The Daily Sentinel from Grand Junction, Colorado • 4

ommentary Friday, July 5, 1996 Page 4A THE lAi DAILY Sentinel Foundad in 1893 A Cox Newspaper George Orbanek, Editor and Publisher Larry J. DeGolyer, General Manager Dennis M. Herzog, Managing Editor Bob Silbernagel, Editorial Page Editor Gary Harmon, City Editor Sharyn Wizda, Editorial Board Editorials etters prevented, family income has stagnated since 1992, even wmMnore women working than ever before. Among 7.9 million Americans, two people per family are working to make ends meet. Of people who lost their jobs, only one-third got new jobs with equal pay.

In the last year from March 1995 to 1996, this country has lost 325,000 high-paying manufacturing jobs. These facts I have from a highly reliable source and Clinton is disputing the facts. Of course, he has to be a politician to try and get re-elected. It is hard for him to tell the truth. What a shame that the world must see America in such a slop hole.

GEORGE PLATT Grand Junction i Go figure. There may be a Clinton-skating connection Editor: 4 Is it just my imagination, or does Craig Living-' stone, former White House security officer', look a lot like the goon who bashed Nancy Kerrigans knee? Has Hillary been talking to Tonya Harding as well as Eleanor Roosevelt? PHIL FREITAS Grand Junction Local fire crews responsible for saving Redlands homes Editor: My home was one of the 12 involved in the fire in Monument Valley on June 24. The article in The Daily Sentinel credited the residents who fought to contain the fire with saving the Redlands homes. What we did all helped immensely in a potentially tragic situation. However, I think some of the homes would not have been saved if it werent for the excellent job performed by the fire departments that arrived on the scene.

I dont know how many trucks or firefighters there were, but it seemed they were everywhere I looked. It was amazing how efficiently and courteously they worked. I want to extend to them my heartfelt thanks for a job very well done. I also want to thank my neighbors who came to help me. GLORIA HOWARD Grand Junction Deficit is dropping during Clinton presidency Editor: In his letter to the editor of June 18, Mr.

Wallace was so intent upon making vitriolic remarks about the Clintons that he did not take the time to check his statements: Mr. Wallace states that the deficit is skyrocketing out of sight. This is not true. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 115th Edition, Page 333, Table No. 517, shows that the deficit for 1993 was $255.1 billion which was down from the record deficit of $290.4 billion for 1992, the last year of the Bush presidency.

The 1994 deficit was $203.2 billion. The 1995 estimated deficit was $192.5 billion. A recent article in The Daily Sentinel (June 22) stated The Congressional Budget Office is predicting a $130 billion deficit for the year ending Sept. 30. If so, it would be the fourth consecutive yearly decline from the record $290.4 billion gap in fiscal 1992.

Mr. Wallaces statement Who involved us in Vietnam? A Democrat named Lyndon Johnson is not true. The United States involvement in Vietnam began after the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954 and the subsequent withdrawal of France from Indochina on December 29, 1954. Beginning in January 1955, the United States government provided economic and military assistance directly to South Vietnam. The United States involvement in South Vietnam began in January 1955, approximately nine years before Lyndon Johnson became president.

JOHN J. FLYNN Grand Junction Clinton cant tell truth about economic state Editor: President Clinton is not telling the truth about the economy. Since the 1993 tax hike, it has cost the economy $208 billion, or more than $2,000 for every household. It cut the number of private jobs created by 1.2 million. The growth in personal income of Americans was cut by $264 billion $2,600 per household.

The formation of more than 40,000 new businesses and 2,030 new jobs was Public TV air wars unlikely to have winner While public television outlets in places such as New York City and Pittsburgh are working to sell off what they see as unnecessary or unproductive duplicate stations, Mesa County faces the prospect of soon having two public television stations operating here. This, after all these years without a single, locally operated public television station. A group of local residents has been working for more than a year with KRMA-TV Denvers Channel 6 public television to start a sister station in Grand Junction. That station, KRMJ-TV, is scheduled to begin broadcasting this fall with shows produced nationally, in Denver, and a few produced locally. It also is working closely with Mesa State College to establish a video link to the Front Range for educational and teleconferencing purposes.

