Quips & Quotes

This magnificent building contains above-ground burials for caskets and urns, but also glass-encased cubbies to display urns and memorabilia. These visible displays are, in a sense, an exhibition of lives gone by. Walking through the urn cubbies reminded me much of a museum — it told stories and preserved the past. Pausing to look over the urns, most of which are unique and aesthetically attractive, I also noted many other elements adding personal stories to the space. Photos of the deceased and personal effects such as eyeglasses, rings, patches from club membership, and shoes, were commonly displayed. A more complete story was told, beyond name and dates of birth and death found on tombstones, the pictures and personal belongings added a greater sense of connection. I visit the mausoleum once or twice a year. Although I have no family members inurned there, it provides a moment of reflection about life, family, and purpose. Longview Memorial Park is located at 5050 Mt. Solo Road in Longview. The mausoleum is open every day, 9am until dusk.

Q

UIPS & QUOTES

Selected by Debra Tweedy At no other time (than Autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost. ~ Rilke, Austrian poet and novelist, 1875-1926

That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air...Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer. ~Wallace Stegner, American writer, 1909-1993

The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves. We have had our summer evenings; now for October eves! ~ Humbert Wolfe, Italian-born British poet, 1885-1940 Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. ~ Delia Owens, American author and zoologist, 1949The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools. ~ Henry Beston, American writer and naturalist, 1888-1968

Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don’t feel like Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn. ~ Marilyn Monroe, American actress, 19261962

Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. ~ Nora Ephron, American writer and filmmaker, 1941-2012 It’s the first day of Autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves! ~ A. A. Milne,English author, 1882-1956

Longview native Debra Tweedy has lived on four continents. She and her husband decided to return to her hometown and bought a house facing Lake Sacajawea.“We came back because of the Lake and the Longview Public Library,” she says.

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proDuction notes

The Power of a Name

The VieTnam War sTill confounds

and diVides us. Since we never formally declared it a proper war, we’re not even sure how long it lasted. As we watched Americans fleeing for their lives from Saigon’s US Embassy roof in helicopters, it imprinted a bitter image at odds with our history of victory parades and war stories. We misunderstood and mistreated the kids that fought the war. We deferred to the old white men who perpetuated it. We re-wrote versions of what we’d seen on TV but never really understood. Then we got one thing right. In a competition that drew more than 1,400 entries, conducted anonymously to ensure lack of bias, we awarded the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to a 21-yearold Yale architectural student named Maya Lin. Her design, decried as a “trench,” a “scar,” and “a monument to shame, degradation and sorrow,” was simple and unpretentious. Lin recalled as an 18-yearold walking through Yale’s Memorial Rotunda, seeing the names of those alumni who’d died in the service of their country. Every few months during her freshman and sophomore years, stonemasons would add to the list engraved etchings the names of those killed in this new war in a place called Vietnam. “I think it left a lasting impression on me,” Lin wrote, ”the sense of the power of a name.” When The Wall was dedicated in 1982, the pilgrimages began — rituals of healing, reconciliation, acceptance, cleansing. The design’s simplicity and accessibility highlighted the individuals themselves and their collective sacrifice. Visitors made charcoal rubbings of names from the etched stone and held them to their hearts. Today it remains among Washington’s most visited sites, internationally renowned, and is rated among the 10 favorite and most revered pieces of American architecture. •••

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Lest we forget: Rick Little

In a few days Longview Memorial Park hosts The Wall That Heals. More than a simple replica, the Wall is an effort by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to bring the war and its legacy home — to communities, families, patriots and protesters alike. “Healing can be an educational process, too,” according to Rick Little, who has led the effort to bring the Wall to Longview,” and the exhibits include an entire trailer-full of artifacts, explanatory videos, photos, and commentary. It’s an amazing thing just to be immersed in.” From its volunteer-led assembly to its three-day, round-the-clock presence in host communities, the Wall draws the curious, the bereaved, the worshipful. I asked Rick Little how he’s preparing for this monumental event.

