The last straw

Photo from www.oceandefenderhawaii.com

Straws collected on Bondi Beach in Australia.

For some reason my mother never bought straws for our home at the regular store.  I am not sure how many straws we went through or any other reason why we needed to buy them in bulk but once in a while she would journey to a place in Buffalo, New York, that made straws and there she would pick up a huge box of them.

I went along on one occasion and while she was discussing her purchase with a clerk, I chanced to open a door that led to the factory floor where the straws were being produced. Actually factory floor is kind of a misnomer because what I saw was a room which memory now tells me was not very big.  Machinery filled almost every available square inch of floor space except for narrow passageways the operator used to access the apparatus. A fairly loud mechanical hum added to the feeling of congestion in the room along with the slight odor of warm lubrication oil.

Overhead and between various machines one long strand of straw material hummed around spinning pulleys and guides on the way to being cut in lengths and pushed into boxes. Suddenly out of this mechanical array, a man emerged. My recollection says he was short, perhaps even a little person, grimy and oily from head to toe as he tended the machines and their supposed clean path to market. I noticed his hands with oil pressed into every available crevice, dirty back and front.  I also recall greasy hair and a large nose, its pores also black with oil. He shook his fist at me indicating I should get out and close the door. I stood there shocked for a moment then quickly backed away and shut the door behind me.

By then my mother had completed her purchase and we left the store. But, I never could erase the image of that factory floor from my mind. Since that time I have never been able to see a straw without seeing the filthy conditions and the filthy man responsible for its manufacture.  Open and use one? Never. Won't do it. When people ask why I don't use straws I just say I saw the guy who makes them.

Today I learned for probably more than 60 years I have been on the politically correct side of the straw debate. Who knew there was a debate about straws? I should have. What I saw today was notice of a movement by an organization called the Ocean Conservancy to encourage people to stop using straws because they end up in the ocean killing wildlife, another senseless use of plastic with its enduring qualities. According to the conservancy, Americans eat out an average of four times a week and most of those meals involve at least one straw. If 25,000 people stop taking the straw, it will save 5 million straws over the course of a year, many of which could end up in the ocean.

Fine by me. I can now take sanctimonious pride in supporting yet another noble effort to save the oceans and their wildlife. As a matter of fact, because I haven't used a straw since the early 1950s,  maybe I can be held up as a hero to the cause. Probably not considering I did it without even being aware of it as an issue, an accidental environmentalist, at least in this context.

SKIP THE STRAW – The last straw challenge. Sign the pledge.

‪From Facebook

‪Carrie Ann Nash Lots of special needs people need straws, but there is a good alternative: my mom found safe acrylic, permanent straws that work well most of the time. (A bit challenging to keep clean...)

Pam Longobardi on the Ocean People Facebook page: there is NO challenge to keeping a stainless steel food grade straw clean, or tempered glass: see ‪http://greenapplesupply.org/.../ppc-go-plastic-free-basic... and ‪http://simplystraws.com/.....plastic is a toxic disposable nightmare from human lips to bird and turtle beaks

PPC "Go Plastic-Free" Basic Starter Kit The Official Store of Plastic Pollution Coalition

greenapplesupply.org

‪Carrie Ann Nash What she doesn't know is that many people with various issues simply CANNOT SUCK from a non-malleable straw. It is easy to be self righteous about this but your suggestions simply do not work for everyone. And depending on how far this is taken - should people stop using the plastic canulas such as the ones that keep my son alive and for which there is currently no alternative?!

‪Nikki Caputo i don't know that it's a self righteous issue as much as just gaps in information...it takes a village...this is how we learn and grow.

            bottom line: it's about LOVE


           

                        



‪Tim Jones I think there can be a meeting of the minds here. Just like my not using straws didn't make any difference at all in the amount dumped in the ocean, I should think the people who need malleable straws should certainly have them as they are a relatively small number compared with the general population and can be disposed of properly. It seems if the rest of us gave up the straws, that is what would make the difference.

