The Applegater

4 Summer 2017 Applegater •••BIZbits••• BizBits highlights businesses new to the area, holding special events, or offering new products. If you are a business owner, let us know when you move into the area or to a different location, hold a special event, expand your business, or mark a milestone. Email Shelley Manning at manningshelley@icloud.com. BOOK REVIEWS Up Sterling Creek Without a Paddle Paul Fattig If you're a long-time resident and read the Medford Mail Tribune, you may be familiar with Paul Fattig's writing—punny, loquacious, and nostalgic about the history of the land and people (and critters) of the Applegate Valley and all things local. You'll find that and more in this memoir of a late-in-life move by Paul and his wife, Maureen, to a long-abandoned property near the long-abandoned town of Sterlingville. It seems to me that Paul is "recovering" from the constraints of print journalism and enjoying the freedom of "real-life" journalism. His lively storytelling combines his journal of years spent rehabilitating the burned-out cabin, in which he and his wife now live, with a generous dose of digging, literally, into local history—like the old mine adit and ancient vehicle graveyards on the property. His grandparents once lived in the Applegate. He weaves in references to lots of dogs and cats and the interconnected lives of people living and working together in the rural canyons of the Applegate River drainage. A strong sense of family is evident throughout, from Paul's upbringing (well, his parents attempted it) in the little town of Kerby, Oregon, with tales of juvenile derring-do, as well as reminiscences of interesting relatives. (Due out soon is another book, Madstone, about Paul's draft-dodging uncles hiding out in the Kalmiopsis area during World War I.) Several generations of his family get a thorough examination, counterpointed with tales of the new generation, the combined children of Paul and his ever- suffering wife. Building or restoring a house has destroyed many a marriage, and the charred eyesore the Fattigs started with could have dissolved several marriages. In the end, this is partly a love story as we follow these childhood sweethearts through all the trials and tribulations of creating "a silk purse from a sow's ear." It's a testimony to their mutual commitment that they seem to come through all the hard times by finding the humor in almost any situation. Neither ghosts nor rattlesnakes nor midnight strangers at the door seem to keep these two from enjoying their piece of paradise up Sterling Creek, still looking for that #**&!^ paddle. If you like local history, you need to read this book. Paul Tipton • ptipton@frontier.com Full disclosure: is reviewer was employed by the Fattigs during their cabin restoration. His name is noted in the book, and his picture is in the centerfold photos. But it is a good book. Honest. Read it. —PT Is there anyone who hasn't heard of the Holocaust? When Germany liquidated six million Jews along with gypsies, homosexuals, and whomever else they deemed undesirable? I've heard of folks who believe that the Holocaust never happened. ey may be the same folks who believe that the earth is flat, the sun rotates around the earth, the moon landing was staged, and aliens live inside Mount Shasta. ey should read Edwin Black's book. It sheds a blinding light on the Holocaust and International Business Machine's (IBM) involvement with the Nazis. In addition to being an author, Edwin Black has been an investigative journalist who specializes in corporate misconduct. is is one of the most amazing books that I have ever read on corruption. IBM, one of America's once-greatest corporations, now has me thinking that the words "corporation" and "corruption" might be one and the same. Even worse is that Black uncovered many other American corporations that aided the Nazis. Can you guess why? Money! omas S. Watson, IBM's chairman at that time, was dreaming of trainloads of money, while Hitler had other plans for his trains. What got Black interested in IBM's connection to Hitler and his Nazi killing regime was a 1993 visit with his parents to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Both of Black's parents were Holocaust survivors from the same camp in Poland. His mother managed to escape from a boxcar on a train headed to Treblinka, a camp in Poland where people were immediately exterminated by gas chamber. Unfortunately, she was shot while escaping and buried in a shallow mass grave. Black's father had escaped earlier from a guarded line of Jews. Afterward, he saw a leg protruding out of the snow from a mass grave. e leg belonged to Black's mother, and she was still very much alive. He pulled her out, and together they managed to evade the Nazis hunting for them. On the day of the Black family's visit to the Holocaust museum, the first display they saw was an IBM Hollerith D-11 card-sorting machine. The only explanation attached was that it was used by the Nazis to organize the 1933 census IBM and the Holocaust Edwin Black that first identified the Jews in Germany. A f t e r s t a r i n g a t t h i s machine for an hour, Black turned to his parents and promised them that he'd find out more. It took him years, with the assistance of more than one hundred different people in America and Europe, to gather 20,000 pages of information to put the puzzle together. In his book, Black lays out the history of IBM, founded in 1896 by