HC: I understand you’ve made a scouting trip to see the Wall in advance? RL: Earlier this summer my wife and I went to Michigan, to see how they’d set it up, how they ran it, do our homework. HC: And this is a faithful model of the memorial in Washington, D.C.? RL: Yes, it’s a three-fourths scale replica, with all the nearly 58,000 names engraved, just as they are in the nation’s capital. HC:What were your impressions on your trip, just as a regular person visiting? RL: We were blown away. It was….breathtaking. Amazing. HC: And it confirmed your commitment to bring the Wall here?

RL: We’re the only place in the state of Washington where The Wall That Heals is going to be. There is this extraordinary

NICE TO MEET YOU

Rick Little

resiDes

Longview, Washington

occupation

Funeral Director/Embalmer from Lynden, Washington known for Being a local thespian, preparing Thanksgiving feasts

recommenDeD reaDing The Notebook and anything else by Nicholas Sparks; The Outlander series and other historical fiction; cookbooks and baking books for fun Performing in and attending community theatre performances. Enjoys Laphroaig Single Malt Scotch in the winter, Highland Scotches in the summer, and any time, Dalmore Cigar Malt Scotch recommenDs Going to the beach, finding a favorite book to read while listening to the crashing educational piece to it that waves and seagulls at a distance. we really wanted for this area and this community. HC: Was there competition to get it here? RL: Oh yes. I did a lot of research and talked to a few colleagues of mine that have done it. And they said, yeah, if you’re able to do it, that’s great, but you have to go through quite a bit of an application process. They were very, very thorough with what they go through, they did a lot of mapping to see where we’re located and find out about our community. HC: Is this a government-run thing? RL: No, this is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. And their mission is built around education. They salute the veterans and those who lost their lives, but they also have special programs for children. About the impact of the war. So, for instance, they love the fact that we’re close to Mount Solo Middle School. Once the Wall is assembled, the whole trailer opens up — the sides open up and they have all these exhibits and displays and it’s really impressive.

HC: Is the war still political? A hot button? Or are we largely past that? RL: I think it’s different for everybody, every family. I mean, I was born in 1965, so I only know it from the history books. And there aren’t a lot of “war stories” like you hear about in past times. HC: Why do you think it remains so emotional? RL: I’m no historian. But it was the first war that was televised, that people saw on their own TVs, some people with black and white screens, some people color. And it was the first war to come into your home like that, and a lot of people say it was just horrific to experience.

Rick Little easily fits the role of genial giant. A towering man with a ready smile and crinkly eyes, he’s been a fixture in local theater productions over the years, and still serves on the board of Stageworks Northwest. Adding in more than 20 years playing Santa Claus in Longview’s annual Christmas parade, his taste for fine Scotch and good cigars, and you have a figure probably as unlike our stereotype of a funeral director — that dour undertaker — as one could imagine.

RL: I never thought when I was growing up that I was going to be a funeral director, that’s for sure.

HC: I can’t imagine a lot of people would? RL: Well, no. I come from a family of school teachers and ministers. Up near the border, in Lynden, Washington. And those were the two big things, teaching or the ministry. HC: What led you here, this profession and this place? RL: I went to Skagit Valley Community College for a couple of years. And I had been going to transfer to Central and get my teaching degree and major in music. Then my sister was killed in a car accident down in California.

HC: What a shock for you and your family! RL: Well, it just got me thinking about all these processes going on. And it just checked a lot of boxes for me: It involved religious faith, working with all kinds of different people. It’s sociology, psychology. And I don’t pretend to be a psychologist. I’m not anybody, I’m just a counselor. What I’m here for is to provide a service. I just love the fact that we can come in, people can come in here during one of the worst times in their lives, and we are able to start them on a bridge, on that journey through their grieving process. HC: How did you change your education path? RL: You have to do an internship, that at that time was called an apprenticeship, for two years and then you go to mortuary college. And that allows you to become licensed in the state, the state of Washington for me.

