By Jim Kinghorn
One of the Silverton area’s iconic events, the Silverton Hills Strawberry Festival happens this Sunday, June 19 in Coolidge – McClaine Park. What is special this year is that another local icon, Silverton Health, has volunteered to buy your strawberry treat as a thank you during their transition to the Legacy Silverton Medical Center. Yep, you heard right, the strawberry shortcake is FREE (while supplies last) and the nice folks up on the hill pick up the tab…. What a sweet deal!
Also this weekend is the bonanza of brews, the festival of foam, the hullabaloo of hops, otherwise known as The Oregon Garden Brewfest. This year’s event will take more advantage of the outdoorsy feel of the Garden as it moves up into the Rediscovery Forest. The same great music, entertainment and food will be a part of the three-day event and if you’re there on Friday night, The Man and Manette will be “man”ning the taps…..Stop by and say “Hey”…. or look next door for all the info….
Didja see that news story about how America’s super sophisticated nuclear weapons program is controlled by computers so old they use floppy disks?…. And not those new fangled 5 1/4” disks, we’re talkin the full 8 inch variety (look it up youngsters). The thought that the system that controls the well-being of the entire world is using the same era of technology that brought us the Yugo (look that up too, youngin’s) is a little “concerning” but never fear, the gov’ment says upgrades are on the way…. Just as soon as they get around to responding to one of those annoying Windows 10 offers….
These days lots of people reach the ripe old age of 70…. But not many celebrate by swimming nonstop for a mile like Dennis Downey did last week…. Not bad for an old fart…
Congratulations to Dr. Kiersten Eagles over at Silverton Eye Care who was recently named Young Optometrist of the Year by the American Optometrist Association….The Man bets she didn’t see that coming….
As most of you know by now, Silverton came in a close second to Wabash, Indiana in a competition for $500,000 in business and downtown revitalization money. What you may not know is that since winning, our new found friends to the east have gone out of their way to spend money online at several Silverton retailers, sent a box of shirts, promotional materials and a several checks to support the free community dinner program at the First Christian Church. A lot of our people put a lot of effort into winning this contest and it was very disappointing to not come out on top but if we were gonna lose at least we came away with a nice dose of Hoosier Hospitality.
If you attended this year’s somewhat soggy Pet Parade you might have noticed someone was missing….and if you looked closer you will have found they weren’t really missing at all. Right there in the passenger seat of a pickup at the end of the parade with his typical big smile sat State Rep Vic Gilliam. He may have been unable to perform his usual role as Chief Pooper Scooper but Vic was there, doing what he could to support the community. If you haven’t already, take a moment to go online and watch KATU’s Steve Dunn’s interview with Vic about facing the challenges of living with ALS with courage and humor…. Pretty inspirational stuff….
See you on the street…