‪Nikki Caputo and with knowledge that malleable straws (etc.) are important tools for some people/situations, perhaps alternatives to what we are familiar with and/or to what is currently available may be shared/innovated/imagined

‪Carrie Ann Nash I appreciate the discussion. I'm sorry to Pam for name-calling. The toxicity and omnipresence of plastic is horrifying, but it is equally difficult to contemplate the medical world without plastic.

‪Pam Longobardi everything is about information, balance, thoughtfulness,responsibility and LOVE~ Carrie, apology accepted and thank you Carrie, Tim and Nikki for sharing the concern to come up with creative and beautiful answers to this most difficult of challenges. Its complicated and never have humans, nor the whole interconnected planet we call home- EVER faced a more difficult and complex time. Will we figure this out in time? All these discussions, large and small, are the evolution of humanity.

Look inward, angel

Has anyone else picked up on these two headlines recently?

Egypt calls for restraint in Ferguson

Palestinians tweet tear gas advice to Ferguson protesters

Unfortunately they aren't from the Onion or any of the other political satire sites. It's time to wake up and realize this stuff is real. People in countries where we have interfered are now advising Americans on how to carry on. Remember Arab Spring? Think Ferguson Fall.

Soccer fans in Turkey – support for Ferguson

Wherever did they get the idea they could do that. Man, the audacity. Next thing you know Turkey, Lebanon and Sudan will be sending advice on how to manage an influx of refugees. The U.S. would be screaming bloody murder if some out of control citizens started guarding the border out of Syria trying to turn back the flood of refugees from that war.

Not too long ago a bunch of Americans had a standoff with the government in Nevada, but none of them were shot at despite them leveling their weapons toward American  officials. And,  none of those patriots who railed against an overstepping  government has stepped in to advise the citizens of Ferguson on how to handle a government standoff.  Of course all of those patriots were white, except for one. Those guys even used a tactic straight out of the Middle  Eastern playbook, putting the women and children on the front line while the heroes with guns stood behind them. Those folks have been noticeably quiet about sending advice to the demonstrators in Ferguson, but of course most of the people demonstrating in Ferguson are black. Funny too, you don't see any of those Ferguson demonstrators open carrying firearms either. If the police shoot a kid for jaywalking what happens to the guy who walks down the street with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder?

Meanwhile we wake up every morning to news video that at first looks like it could just as well be Syria, or Iraq or Nigeria or leftover footage from Vietnam with battle-ready troops riding in heavily armored military vehicles pointing their guns at unruly crowds of citizens, the scenes illuminated in eerie diffused light passing through clouds of gas thrown at the demonstrators. It always takes a moment to realize those scenes are taking place in the heart of America. That's right, American citizens, assembling and expressing their displeasure with a government force that first gunned down an unarmed man, and then sent an Army to stop them, in the process threatening and arresting members of the press along with their own citizens.

But the military isn't the only weapon in use. Somewhere Travon Martin is shaking his head and wondering if we will ever learn as the government there in Ferguson with the compllicity of the press tries to assassinate the character of the victim. He could have been on marijuana, he stole from a store, he was belligerent, all capital offenses according to the police. And the acquiescent press lets them do it. Meanwhile they hold onto the victim's body for yet a third autopsy looking for anything they can use to blame him for his own death.

Then too they are employing a term oh so familiar to those of us who demonstrated for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s – those ubiquitous villains, the outside agitators. Any demonstration I was in I usually at least recognized most of the people with me and never did I see an outsider who was trying to get us to do anything we didn't want to do. The only strangers we ever encountered were the ones we easily picked out as FBI agents gathering information on us. It has always bothered me that I never made Richard Nixon's enemies list. But now there are outside agitators riling up the citizens of Ferguson, or so we are led to believe.