HC: So you started with an apprenticeship here in Kelso-Longview? RL: Yes. I’d had an interview here, and I just fell in love with this community — this is a pretty sophisticated place compared to sleepy Lynden where I’m from. And I didn’t hear back immediately. So I checked a couple of other places, then they called me up on Father’s Day in 1988 and said, ‘When can you start?’ HC: So you supplemented the education piece, too? RL: I’d already had a twoyear degree and all I needed to do was beef up my science a little bit and I did that locally here through Lower Columbia College, just took a couple of classes. That way I only had to spend an additional year. And then I finished up with the one-year mortuary science program that was at Mount Hood Community College. HC: Obvious question, I guess, but how do you keep this work from depressing you? It would seem to many people like the ultimate downer.

“I grieve right along with the families.

People+Place: The Wall that Heals.

Fibre Federal Credit Union staff volunteers are proud to assist with The Wall That Heals.

September 23-26 Longview Memorial Park

See schedule, page 20. The Deer Hunter

painting 16x20 inches acrylic on canvas by Joe Fischer

Honoring the Successful Lives and Legacy of Alona & Carl Forsberg

JOE FISCHER

I grieve right along with the families.

”~ Rick Little

RL: For one thing I don’t take my work home with me at all. My wife and I both are the same way — she’s an occupational therapist in the school district. And there’s a lot of very personal details that are confidential on both sides, so we leave the work at work. But I’m not immune to grief. If I were I wouldn’t do this job well. I grieve right along with the families. They could be friends, neighbors, or people I’ve only recently met. So I can’t turn it off instantly, turn it on and off. I don’t necessarily try to do that. HC:: But you must have strategies or outlets to keep your spirits up? RL: I compartmentalize what I do, for sure. There’s what I do for work and what I do for

Rick Little (third from left) performs in” Forever Plaid,” Jan. 2013. Photo courtesy of Stageworks Northwest

home. There’s what I do for the theatre. I try to keep all different things separate. Sometimes they intermingle, and that’s okay. That’s life. HC: You’re passionate about the theatre? RL: Theatre is amazing. I don’t have enough time to be as much a part of it as I’d like to. But when I am able to do theatre, you become your character and you’re totally different. When people see me at the funeral hall it’s like a dirge, you know, then they turn around and I’m on the stage doing Gilbert and Sullivan.

HC: Did you catch the bug when you were young? RL: My mother — instead of going on trips — she’d take us to the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle. My very first show, in the early 1970s, I saw Carol Channing doing Hello, Dolly and that was my first musical. I fell in love. It was breathtaking. And I almost cried when Carol Channing died this last year. She was my first love of the theatre, seeing Carol Channing on stage. I just fell in love with musical theatre. HC: What was your first big part? RL: I tried out for a show and the director sized me up and he said, ‘I want you to play the title role in The Mikado.’ That’s a pretty big deal. And I said, ‘Well, I’ve never acted on stage. I’ve never done anything like that.’ He says, ‘Let me tell you something. I can always train a singer to act. But I can never train an actor to sing.’ That’s when the theater had me.

cont page 20

Tips for Avoiding Hot-Car Deaths

1. Be extra alert if your routine changes. 5. Set up a system with your child-care provider.

That’s when the risk of leaving your child in your car increases.

2. Put something of your child's, like a toy,

on the front seat. Even if you can't see your child in the backseat the toy should trigger a reminder that he's there.

3. Leave an item you'll need at your next

destination in the backseat, such as your cell Call if you don't plan to drop off your child that day. If the child doesn't arrive as expected, have the caregiver call you.

6. Discuss the topic of hot-car deaths with every

person who drives your child anywhere. This includes partners, grandparents, babysitters, and friends. 7. Always "look before you lock." Get in the habit

phone, purse, or briefcase.

4. Place the car seat in the middle of the backseat rather than behind the driver.

It's easier to see your child in your rearview mirror.

If you see any child in a car seat alone in a car, call 911.

of checking the backseat every time you get out of the car.

Richelle Gall

The Mark Morris Foundation was created in 2008 in honor of the school’s 50th anniversary. The independent, nonprofit organization welcomes tax-deductible donations for the benefit of Mark Morris students for scholarship programs and projects at the school.

For more information or to donate, visit mmhsfoundation.org Join us in supporting the Foundation, and at the Auction and Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament, both in Spring 2022 (dates to be announced)!

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’ s piOneer famiLies

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