Letters, letters, letters

The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.

To the Editor:

My brother-in-law and I were paddling his canoe around Sparks Lake the day before yesterday. Much to our surprise and sadness it appears, in our opinion, that we all are about to suddenly lose another magnificent part of our beautiful Oregon scenery.

Sparks Lake has been losing water every day, since approximately mid-May. The level of the lake is now down five feet from its former glory. (You can "read" the past four-month history quite easily by looking at the exposed rocks.) The vast majority of the lake is now less than one foot deep.

At its current rate of loss it will be approximately 24 to 30 days before the lake disappears completely. All that will be left, come December, will be a few puddles, the old dried-up marsh and a small narrow, what I now will call "Sparks Creek."

Mother Nature has pulled the plug on that huge, astoundingly gorgeous lake. By canoe, we found two drains; one small one and one larger one. We could only hear the water draining through these two large fissures in the volcanic rock.

It "sounds" like the lake is draining into what seems like an enormous underground cavern.

Please check it out, but hurry. At the current rate, you have less that a week or so before canoes will become useless. However, you could now walk the entire lake with a good pair of boots.

Although it is virtually impossible to calculate, due to the highly irregular shape of the lake, I would estimate that possibly up to a million gallons of water drains out of the lake every day.

The truly sad part is that all of any future rain and snow melt will never fill the lake back up so long as it has the capability of draining faster than it can fill. Our only hope is that Mother Nature puts a plug back in the drain.

Randy Cooper

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To the Editor:

I don't know who you are, but I hope you read this message.

You came to Tract O (in Camp Sherman) in two red-and-white fire engines.

You rearranged our 10-year supply of cut wood, watered it down and restacked it to save our garage from fire.

You attached our sprinklers to our chimneys to save our shake roof.

You put our porch furniture in the yard and watered down the yard and cottage.

You surrounded our lease line with a heavy hose and connected it to a pump in the river. The hose had elevated sprinkler heads that watered the area.

You raked the pine bark into piles and watered them down.

You did this for all the Tract O homes and other tracts as well.

Just "Thanks" can never express our gratitude for saving our cabin and 75 years of memories.

The Tifft, Gribskov, Watson Family

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To the Editor:

Not very long ago, I used to be a kindergarten teacher. We taught our students to respect others, to play nice, to keep your hands to yourself. As an adult, I think it's a good idea to live by these rules as well.

But sadly, not everyone else does. On August 16, when Andrew "Drake" Gilbert was out with friends in Bend and at the end of the evening, he was assaulted on the dance floor for dancing with a male friend.

His jaw was broken in two places and was wired shut for several weeks. The attacker left the bar and the police have yet to find him. As often-time happens in small communities like ours, people are coming together to support Andrew and are working to make sure this does not happen again.

Human Dignity Coalition has opened an account in Andrew's name to help raise money to pay his growing medical bills. If you believe in honoring all individuals and celebrating diversity, if you believe that hate crimes should not happen in our town, or in any town, please consider going into your local US Bank and making a contribution to the Andrew Gilbert Donation Account.

Or you can send your check made out to Andrew Gilbert to: HDC, P.O. Box 6084, Bend, OR 97708.

Please feel free to pass this message along to others in our community.

In peace and solidarity,

Jenni Peskin

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To the Editor:

Having lived in Oregon over 60 years -- 13 in Sisters -- we always enjoy on trips up north from Mesa, Arizona, to stop a couple days and see friends (and) have lunch.

This year, because of time restraints, we came through town September 22 and I mean through; one five-minute stop at The Nugget to pick up the last issue.

Also picked up a copy of "Sisters Oregon Guide 2003-04." While checking the mileage chart in the back, it listed Sisters to Albany as 85 miles; 100 is more accurate. To Corvallis as 96 -- 108 is closer.

Sisters is still a place of marvel, but checking home and land prices, we wonder if this area is paradise about to be lost California-style.

A big "Hi!" to the Summerfields, Cheathams, Grimsteads and of course to Sylvia and Maggie and glad to see Chester Armstrong is still cuttin' up.

Also nice to know that God is still answering prayers for firefighters and everyone's efforts these past weeks.

Clayton Garrett

Mesa, Arizona