Frankly it is all repetitive bulldust and reminiscent of the police riot during the 1968 Democrat Convention in Chicago, or going farther back to the civil rights demonstrations earlier in the 60s. Remember "Beat the Press" and "Mace the Nation?"  Same language, same heroes and villains, same, in this case, racism that some of us thought had been resolved long ago until we elected a non-white president and the hatred boiled to the surface, hatred fueled by one element unavailable in those days, the Internet.

It's tougher now to shroud atrocities in darkness when everyone is carrying a camera with the ability to broadcast images worldwide in an instant. And, it is easier to spread innuendo and lies and character assassinations as well and spread that hatred to all who will read.

And after all the meddling Americans have done in the affairs of other nations, it allows people in far-flung countries who have experienced government oppression to advise Americans on how to deal with the same kind of oppression in our own country. How does that sit with the arrogant American psyche?

Meanwhile the real victim of this episode, Michael Brown, who had just graduated high school and was on his way to college lies on a cold stone almost forgotten in a dingy morgue somewhere.

A most remarkable woman

And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born in a world to carry on, to carry on …

– Laura Nyro

Sally J. Suddock (1946 - 2014)

Sally J. Suddock, 68, died Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014, at her home in Anchorage after a long illness surrounded by her family.

She was born March 27, 1946, in Chicago. After graduating from the University of Illinois she worked as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune in the late 1960s and early '70s. At the Tribune she was a member of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering flagrant violations of voting procedures in the March 21, 1972, primary election. In 1973 she moved to Alaska where she had lived ever since.

Sally worked as a reporter at the Anchorage Daily News from 1973 until 1980 and in 1977 with her colleague Rosemary Shinohara won the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism for a series of articles the two wrote about construction problems with the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

After 1980 she worked at the Alaska Journal of Commerce, hosted the Alaska Business segment on KENI News Radio and served as executive director of the Alaska High Tech Business Council. She also was publisher and managing editor of the Alaska Bar Association's newsletter "The Alaska Bar Rag" until her death.

After 2000 she began developing as a bead, metal and fiber artist, serving at one time as president of the Alaska Bead Society. She and her daughter Ariel sold their works at various shows and markets around Southcentral Alaska.

Sally and her husband Warren were married July 27, 1979.

She is survived by her husband Warren, daughter Ariel and husband David Phifer all of Anchorage; brother-in-law George and wife Linda and family of Anchorage and Seattle; brother-in-law John Suddock of Anchorage and family; a brother Robert Wagner and wife Anita of Syracuse, NY; sister-in-law Anka Wagner and Eric Neal of Philadelphia, PA; a nephew, James Wagner and wife Marika of Brooklyn, NY; the Dickows of Illinois and Wisconsin; David and Vivian Watts of Washington, D.C.; Ariel's father Tim Jones of Palmer; and dear friends throughout the world. 

At Sally's request no service has been planned. She asked that in lieu of other memorials, donations be made to the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage (Bird TLC).

Her first grandchild is expected in October.

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

We won't be seeing her this Christmas

There is a guest book here at Legacy.com

An afterthought: 12/4/20: For the past five years I have tried to fill Sally's shoes as editor of the Alaska BarAssociation's Bar Rag. The association's Executive Director whom Sally worked with for years is retiring. What follows is a note I wrote to her about our time together with the Bar Rag;