Now comes word that the Pueblo-based KTSC public television station is also planning to move into the Grand Junction market with a low-powered signal, similar to what it is already offering in Montrose. The Pueblo station is operated by the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo. The news that KTSC planned to move into the Grand Junction market concerned outgoing Mesa State College President Ray Kieft enough that he wrote a letter to the president of the University of Southern Colorado saying he was taken aback when he learned of KTSCs plans to intrude uninvited into Grand Junction and Mesa County. That intrusion has the potential to hinder the efforts of both stations at fund-raising and programming, Kieft said. Kiefts remarks were on target, as anyone familiar with the challenges of fund-raising in a market the size of Grand Junction will tell you.

USC officials responded that Kieft didnt have adequate information about their plans and that they had obtained their approval from the Federal Communications Commission in May 1995, before KRMJs license was approved. This is not to endorse the plans of one station over the other, although clearly KRMA officials have worked far more closely with the community, going so far as to develop a steering committee of community leaders to help win the requisite degree of financial support for its new station. More to the point are the questions these dueling stations raise about federal regulators authorizing licenses to two stations whose funding comes in part through federal tax money to compete in the same small market. Why should taxpayers around the country, many of whom have substantial questions about subsidizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, contribute funds to both sides in a battle that, as Kieft suggested, can only make it more difficult for both stations to raise private hinds? Workplace freedom Next week the U.S. Senate will vote on legislation that infuriates big labor unions and therefore is likely to draw a veto from President Clintori.

It is Senate Bill 1788, called the National Right to Work Act, and it would simply repeal sections of federal law that require workers to pay union dues in order to have jobs. Twenty-one states have right-to-work laws in place. Colorado is among those that dont. Such right-to-work laws make it clear that unions may organize at job sites and negotiate with employers but cannot force workers to join the unions or pay dues as a condition of accepting a job. Most people believe thats how it should be.

One poll by the National Right to Work Committee said 80 percent of Coloradans support right-to-work laws and 76 percent nationwide regardless of party support them. Colorado Sen. Hank Brown has long been a supporter of right-to-work legislation. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell has expressed support for right-to-work legislation but has not yet said how he will vote on SB 1788.

He should be urged to join in the support of the bill so that President Clinton and the labor unions know they will have a difficult time preserving the status quo on this issue. Write, fax or e-mail Write: Letters to the Editor, The Daily Sentinel, P.O, Box 668, Grand 81502. Fax number is 241-6860. E-mail address is' gjlettersaol.com. Letters must include name, address and telephone number.

i Baby Doe Tabor was consistent to the end a Vpj GENEAM0LE initials were H.A.W. He had struck it rich mining silver in Leadville. Tabor became a U.S. senator. He went broke in 1896 when the bottom fell out of the silver market.

As he died, his last words to her were, Hold onto the Matchless, his mine that he believed contained a mother lode of silver. 1 1 We must have spent an hour with Baby Doe. Grandpa did all the talking. She smiled and said she remembered him when he was a kid and brought her flowers. They talked about the days before 1900 when Denver was still a roughneck frontier town.

Then we left All the way back home. Grandpa didn't say much. He looked out the car window and seemed lost in his thoughts. That day surfaced from my memory when I read Marc Shulgolds story in Weekend Spotlight about the return to the Central City Opera House of Douglas Moores opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe. I had seen the opera a couple of times.

Theres some lovely music in it particularly the aria. Willow Song. Beverly Sills sang the role of Baby Doe in the New York premier of the opera. A few years after our visit to Leadville, Baby Doe was found dead in her little shack. The Reunited.

The old woman was dressed in rags. A floppy hat was pulled down almost over her eyes. She was sitting in a chair tilted back against the side of a weather-beaten shack on Fryer Hill. Cradled in her arms was a rifle. She told us not to come any closer.

