance to decide whether lehi. American K.rk, Pleasant Grove and I.indon will be annexed to the Utah Transit Authority. Bus service would provide our area with new alternatives in the area of transportation, and would tie the north county area into the rest of the Wasatch Front. But it doesn't come free. The ballot proposal regarding the UTA asks for area voters to increase sales tax by one quarter of one percent. Those who don't take time to register and to vote are basically giving those who do vote the right to determine if their taxes will be increased for this service. If that's not enough, a third item of interest on this year's ballot is the referendum on Salt Lake City's bid for the 1998 Winter Olympics. Although the Olympic events would take place in Salt Lake and Weber Counties, all Utahns are being asked if they are willing to have one-thirt- y second of one cent of our collections diverted to help build a speed skating oval sV1,3 and bobsledluge runs that will enhance Salt Lake's do yUnips a potential Olympic Games site. as Controversy Surrounding the Olympics issue incl h' whether public funding should be used to support an ente aimed at generating dollars for private business or Utah should be in the Olympics at all. Will the games prove t h profitable for Utah, or will they leave the state with a rW will take years to pay off? that It is up to Utah voters to decide this vital issue. But who fails to register will have no say in the Olympics referend0"6 - or the UTA annexations - or municipal elections. Registration agents and their addresses are listed on Page 9 of this newspaper, Unregistered individuals of voting age should make certain that next Tuesday or Wednesday they visit an agent and sign up for the Nov. 7 election. We owe it to ourselves to participate in these important decisions. Register and vote. It keeps our government healthv and our freedoms alive. I quit hunting when I killed Bambi's mom the editor's column By MARC HADDOCK J It would probably be called the "Bambi Symdrome," this affliction I confront every fall as hunters don their vests and caps of bright or-ange and head for the hills. I don't know how many people are afflicted with it. Probably not very many, especially in Utah. I haven't always been. But I am now. So you'll understand ifyou don't see me tramping around the hills decked out in hunter's orange and carrying one of those deer-killer- s we call a rifle. I used to hunt. Where I grew up, hunting was as much, if not more, a way of life as it is in Utah (after all, it was just across the border in Idaho). And I have no objections to others doing the hunting. I just can't bear the thought of me doing it. And it's not that I don't enjoy nature. But I like my nature in quiet doses not continually interrupted by sporadic blasts of death. I think I can probably trace the origin of my malady back to that day in 1966 when I killed Bambi's mother at least I'm pretty sure that's when it started. I'd been hunting for two years -- - ever since I qualified for a hunting license. But I hadn't killed any-thing bigger than rabbits, a few of which I had vaporized with the oversized rifle my father had en-trusted to me. (But then I was young, and not too smart. I liked to hear loud things, and was exhila-rated by the sense of power the big gun gave me.) I was probably driven to the hills by peer pressure as much as anything else. I didn't like venison, so I wasn't killing for the meat. After all, my father owned a gro-cery store and was the butcher we always had all the meat we needed. But everybody went, so I main canyon road - quite far from our destination. And there was Bambi and his mother way out in the open - almost 100 yards from the safety of the trees. And much closer than that to the road. My friend slammed on the brakes and frantically pulled over to the side of the road. We both jumped out of the Scout, our guns in hand. He took rapid aim and fired at the stationary targets. He missed and both deer leaped for the trees. They ran fast, but it was too far. I fired a booming shot, aiming directly for the doe's head. I was a good shot at stationary tar-gets, but this deal of moving things threw me, and I blasted a hole the size of a grapefruit in the doe's flank. The concussion slammed the doe to the ground. Bambi ran into the trees and disappeared to safety. My friend was busy congratulating me. I was merely stunned, and at that mo-ment I realized that this was some-thing I had never really wanted to do. "C'mon," my friend said, tug-ging at my sleeve. "Let's go get it." It wasn't far up the mild slope, and when we reached the deer, she wa still alive, but very damaged. She stared at me with brown eyes the size of half dollars as she lay there shuddering, terrified and helpless. "What do we do?" I asked. I had been hunting a number of times, but I had never before witnessed a kill. "You slit its throat!" The "Stu-pid" was there, if only by implica-tion. "You mean I gotta cut its throat open?" I was incredulous. "Of course. What do you think the knife is for." I had forgotten I even carried a knife. I certainly had never used it, an d I wasn't even sure it was sharp. I took the blade out, held the deer's head and tried to figure out how to go about slitting the animal's throat. In the end, I couldn't do it. Shoot-ing was easy. You were far away. It was like killing by remote control -- - just pull the trigger and part of the animal blows up. But this busi-ness of slitting the doe's throat, this was personal. I had to touch the doe and I could feel the blade ripping through skin, muscle, ten-dons and cartilage. I got about half way and turned the knife over to my friend who was more experi-enced in these things -- - and who had fewer qualms about it. He finished the job, and I was relieved to see the animal die rather than suffer. He cleaned the animal and we made plans to split the venison. I muddled through help-ing where I could. We took the car-cass down the slope to the Scout and brought it home. A lot of people acted like I had done something great, having bagged my first deer. On the other hand, I felt like I had violated something that didn't deserve it, and in the process I felt violated myself. But I told no one until now. And I went hunting again, one time about three years later. But my heart wasn't in it, and if I had found a prospective target, I either would not have fired or I would have missed on purpose. As it was, I didn't have to shoot at all. Now I don't condemn anyone who hunts, either for the sport for the meat -- - as long as they do it in a sportsmanlike manner. But I'll stay home this season, and every season. Because I don't want to take the chance of killing Bambi's father, too or anyone else's. did, too. The opening day, at least for those two years, found me out with my father and two others, another adult and someone else my age. We young ones always had the task of going to the top of the ridge and working our way down to flush out the game to the adults, waiting patiently below. I don't think my father had any more love for hunting than I did, but he thought it was a way to spend a little time with me some-thing he did too seldom, and he knew it. After opening day, most of my hunting was done with friends. The day I killed Bambi's mother, a friend and I were driving up the canyon after school in his Scout. We were 15. I wasn't paying any particular attention to the hills. I was just enjoying the ride, but my friend was more attentive. "There one is!" he shouted. I was astonished. We were still on the School Board seeking all handicapped students als. "But before these services car be provided, these individuals musl be located," Mecham said. If you know of a child (to age 21 who is h andicapped or disabled anc not enrolled in one of the district's varied education programs j relative, neighbor maybe a friend's child, or one of your own children's friends contact the school dis' trict's Special Education Depart ment at 756-841- Information will be kept confi dential, Mecham said. A profes sional staff person from the dis trict will contact the individual 01 family to explain programs ant services. The Alpine School District Board of Education and administration are trying to locate any handicapped or disabled students residing in the school district who is not en-rolled in one of the district's vari-ous educational programs. Board members say they have always recognized the need to pro-vide every student with a quality education, including handicapped or disabled students. However, for a variety of reasons, many of these individuals may not, at present, be enrolled in programs. Youngsters to age 21 who are handicapped or disabled who re-side in the school district are in-vited to participate, said Richard Mecham, director of the district's Special Education Department. Mecham said it is essential to identify these students in order to provide a wide variety of services and programs at early stages in the child's development. "Principals, regular classroom teachers, and special education personnel are making a sustained effort to estab-lish and guarantee the right of every handicapped child to an education equal in every way to that received by children without disability," he said. "This effort has evolved into an education philosophy utilizing a continuum of services designed to offer a number of program options and placement alternatives to handicapped and disabled individu- - Jleaaant &roue Etuttui ISSN No 7 U.S.P.S. No. Published weekly except semi-weekl- y for Thanksgiving, and Christmas by Newtah, Inc. 11 South Main Pleasant Grove, Utah ma Telephone Numoers Advertising & Circulation. 0 News Publisher ... . Brett R. Bezzanl Editors.. Marc Haddock Marcella Walker Subscription price $19" per year Second class postage paid at Pleasant Grove, Utah Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 7. American Fork. Utah MOO Utah's 'big one' can't be far away p.g. blab si . holes for our fence, they sheared off three bolts on the digger because of the big rocks. I'm glad to know that there is one good thing to come out of us having solid rock under our grass. It did little to ease the tension to hear that the Salt Lake, and Brigham City areas are the ones where the time is really ripe to have a biggie. But life must go on. You cannot sit around and worry about what catastrophe is going to happen next. I do highly recommend a good 72 hour kit, a full tank of gas at all times, wood for the fireplace, flash-lights and lots of batteries. We are lucky here. We do not have tornados nor hurricanes and our winters aren't really all that bad, either. We do not have ice storms nor humidity that causes you to freeze or fry. But we do sit along an impor-tant fault line. If