Of Cabbages and Kings

The outpouring of recollection and reflection following the death of Steve Jobs was profound.

Walter Mossbergs column in The Wall Street Journal was especially insightful. Jobs called Mossberg to tell him about the stores that Apple would be opening around the company, based on a model they had designed at a secret location. I teased him by asking if he, personally, despite his hard duties as CEO, had approved tiny details like the translucency of the glass and the color of the wood. He said he had, of course.

The anecdote was identical to a story that the late Ancil Payne told me about the late Fred Meyer, Oregons retail genius. During a store opening he attended in the 1970s, Meyer walked the aisles and upon departing, presented the store manager with a list of seven things that were wrong.

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A colleague offered another perception on the death of Steve Jobs. Have you noticed, he asked, that all of the great inventors and business visionaries of the past few decades were westerners? Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Howard Schultz of Starbucks.

That caused me to remember a piece of information that I had gathered some 25 years ago. When I was asked to write articles about Mother Joseph, the Catholic nun whose statue was being unveiled in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol, I noticed that she would become only the seventh woman given that prominence. The preponderance of the other women were westerners. They included archetypal figures such as the medical researcher Florence Sabin and the member of Congress Jeannette Rankin of Montana who cast the only votes against U.S. entry into the two world wars (I cannot vote for war, she said). There are now nine statues of women in the hall, including Helen Keller, who was added by Alabama in 2003.

For an aspiring author of childrens books, Ive long thought these women would make a great book for young girls. Behind each of their names is an awesome and inspirational story.

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Robert Green, who died Sept. 7 was one of the more exceptional public servants Ive met. Bob and his wife Lacey had lived in California, but settled in Gearhart. Bob and his brother, Alan Punch Green of Portland were of opposite political persuasions. Punch was a longtime fixture in the Oregon Republican Party.

Prior to his run for the Clatsop County Commission, Bob served on the County Planning Commission. He was the only county commissioner to date who made a new jail his primary concern, which was especially interesting coming from the guy representing the Gearhart constituency. Since adoption of county home rule in 1988, the voters have endured a number of commissioners who did damage unintentionally or wilfully. But a few such as Don Haskell, Helen Westbrook and Bob Green came to the task with a long view of what mattered.

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Judy Johnson, who occupied a spot in KMUNs line-up of morning classics programmers, has moved to Maryland. Not content to play works from the Top 40 of classical music, Johnson rummaged through KMUNs large music library. Invariably she played works that were both lovely and new to the rest of us. I will miss hear heartfelt sign-off: Blessings on your day. And slightly plaintively:?Good-bye everyone.

S.A.F.