Rolling Over in Their Graves

No one was prouder of being a native Oregonian than my mom. And when Dad headed West on a football scholarship in the 1950s and landed in Klamath Falls, Ore., he fell in love – with Mom and her high-desert home – and never looked back.

Today, they are both buried in Lakeview, Ore. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. A place they talked endlessly about getting back to over the years, but three kids, career moves – and then, health issues – always tripped up their relocation plans.

So, the last thing they would want is to have Oregon’s state boundaries rejiggered to make their beloved home turf…part of Idaho.

Yes. Lake County is among the multiple Oregon counties that have voted to bail on the Beaver State and become part of what would be known as “Greater Idaho.”

Believe me, there is nothing great about this.

At least Oregon has a hint of humanity and common sense in its public policy. Idaho legislators, time and again, play only to the ultra-conservative base. They waste hundreds of thousands of dollars passing laws that are unconstitutional, just to grandstand. The legislative session in Boise has become an annual embarrassment.

And seriously, do you think Ammon Bundy deserves to be an Oregonian – the man who, seven years ago this month, led the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore.? He ran for governor of Idaho last year and – I wish I was kidding – received more than 100,000 votes.

Eastern Oregon, if you join up with this madness, you will get what you deserve.

And I’ll have to find somewhere else to bury my parents.