and when this great earthquake comes, I hope that the people here are as helpful to each other as those in California have been. You did not hear of the looting that there was after the big Hugo Hurricane and the outpouring of generosity in money and provisions for relief has been wonderful. People who were able helped man the fire hoses, helped pull people from the rubble, helped the injured, and kept traffic moving. Someone said that people were more polite, friendlier, kinder and calmer than usual. That is great. If it happens to us I hope we will all be just as good as those Califor-nian- s were. And here's to the Giants in the World Series! By MARCELLA WALKER I was on my way home from work last Tuesday, just after 6 p.m., when the World Series broadcast-ers broke into the pre-tape- d pre-gam- e report to say that they had just had an earthquake in San Francisco. The announcers said that al-though it had scared them to death and some had headed for the exits in the pressbox, it appeared that everyone was alright. Of course, at that time they did not know about all the destruction which had taken place. A former Pleasant Grove resi-dent who works as a director for KBYU-T- was with the KBYU truck at Candlestick Park because they had been asked to help the network with the broadcast. He told his parents that as the KBYU truck rocked on its rubber tires, he could see the stands in Candlestick Park really moving. For hours that evening we watched the reports come in as the television networks quickly began coverage of the situation in the damaged city. I tried to think of all the people I knew who lived near the quake area and hoped they were alright. After watching news reports on the earthquake for several days, I found I was beginning to think about the Wasatch Fault which is very visible in Pleasant Grove up by Kiwanis Park at the top of 200 South. For the first time, I began to think what it would be like to have to use our 72 hour kit. Maybe we had better add a few more things to it, just to be on the safe side. When that fireman or police-man in San Francisco shouted out to people to go home and be pre-pared for 72 hours without power, etc., it really struck home. As we sat in the BYU stadium for the football game on Saturday afternoon, I worried more than usual about the stands falling down. I usually always get a little tense whf-- the fans stamp their feet in the stands to cause a little noise when they want the team to hold the line. This time I was a lot more tense. I wondered if other people were thinking the same thing. One of the announcers at the World Series had said that at first it was kind of like the shaking of the stands when fans stamp their feet. As if the residents of Utah who live along the Wasatch front were-n't thinking about it already, the experts began telling us how soon we can expect a killer earthquake here. We already knew that without them reiterating it on every news-cast for the past week. Some of the experts said that the amount of dam age to your home will dependon what kind of ground it sits on. Fortunately, under our house there is pure rock. There is no sand and there is no clay. It is solid rock. We know because whenever we attempt to dig we find that it is impossible. Not only that, but the soil which we once did have on our upper terrace in the back yard has fil-tered down through the rocks and now there is only rock under the grass. You could let the water run for days and it would never stay wet up there. When they werediggingthe post PRESERVaffllON PLAN ON IT Planning on restoring a house, saving a landmark, reviving your neighborhood? No matter what your plans, gain a wealth of experience and help preserve our historic and architectural heritage. Join the National Trust for Historic Preservation and support preservation efforts in your community. Make preservation a blueprint for the future. SOUTHOm SAVINGS BANK. SOUTHPORT. CT w Write: National Trust for Historic Preservation Department PA 1785 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Letters to the Editor More than one way to be winners Editor: Congratulations to the Pleasant Grove High School football team for their courage and positive atti-tude in a very different season. With other 4-- teams outweighing them, the Vikings took a very posi-- F tive stance during season play.. It probably would be best to say that the PGHS's season was its pre-seaso- n games because player size was comparable and Vikings were tops. As the season continued, the Vikings showed talent and deter-mination. The only reason they fell short at times was our lack of depth and injuries, not individual player ability or lack of enthusiasm and training. At the game last week against Orem High School, when Craig Veenker went up to catch a pass, the size and impact of the OHS defensive player was almost over-whelming. To see the team so well coached and so spirited in spite of over-whelming odds was inspirational. To see the men of the team down on one knee in a circle with their coaches on the field, win or lose, was awe inspiring. Yes, PGHS football team - there is more than one way of winning football. The skills you have learned as team members, the drive, the determination, the willingness to be coached and the ability to get up and try again in spite of the odds will serve you over and over again in the future. - Ranae Williams |