Herman Hollerith, a German inventor, as a census- tabulating company. He also tells of omas Watson's history, which shows him to be a very calculating, self-absorbed, power-hungry, money-grabbing predator. Hitler had personally awarded Watson the highest medal that the Nazis had for a non-German, the Merit Cross of the German Eagle with the star, due to Watson's "Promethean gift of punch card technology that enabled the Reich to achieve undreamed of efficiencies both in its rearmament program and its war against the Jews [and] for his refusal to join the chorus of strident anti-Nazi boycotters and isolators and instead open a commercial corridor the Reich could still navigate." e medal ranked second in prestige only to Hitler's German Grand Cross. When America went to war with Germany, Watson was torn about what to do with his pride and joy that Hitler had bestowed on him. When he asked his friend President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roosevelt told Watson to return it. (If Roosevelt had only known about the ongoing connection between Watson and Hitler!) Reluctantly, Watson sent his trophy back to Hitler, but he made sure that the Nazis had the IBM tabulating machine and the cards to feed it until the end of the war. e cards were especially important because they enabled the Nazis to be extremely efficient in identifying Jews, keeping their trains running with phenomenal precision, and keeping track of troop movements. IBM and the Holocaust is better than any spy book. I can't recommend it enough. In fact, I think some of the information about IBM should be taught in any class about World War II. While the Holocaust would have happened with or without IBM, the number of people murdered would never have approached six million without its support of Germany. J.D. Rogers • 541-846-7736 The Good Earth Organics Supply. Good Earth Organics operates southern Oregon's largest premium soil-manufacturing yards and two full-service gardening supply stores. For over a decade they have served the Illinois Valley, and now they are excited to open a new location in Murphy. All soil ingredients are locally sourced and tested to insure the highest quality blends. e knowledgeable staff at Good Earth Organics will happily help you with all your gardening and soil needs. 6891 Williams Highway, Murphy • 541-592-4855 • thegoodearthorganics.com. • • • Spa E'vie. Pamper yourself at Spa E'vie. Esthetician Cheri Veritch and masseuse Suzie Wagner blend their talents to create unique skin care and body therapies, even wildcrafting organic potions for special treatments. Spa E'vie has an infrared sauna, a Zen Den (salt room), and a recently added special pedicure area and boutique hair salon, open by appointment. With this recipe for success, it's no wonder Spa E'vie just celebrated their fifth anniversary! Applegater readers receive a 15 percent discount with this BizBit. 550 SW 6th Street, Suite E, Grants Pass • 541-479-3176 • grantspass-dayspa.com. Why we care e creek sounds swirl and dance behind me. I lie on a fallen tree in the dead heat of summer. e air is still clear in mid-July, for the fires have not yet started. e trickles and splashes that lull me suddenly transpose into footsteps and snapping twigs; a person is present, but I do not jump or startle. I get up with ease to greet him, a familiar stranger with a loyal hound. I do not feel threatened or worried because this is a community. Two years later, I find myself on a winding trail deep in the public lands surrounding my home. e wildflowers, some taller than my own waist, have erupted over the marshy landscape surrounding the mountain lakes that attracted me to the site. For all of my hike, I am alone and see no sign of any other humans. It isn't until the dusk is greeting the day on my way back to the trailhead that I hear a commotion. In the distance I am able to make out two daughters and two fathers with armloads of sleeping bags and small camping supplies. Smiling, I thought of how wonderfully fortunate we are to live in a place where children are raised so close to nature and where we feel safe enough to bring our children to remote places such as this. We trust and love and gather. We are drawn together by the splendors of nature that surround us in our small valley. Our home is what links us together. I feel just as safe with the people I meet at Williams Creek or on the Bigelow Lakes Trail as I do with my own family because we have an understanding. We respect the land and respect each other; to be stewards of our environment is to be stewards to ourselves. May we continue to see our community flourish with trust, and let us never forget the interconnectedness of our natural and social environments. Chloe Lindgren • lindgrenc@sou.edu We s u re h o p e t h i s i s n't the first you've heard about McKee Bridge's first Centennial Celebration, but if so, check out the cover of the spring Applegater (applegater.org) for the details. en dig into the back of the closet for those old fashions from back in 1917 and come on out on Saturday, June 10, dressed for the occasion and the time period. Pr i z e s w i l l b e a w a r d e d throughout the event for those who dress up for it. You don't want to miss it! Fo r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n , contact Paul Tipton at 541- 846-7501 or mckeebridge1917@ gmail.com. Dress up for the McKee Bridge Centennial Celebration

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