We didnt. Grandpa wanted to see Baby Doe Tabor again, and so my father drove us to Leadville in his 1927 Dodge. As we lurched along Tenmile Creek Road, Grandpa talked about how he had taken flowers to her many years ago. She liked snowball flowers the best, he said. You can imagine how surprised I was when we finally got there and Grandpa said the raggedy old lady was Baby Doe.

I couldnt understand why a woman who looked like that would be called Baby. But then I was just a kid of 8 or 9 and didnt know the story of how wealthy Horace Tabor had divorced his straightlaced wife, Augusta, to marry Elizabeth McCourt She was a comely young woman from Central City, someone he would always call. Baby Doe. Everyone called Tabor Haw because his newspapers headlined her death with Page-1 stories, recounting her riches-to-rags romance with Horace Tabor. Photographs showed her, not as the wizened bag lady I remembered, but as the pretty young woman who stole Tabors heart and stood by him until he died.

Her body was discovered by two neighbors, Tom French and Sue Bonney. She was lying on the floor, frozen to death. It was bitter cold that March. Coroner James Corbett said she probably had been dead for two or three weeks. Baby Doe and Tabor were finally reunited alongside each other at Mount Olivet cemetery.

They had a daughter they named Silver Dollar. A film about the Tabor family was made after Baby Doe died. It starred Edward G. Robinson as Tabor. Baby Does vigil went unrewarded.

Therp was no silver in the Matchless. When she finally died alone, the love story ended. The spirit of the early West died with her. She never gave up, though. She was proud, refusing all offers of help.

It was left to News columnist Lee Casey to write the epitaph I shall always remember, Baby Doe remained constant It was the world outside that had changed." Rocky Mountain Newt A bad analogy is like a porcupine wearing a silk shirt in the rain mikeroyko black dots Springfield) Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who, means to access but gets Tflw.quidaaakkch(AT)ung by mistake. (K.K, Landover Hills) Her vocabulary as as bad as, like, whatever. (Unknown) He was as tall as a 6-foot, 3-inch tree. (J Chevy Chase) The hailstones leaped from the pavement just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. (G.F.

Hevel, Silver Spring) Her date as pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like Second Tail Man." (R-B, Springfield) Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field tow ard each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6.36 p.m. rnies. Anyway, for those of you who appreciate a really outstandingly bad analogy, here they are: She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again (R.M, Fairfax Station) The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't (R.B, Springfield) McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. (P.S., Silver Spring) From the attic came an unearthly how The hole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when youre on vacation In another city and Jeopardy" comet on at 7 pm instead of 730. OLA, Washington) Her hair glistened in the nun like nose hair after a sneeze (C.S, Woodbridge) p.m.

at a speed of 35 m.p.h. (J.H., Arlington) The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after Dr. on a Dr Pepper ran (W.G, Madison, Ala.) They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigani teeth. (P.K, Syracuse, N.Y.) John and Mary had never met They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met Springfield) The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken back-stage during the storm scene in a play. (BJ, Alexandria) His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

(C.S, Woodbridge) The red brick wall was the color of a brick red Crayola crayon. (Unknown) That I it If the compilers of this list ant public credit drop me a line. I owe you one. Heres a trade secret The hardest column to write is the first cme after a vacation. Thats because I let myself go brain dead while away from the job.

I avoid newspapers, news shows, anything that requires more thought than trying to outsmart a fish, cheat on a golf score, or roll out of a hammock with dignity. So I always find myself with a knowledge and information gap. Therefore, I must find a way to get over this hurdle before I tackle such major questions as hy the smarty-pants crew in the White House would give an important security job to a fat et bouncer Until then. I will take an admittedly cheap and easy way out of getting back into the groove. In looking over a backlog of e-mail, I found something called Worst Analogies Taken From High School Paper" It appears to be something some English teacher or teachers compiled in Maryland.

I don't even know if It is legit although 1 suspect it is. since It is harder to write awful analogies than good Her eyes were like two brown circles with big traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4 19.