We left a good job with a large advertising agency to move to Sweet Home in 1985, so we have some knowledge of how company logos and jingles spin to life.
It’s not always a pretty sight.
Groups of “creative” folks get together in endless meetings and toss out ideas. 20 years ago we charged $150 per hour–per person–to facilitate those get togethers for companies such as DeKalb Pfizer Genetics, International Harvester and Union Carbide, among many others.
So, it probably shouldn’t surprise us that the state’s new slogan is “We love dreamers.”
Yeah, and we love the tooth fairy, too.
We shouldn’t be so skeptical but wouldn’t the state that has led the nation in unemployment come up with something a little stronger than “we love dreamers” as a boost to its economic plan.
How about, “Welcome to Rural Oregon, Don’t Move Here Unless You Bring a Job With You.”
In our mind, there’s a huge difference between someone with “vision” and someone who’s a “dreamer”. Those with vision push forward toward a goal at all costs but when we think of dreamers, we see free spirits that spend more time contemplating the meaning of life than working to reach their goal.
Oregon is a beautiful state. It’s been a wonderful place to live, work and rear our family for almost 20 years. Certainly with it’s own challenges.
But, our state’s economy has plummeted due to a lack of leadership at the top level, those who have replaced hard work with “dreaming” about a better future.
Now, after two decades of dismantling the state’s economic engine with “dreams” of a green utopia, we cry that the pot is empty and there aren’t funds to fix our roads, educate our children, or care for our elderly.
We’ve listened to all of the rhetoric from one administration to the next and not one has created family wage jobs in rural areas of this state. Instead, we shifted from a one industry state that benefited rural Oregon–timber–to another one industry state that benefited the metro areas–high tech–and have suffered since.
Our family is a perfect example. Three college-educated children, now young adults, all of whom will soon be working in other states. Oregon’s loss. Our family’s loss. Our community’s loss.
Are they dreamers. Yes, a little. But what they really are is workers who have the vision to see a project from beginning to end, develop a plan to attack it and then have the tenacity and drive to see it through.
Our family is not unique in this matter.
And that’s what’s sad about our lovely state and its leaders who are “dreamers” and not “doers”.
—
Homosexual marriage…Our fearless reporter, Sean C. Morgan voices an interesting view this week about getting government out of marriage.
We have spent much time pondering this issue…our individual beliefs versus the rights of others.
What it comes down to, for at least this writer, is something my bride said recently during one of our family’s “let it all hang out” discussions over the supper table.
Marriage, she reminded all of us, is a sacrament, a blessing from God. A gift of grace.
It’s a concept our nation has turned its back on for the last 50 years with disastrous results. Half of our marriages end in divorce and our children, families and nation as a whole suffer the consequences.
Marriage should be between a man and a woman.
We believe that some homosexuals want marriage as a sign of their commitment the same as heterosexuals, but many want acceptance from society merely for economic reasons such as insurance and medical benefits.
If that’s the case, those issues can be taken care of via attorneys and without a public acceptance of an alternative view of marriage.