Letters to the Editor 12/21/2016

To the Editor:

I would like to respond to Chuck Humphreys' Letter to the Editor (The Nugget, December 7).

I live in Crossroads. I have ridden my horse past the McKenzie Gravel Pit (Highway 242) for many years while people were in the gravel pit shooting. Recently, I have been walking on the same Jimerson Trail while people were shooting.

I have never been afraid and have never heard any bullets whizzing past me. Actually, I think that anyone that could shoot from the gravel pit into Crossroads or any place outside of the pit should deserve some sort of medal.

I have stood in the gravel pit. There is a very high barrier of dirt around the pit. The pit is also surrounded by a thick forest.

The gravel pit has been there for many years, long before Sisters Trails Alliance ever showed up. It has always been a shooting area, even before the firewood man used the gravel pit.

How I wish that the U.S. forest could be managed by the U.S. Forest Service instead of the Sisters Trails Alliance. STA has no concept of private property rights. They think that all of the land (public and private) belongs to them. They want their trail to go right through the middle of Crossroads for their bicycle events. I want them to leave Crossroads and the U.S. forest alone.

Sharon Thorkildson

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To the Editor:

Craig Rullman's column "To Infinity" about John Glenn was a wonderful tribute to the man and all those who have served our country. Thank you so much for sharing Glenn's 1974 speech. Those were stirring words and Rullman's summation that it is nice to just sit back and enjoy the story of a "remarkable and selfless man" is something we all need.

Let's start thinking and talking about our heroes and stop trying to tear down everyone with a little different opinion.

Jean Nave

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To the Editor:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Craig Rullman's tribute to the late John Glenn in his column "The Bunkhouse Chronicle," December 14 issue of The Nugget. Much of what Rullman had to say about Glenn I already knew, but not everything, and I'm grateful for the additional information about this extraordinary

man.

Like many of us, I suspect, I wasn't aware of who John Glenn was before the early days of the space program. But when NASA announced their selection of the original seven Mercury astronauts, I quickly boned up on who these new national heroes were. Reflecting back to that time of my life, I can see more clearly that my intense interest in the space program probably bordered on the unreasonable.

Walter Cronkite and I never missed a Mercury launch. I used to be able to recite the names of the Mercury astronauts (I can still do that), the order of when each flew in space, the dates of their launch, and how many orbits of the earth each one logged (two of the flights were sub-orbital).

I continued to follow the manned space program through the Gemini and Apollo programs, but never as passionately as I did during those magical days of Project Mercury.

Thank you, Craig, for the stroll down memory lane.

One final thought: I'm sure the other six Mercury astronauts were just as courageous, with the same love of country, as Glenn displayed. But, as Rullman pointed out, Glenn seemed to be able to apply that can-do attitude to many other aspects of his life in such a remarkable way that few of us will ever match.

Godspeed, John Glenn.

Ron Thorkildson