This week I saw the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra play at The Met. The concert was conducted by Antoni Wit and featured the invigorating pianist, Valentina Lisitsa. The program was broken into pieces by three major European composers from the late 1800s, including Polish composer Mieczyslaw Karlowicz (1876-1909), Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) and the German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).

The performance was held in Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, which provided great acoustics and a level of intimacy for the audience. The music was dramatic and inspiring, but Ms. Lisitsa gave the most ardent performance of the night with Piano Concerto No. 1. Her fiery expressions and gusto alone were attention grabbing, while the trills she accomplished on a giant blue grand piano were riveting.

The concert was a memorable one. Wit’s encore was an exuberant rendition of “Stars and Stripes”. Before they closed the show with this last (of three) encores, Mr. Wit dedicated the song “to celebrate your new president, Barack Obama.”

-Courtney Centeno, account executive

One of my favorite destinations on my rambles about the little town of Rogue River (population 2,000) is Palmerton Park, a five-acre arboretum adjoining Evans Creek. Within its boundaries are nearly 100 species of trees and shrubs, a truly unique treasure anywhere, but especially so in this small community. Being a gardener (and a frustrated one right now, without a plot of land at hand for me to tend), I especially enjoy strolling the paths and admiring the size, form and variety of the lush growth around me. Over the last month and a half the deciduous trees have been transitioning from summer glory to fall brilliance to winter dormancy, making it possible to more clearly observe the collection of firs, pines, cedars and redwoods in their midst.

Orin F. Palmerton, a Spanish American war vet, purchased this land in the 1920s and established a nursery here. He continued to operate it as such until 1966, and in those years he planted and nurtured pines from Japan and China, cedars from the Mediterranean, and all kinds of exotic and native species. As his health declined, he sold the property to the county for a nominal fee, for he had always envisioned that what he had tended so lovingly and well would become a park for all to enjoy. His dream became a reality, and in later years the City of Rogue River took over care and maintenance of the park. New specimens continue to be added to the towering sequoias, elms, gingkos and others that Orin Palmerton planted.

It reminds me that each of us has the potential to add something enduring and beautiful to the world we inhabit. Too often, I think, we can be overwhelmed by the legacies of the likes of the Roosevelts, Carnegies and Gateses and lose sight of the fact that one doesn’t need millions of dollars to make a positive impact.  Perhaps some are fortunate enough to be able to deed a plot of land for a link in a trail system, a unique home to a historical society or a building for community use. Most of us, though, while not having those resources at hand, can still support a local program or society with our time, skills or donations. It isn’t just the large gift or gesture that is needed, but also the long-term generosity of the many that maintains and grows the jewels in our towns and neighborhoods and keeps them vibrant.

Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader

Last week I traveled to Washington, DC, on Amtrak from New York for a daytrip of meetings. One great advantage of traveling with Amtrak is that even though it can be crowded, sometimes you can change your train ticket even after you’ve purchased it or missed your train, without any troubles. But I reserved a late train in the evening to ensure I wouldn’t have to rush out of the afternoon meetings.

Anyway, I did have some time in the evening to walk around DC, an occasion I rarely have and so I took full advantage. A friend met me for dinner at the Willard Intercontinental, and as the weather was summerlike, we sat outside, and I took in the political scene.

Almost every passerby’s conversation revolved around the recent election, and every corner store had Obama-Biden paraphernalia for sale. What made the night extra special for me was just before catching my train, around 8:30 p.m., we took a stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue right past the front lawn of the White House.

I probably had not done that since I was a little girl. Having traveled the world since then and having seen the homes of many heads of state from a distance, it was awe-inspiring and humbling to stand so close to the home of the President of the United States. It was peaceful, beautiful and a truly great symbol of this country. Whoever resides in the White House, be it President Bush, President-elect Obama or future presidents, I wish them all the best of luck, because no home so beautiful comes without hard work!

 Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher

Nicholas Aristides Vanikiotis was eighteen years old in 1943 when he was drafted into the Army. While in training at Fort Carson in Colorado, William “Wild Bill” Donovan arrived to recruit members for the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the C.I.A.). As a son of Greek immigrants, Nick had the language skills that would be invaluable to the special operations groups (S.O.G.s) being formed to help the National Resistance fighters against the Axis powers in Yugoslavia and Greece. Donovan was clear that the mortality rate for such secret missions could be as high as 70 to 90 percent, but with the bravado of the young and a desire to help free his parents’ homeland from the Nazis, Nick, along with 500 others, volunteered. After weeks of a strict vetting process that included F.B.I. checks, interviews and psychological testing, 150 young men were chosen, my future father-in-law among them.