Deborah,

As we lined up people to write about you for that special edition, I kept wondering if I should add something. I never could come up with the right time or place. Then in an email or two ago you mentioned the connection with Sally and it has crossed my mind often since then. By the time I came to the Bar Rag, Sally and I had been divorced for several years and she had remarried. Over those years we had remained in touch and cordial with each other. It was difficult sitting in that hospital room with her. At one point her brother chased everyone else out of the room, on  purpose, leaving me time alone to talk with her for a while. I sat there listening to her holding her hand, not knowing what to say. She was concerned with what effect she had had on the world and I pointed out to her her two Pulitzer Prize efforts and even more so the stories that she did on the faulty welds in the pipeline. I told her from my own work with the safety of oil transportation she had more than likely prevented a failure in the pipeline. I also reminded her we had a pretty wonderful daughter. One other thing that concerned her was the future of the Bar Rag. She was worried about it. To quiet her and perhaps ease her mind I promised I would do what I could to make sure it went on, not being absolutely sure how I would do that. It was that promise that brought me into your office. But honestly, it went on. Every time I sit down to work on it,  I feel Sally is there somehow, in the background, just a sense of her existence. And that has kept me connected with her all these years. One thing the world doesn’t prepare us for as we grow older is the death of people around us. I once spoke about this at a friend’s funeral, and pointed out that those who leave us, have ways of showing up, coming to mind at the oddest times. And in one way or another those thoughts are comforting, knowing we spent time on this rock with those people. Working on the Bar Rag has helped me keep that connection with Sally. And for that, I thank you very much.

Tim

Comments from facebook

            ‪Kitty Delorey Fleischman So sorry to hear it, Tim. A mother is a huge loss.
August 2 at 8:14pm · · 1







           

            

‪Sue Whittom I'm so sorry to hear this. Sad for all of Sally' s extended family. Tell Ariel I'm so sorry.
August 2 at 8:16pm · · 1







           

            

‪Rebecca Brashear I'm so sorry, Tim. Feelings and Emotions.
August 2 at 9:12pm ·  · 1







           

            

‪Gail Somerville This is such sad news, and I am vey sorry to hear it. Please extend my deepest sympathy to Ariel. Sally was a very special person and the world feels a little emptier tonight. Hugs and condolences also to you, Tim.
August 2 at 11:30pm ·  1







           

             

‪Jeanne Passin Sorry to hear that.condolences to you and Ariel.
August 3 at 2:40am · 1







           

            

‪Mary Doyle So sorry for you and Ariel. You both are in my thoughts
August 3 at 2:58am ·  · 1







           

            

‪Sue Whittom Last month, I lost three long-time friends in Alaska. It breaks my heart and the world is indeed not the same without them. I feel your sadness and it is so very hard to lose a mother - Ariel and her baby will miss Sally' s experience as a mother.
August 3 at 6:52am ·  1







           

            

 

‪Pamela Randles I am sorry to hear Sally has passed. I haven't seen her for years, but cherish her memory. Condolences to you and Ariel.
August 3 at 8:13am · · 1







           

            

 

‪Aaron Koscielniak I wish you guys the best. My prayers are with you all.
August 3 at 9:34am· 1







           

            

‪Margaret Kandel Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
August 3 at 5:28pm  · 1







           

            

‪Tom Walker Sad to hear, Tim.
August 4 at 7:00pm · 1







            ‪Del Allison Tim; thanks for sharing, may the journey be perpetual...
August 6 at 12:57pm · Like







           

            



‪Rebecca Brashear Beautifully written, Tim.
August 6 at 1:10pm · Like · 1







           

            



‪Rosemary Bassett She sounds like a very Special lady...Condolences to all the family..
August 6 at 1:59pm · Like







           

            



‪Sue Whittom Truly, so beautifully written.......a remarkable woman.
August 6 at 2:04pm · Like







           

            



‪Mary Doyle Beautiful Thanks for sharing
August 6 at 2:42pm · Like







           

            



‪Karen Lachance Tim, I'm sorry to hear this. My condolences to both you and Ariel. It makes me sad that you have had to write two obituaries this year for two people so important in your life.
August 6 at 4:24pm ·  1







           

            



‪Gail Somerville Beautifully written, Tim.
August 6 at 4:52pm · Like







           

            



‪Cb Elkington Lovely, quite the person.
August 6 at 5:14pm · Like







           

            



‪Carrie Ann Nash Sorry to you and to Ariel for your loss! Thank you for writing such a beautiful obituary so we could know more about a remarkable woman.
August 6 at 7:05pm · Like