By Rich Wandschneider, writing in the Wallowa County Chieftain

It’s traditional at this time of year, when you have a platform such as this, to look back at the year past, or to speculate on the year ahead. Looking in both directions at the end of 2004, what impresses me most – and gives me the most hope – are the people and organizations who live and display generosity.

I lost a dear friend this year, a college roommate named Bill who could hold a rugby scrum together (he played rear row, for you rugby fans out there) with his bear-like body and buoyant spirit. Bill worked in the toughest part of New York in the mid ‘60s, and told me once that the difference between rich people and poor people is money. He lived his life doing everything he could to even that equation.

Some of my favorite kid baseball players stopped by to see me this year  Rob Anderson and his wife Bridget were in on their way back from a  Peace Corps assignment in Armenia, where Rob worked in business development and Bridget worked in special education. They’ve found people who need the same kinds of help here in the Willamette Valley.  They grow rich in spirit.

Judy and I joined hundreds of former Peace Corps Volunteers for a weekend in Portland, where we were treated to stories of talents shared around the world. Many teachers, social workers, diplomats, business and professional people who volunteered a generation ago are doing so again.   Others, recently back from Peace Corps assignments in Poland, Russia  and AIDS infested African countries, are telling their stories and asking that the humble and devastated lives they’ve seen and shared be made better.

Rob Anderson’s good friend and baseball teammate, Aaron Himes, just sent an e-mail from Singapore, where he is a graduate Rotary Scholar. He wrote of attending Rotary meetings where four or five languages are spoken freely, of members and clubs who look after the social and economic needs of the underclass in a quite affluent society. He and fellow students connected to Rotary did a recent stint cleaning up a poor housing unit for elderly Chinese refugees from the Mainland, the “most rewarding” experience he’s had so far.

My Rotary friends in Wallowa County are no slouches when it comes to generosity. In the past year, our club has sent money and manpower (and womanpower) to Mexico, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Azerbaijan. We’ve welcomed an exchange student back from Thailand and are hosting one  from the Philippines. And we’ve raised thousands of dollars towards the eradication of polio world-wide.

Rotary is not the only service organization on our block. Hats off to the Soroptimists, who clothe hundreds of Wallowa County residents at reasonable prices, and then turn the quarters and dollars they glean from sacks of clothes into scholarships for local youngsters. And to AAUW, which brought us good music and gave their first scholarships this year. To the hospital auxiliary, and the hundreds of volunteer workers, donors, and buyers who make the hospital auction the most successful fundraising and social event in the year. To Safe Harbors and the Nez Perce Homeland project, to Kiwanians, Lions, Boy Scouts and Girls. Bless all of you for your generosity that makes this a special place to live.

I must single out the volunteer board of directors, community volunteers, donors and sponsors who make my work at Fishtrap so enjoyable, and make it possible for us to bring writers into schools, speakers into the community, stories to kids on KWVR radio, classes to students, and  workshops to writers. I couldn’t dream a better job.

It’s so easy to skip someone when doling out praise, so please, as the preacher says, accept our silent thanks and praise if I’ve missed you. I’ve neglected too the many who work on macro scales to make the world safer and saner. And do so rather than take the easy rides towards wealth and power afforded by mega corporations and glamorous positions in business, entertainment, and sport. I can’t help but mention the New York attorney – Eliot Spitzer – who has stood for small investors and  pensioners, and to Strom Thurmond’s bi-racial daughter, who has to be one of the most generous souls around, waiting these 70 years for the old segregationist to die before spilling his secret.

And the new year? We’d like peace in the world, of course, and less hunger, pain, and sadness. And more generosity. In our own place, I hope  that the good measure of generosity that we have proves infectious. That the new hospital makes strides, the Berland (EM&M) building becomes a community place, and the Nez Perce Homeland Project finds funds for a director. I wonder if we can all get behind those Oddfellows and help make theirs a great venue for music and dance.

And I’d make the bold suggestion that the folks who are involved with that 60 odd acres of terminal moraine at Wallowa Lake find the generosity in their hearts to settle for modest profit and the good will that would surely come if that hunk of land were left a monument to the natural forces that created it and the generations of Nez Perce who lived on it

© 2004 Rich Wandschneider