Three months of initial training in weaponry, tactics and hand-to-hand combat took place at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, followed by demolitions training at Hagerstown, Maryland. Eventually several of these S.O.G.s were transported across the Atlantic and hopscotched from Egypt to Palestine to Italy. Based finally on the island of Vis, the only island off the Dalmatian Coast not occupied by Germany, the troops’ mission was to disrupt German supply lines and support Marshal Tito’s resistance army in pushing the enemy out of Yugoslavia and Greece.

After the Allies recaptured the island of Solta, Nick’s group set out on the mainland on a nearly 1,000-mile, 17-day march conducted mostly at night over mountainous terrain to Volos, Greece. Along the way they ambushed German supply convoys, blew up bridges and cratered roadways. Years later he glossed over the details of this mission, never revealing to his sons or grandchildren exactly what his encounters with the enemy were like. He would talk about how that trek ruined his feet (he always walked with a limp) and mention with affection those who were wounded or killed, but as with so many veterans, he did not share how a 19-year-old boy coped with all that he saw and did in that time. In fact, the story he most often shared involved his “celebrity sighting” while stationed on Vis. He told of observing a three-masted schooner sailing into the harbor one day skippered by none other than Sterling Hayden, the movie star. Hayden was also working for the O.S.S., smuggling guns to Tito’s fighters.

Like most others who survived fighting for our country in World War II, Nicholas Vanikiotis returned home after the war, went to school on the G.I. Bill, married, raised his sons and worked hard to support his family. His sons and granddaughters, when prodded by history lessons at school, would ask him to tell them about the war. He would relate these bits and pieces, but it was clear it was not a subject on which he wished to dwell. When he passed away eight years ago, we found a few of his mementos of the war: his discharge papers, his uniform, pictures of him in front of the Sphinx in Egypt, a dagger and a pistol.

As the years have passed and I watch new generations of our children volunteer to travel to foreign lands and go in harm’s way, I stand in awe of the sacrifices they and their families make. Having gotten a very private glimpse of the changes those sacrifices worked upon one young man, I honor every one who travels that path.

Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader

Finally in the last few weeks I have had some time to get out and walk around my new town and begin to learn the lay of the land. Work and travel have kept me from getting acquainted with Rogue River, and it’s made me feel a bit out of sorts to not know more about where I’m now living. I noted that there was a small Victorian-era cottage housing the Woodville Museum (incorportating the town’s former name), and I decided that I’d have to make some time to stop in there and learn some background.

Before I took the time to do that, though, I stumbled across the cemetary, founded in 1888. Compared to communities on our east coast or Europe, I realize that doesn’t seem so terribly long ago, but that was only 16 years after the town was established. I figured I might get an initial, albeit rather unusual, history lesson here.

On one beautiful fall afternoon I strolled beneath a canopy of 70- to 80-foot-tall oak, madrone, pine and fir trees. Here the only sounds were the crunch of gravel and acorns beneath my feet and the rustle of dry leaves in the breeze high overhead. I was drawn toward the far reaches of the cemetary where the oldest gravestones stood, and noted as I went that there were no elaborate marble monuments or mausoleums. The majority of the people laid to rest here more than a hundred years ago were from fairly humble backgrounds, and the modest granite headstones generally held the most basic information about those laid beneath. Whereas some carried only a name and the years of birth and death, others revealed a little more about the loved ones lost and the ones left behind to memorialize them. Some of the saddest, of course, where those marking the graves of mere babies and children which spelled out exactly how long the child was on this earth. This one commemorated two children from one family:  Minnie M./Born Apr 26, 1896/Aged 9 yrs 8 mos 16 ds/ Stella Oct 18, 1891 Aged 1 da

I wandered for over an hour, noting the popularity of “Ida May” in the mid-1880s as a girl’s name, the apparent pride in one’s origins when the place as well as the date of a birth was included in an inscription (Aberdeenshire, Scotland; near Logan, Dearborn Co., ND; Flemingsburg, Ky), generations of families clustered together within neat, low, stone walls. Finally, there was one stone which led me to the tiny Woodville Museum to search for some answers.

I learned that this town founded on the banks of the Rogue River, which rises in the Cascade Mountains to the east, has experienced major floods many, many times over the course of the last 125 years or so. Typically the river and several tributaries spill over their banks in the late winter, following a season-long buildup of a high snowpack in the mountains and a lowland snowfall of several inches followed by heavy, warm rains and a rapid melt. Just such conditions occurred in February of 1898, when even the valley floor received an unusual knee-deep snow before the temperature quickly rose and the rains began to pour down. This is the inscription on a tall, plain stone slab at the back of the Woodville Cemetary which led me to search out these facts, its few words telling an entire, heart-wrenching story:

            Olaf P. Randall/Born/Feb 12, 1850/Drowned Feb 13, 1898

            Oleva B./dau. of/O.P. & B. Randall/Born Feb 12, 1891/Drowned Feb 13, 1898

                              How we miss our dear ones!

Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader