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6A Daily News – Saturday, January 11, 2014 Opinion DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Sour grapes more fulfilling than unity? Editor: As publisher of the Kelly Gram, the Kelly-Griggs House Museum Association membership newsletter, imagine my surprise to discover utter defamation by a disgruntled former Museum Association president. For someone who claims such affection for our Victorian marvel, in her recent letter to the editor she spouted nothing but negativity and sour grapes. Museum newsletters are journals of a sort recording the events and this case Kelly-Griggs House Museum collection acquisitions and maintenance, guide bios and programs, including acquisition of insurance, various repairs, an alarm system, attic insulation and a new HVAC system to name a few post 2005 accomplishments. Quite frequently, stories are run in this very newspaper outlining events and programs held at the museum. Ms. Wolfe, or, madam sour grapes, might explain to Katie Gleim how "insignificant" her volunteer demonstration of antique candlestick arrangements was; Sandy Jennings sharing antique beaded bags, or Lori Short her program on quilt history; the Clark Indian Basket Collection presentation; how Micah Stetson wasted hours at the Steinway with the Victorian Carolers at Christmastime. Tell Marilynn Gittings her thousands of hours inventorying the Museum Collection was just not up to snuff; Sister Gloria, bless her heart, shared with us her trip to Egypt; John Humphries annually offers appraisals at bargain prices, helping make donations to the museum. Linda Elsner and Vivian Ogden hosted some wonderful Teas and Bridge Luncheons. AAUW held a function recently at the museum. Mercy and RBHS students and others help clean and decorate; authors of devoted volunteer who wrote a local books have come and recent letter to the editor to help given Power Point presentations save the House Museum, ask for — this all in addition to our volunteers and ask for more dwindling but dedicated mem- school children to be exposed to bers, board and volunteers that local history. She deserves an entertain, inform, dust, scrub, apology from Ms. Wolfe for such an ugly rebuttal, mend, plan, execute designed to underand generally keep the Your mine Ann's efforts to museum going. boost a struggling There is no argumuseum; absorbing ment Ms. Wolfe made even greater losses by many past contriburecent deaths of severtions and devoted a lot of time to the Kelly-Griggs; al devoted volunteers — includhowever, in this she is so off ing Ann's own husband not so base and should swallow her long ago. The Museum is going pride, peruse some newsletters through tough times like so and admit she was wrong. She ignored engineering pro- many other non-profits. Howfessionals and lowly guides who ever, Ms. Wolfe still seems to stood their ground years ago have foundational issues after over replacing the crumbling all these years; her comments Victorian's river rock founda- were selfish, spiteful, immature tion — she denies still the enor- and just plain mean-spirited; mous cost and its precedence not at all a gift to the communiover new paint; accusing volun- ty. Ms. Wolfe should get over teers of squandering funds, my herself and, if anything, help goodness; so wrong in con- save the Kelly-Griggs; not demning and demoralizing all destroy it. Christine Wyman, post 2005 volunteers. Red Bluff Ann John is a caring and Turn Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary Catching cats and raccoons Just before Thanksgiving my wife opened the door to the garage to get a load of laundry from the dryer. Much to her surprise the door hit something; she assumed it was one of the cats, but when she looked down, she saw a raccoon. The raccoon immediately dashed through the cat flap into the back yard, and I chased it across the grass, growling and making all sorts of what I thought were scary noises. It finally climbed over the fence. We have two cats, Ozzie and Harry. We originally thought we had Ozzie and Harriet until we took them for their first visit to the veterinarian. My Swedish Grandmother told me years ago that you could tell a male cat by the shape of his nose; the vet said you have to look at the other end of the cat. Our cats were part of a litter deposited under the truck parked in our neighbor's driveway. Our neighbor, Terry Lee, was a retired CHP officer, and he was a gentle soul when it came to animals. He had trapped and paid for the neutering of several cats roaming through our neighborhood. Upon discovering the litter, he trapped the mother cat, scooped up the kittens and gave them a home in his garage. The mother cat was feral and did not reciprocate Terry's hospitality and care; most of the kittens were less standoffish. Mother cat did eat the food provided, however. Cats can be good opportunists. Terry approached the neighbors in an attempt to seek adoptive homes for his charges. There were six kittens; two were gray; two were tabby; and two were champagne and taupe with blue eyes. As you know a female cat can have more than one father for her litter. We have a lot of traveling tomcats in our neighborhood. When Terry invited us to pick a kitten, we picked two, one for me and one for my wife. Those appealing eyes of kittens dissolve any sense of logic people have. We selected a blue eyed, long haired, kitten and named him Ozzie. We also picked out a kitten with a snaggletooth, a tabby with yellow eyes. We named her Harriet until we had to change his name to Harry. We invited both cats into our house, provided a litter box for them, and for the first few weeks corralled them up at bedtime and locked them in a spare upstairs bathroom. On the first morning we had a little scare. When we opened the door to let them out they were not in the bathroom. We had just done some minor remodeling in the bathrooms upstairs, replacing the flooring, and the vent covers for the heating and air conditioning units had not yet been replaced. I immediately worried that the kittens had fallen down the vent and were somewhere in the duct system, possibly even in the furnace. As I grabbed a flashlight and knelt down to peer into the ductwork, I hear a faint "meow". The kittens had merely crossed over through the vent hole and into the bathroom on the other side of the wall, without incident. We were relieved and put those vent covers back on immediately. The cats were cleverer than we thought. After several weeks, we moved their beds from the bathroom into a spare bedroom, and let them have access to the whole house overnight; we momentarily blinded a raccoon closed our bedroom doors upon that was raiding the cat food sack I had left in a corretiring. They seemed ner of the garage with content, having access only a cloths pin to to all sorts of chairs, secure it. It dashed out sofas, and cozy corners through the cat flap to sleep each night. and was gone. It wasn't long, howOf course, I could ever, before we left the outsmart a raccoon; I bedroom door open, placed the sack of cat and in the middle of the food in a cabinet. Late night found Ozzie on the next night I heard top of the high dresser, a disturbance in the curled up like the king garage, went to see of the world surveying what was going on, his kingdom, and Joe and there was that Harry, carefully same raccoon, with wedged between us, the door to the cabinet both sound asleep. Cats open and ready to can adapt and are quick pounce on the sack of to claim their territory. That was the status quo for cat food. Next I put a simple slide latch about five years. After several years of runny on the cabinet, and when I heard eyes, sneezing, and itching, my another disturbance the raccoon wife had an allergy test. She is had already slid the latch and allergic to cats! So instead of was about to help himself to the carefully keeping the cats from cat food again. So then I placed the food in the dashing outside when we picked up the paper in the morning or upper part of the cabinet, put a went into the yard, we made slide bolt on that door, and was sure I had solved the problem. them "outside" cats. We installed a magnetic cat Once again there was a disturflap, put two cat beds in the bance, and when I went to check garage along with two litter the raccoon was on top of the cabboxes. The cats seemed to prefer inet trying to open the upper door. Eventually I was able to sleeping on top of our truck rather in the beds, even on cold round up our cats, lock them in nights, and the windshield of the the garage overnight, and trap truck was usually covered with the raccoon and his successor a paw prints. I dutifully cleaned month later. Now, however, we the cat products from the litter normally cannot round up the boxes each day. Soon it became cats, and so far not been able to apparent one litter box would trap the raccoon. There must be a lesson in all do, and that it only had to be cleaned weekly. The back yard of this. grass was another matter, and Joe Harrop is a retired we had to be careful to avoid the educator with more than 30 land mines when mowing the years of service to the North lawn or playing croquet. One night when we came State. He can be reached at home late, our headlights DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Harrop