Rotary President, Bob Main presents a check for $200 to “Shop with the Heroes.” The Coquille Rotary Club also gave $200 to the Downtown Studio to send children to this year’s Nutcracker performance. The Rotary has also recently provided the Bicycle Safety program with funds. If a child is riding a bike without a helmet, Coquille police officers stop the child and supply them with a safety helmet.

 What would it take to change the world? Rotary International is the world's first service club organization, with more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. Rotary club members are volunteers who work locally, regionally, and internationally to combat hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training, promote peace, and eradicate polio under the motto...

Thanksgiving is over, and the big one is coming up, Christmas. I’ll try not to get into any past Christmas holiday memories. Some are a little too poignant. Occasionally fate takes a hand, and there I am, back in a memory. Recently I was rummaging through the back of a dusty upstairs closet, when buried under some things that years ago I thought I could never do without, I found a cigar box. The label, old and worn, touted, "White Owl Cigars."

Across the lid, in a child’s hand, was the penciled name, "Charlie Don, personal" (the name I was called when I was very young). Among the small childhood treasures was a blue slide whistle. On the side was printed, "Fat Bob’s Discount Fumiture," which was a reluctant Christmas gift from a fat man many Christmases ago. I must have been nine or ten years old, in 1950 something. It came to be that Fat Bob, either in the Christmas spirit or trying to increase sales, planned a program in the park to have children meet Santa and maybe get a small gift. On the evening of the anticipated occasion, the children began to gather early.

Little tykes were with mothers or older siblings to help control the mounting enthusiasm. The crowd gathered in front of a paper balustrade held up by cardboard poles. Santa's chair sat under a cardboard pavilion just as flimsy as the rest of the set. Oh, yeah, Fat Bob was cheap ... He would regret it. The children began discordant chanting, "Where is Santa? We want Santa." The tide had begun to swell, and nothing was going to hold it back. Santa trudged in from the rear of the set. He was dressed in red and white with a white beard. He carried a large bag over one shoulder and looked suspiciously like Fat Bob. Perhaps he was a relative.

 The crowd began to pulse forward and broke away from controlling hands. The paper poles and the rope collapsed as every child vied to be first to sit on Santa’s lap. Santa’s eyes grew wide, and his "Ho, Ho, Ho” turned into "No, No, No" as the swell descended on him like seagulls at a landfill. He started to sit on his folding chair, but becoming aware of the impending calamity, decided discretion was the better part of Christmas spirit. The chair tipped over, and his bag fell to the ground spilling its contents. Santa tumbled to his knees as the tots reached him. One black plastic boot spun across the ground, abandoned in a panicked retreat.

He was on his hands and knees scrambling to escape from whence he came, maybe back to the North Pole. Who could guess? Mothers were shouting, kids were screaming, "Come back Santa." Oh, mercy. It was murder. Then, all attention turned to the spilled bag of goodies on the floor. I got my hands in the pile, grabbing two Baby Ruth candy bars and a plastic whistle. The next thing I knew I was being lifted to my feet by my shirt collar, and my sister was dragging me from the fray. The walk home was long and silent. I knew I was in for it when my sister told mom what happened. Mom greeted us at the door, and her first questions were, "Did he have a good time, and did he behave?" "Sure, mom, he just got a little excited." I felt a weight lift from me.

 Later I went to my sister’s bedroom and asked why she had saved me. In the low light she said, "You’re my brother, and it's the Christrras Season.” I drew the two prized candy bars from behind my back. "These are for you, for pretty much the same reason, I guess.” I spent some time getting to sleep that night, thinking about what had happened. I didn't understand it all. How were the feelings of love and forgiveness and Christmas all mixed together? I had heard the words in church, but they didn't mean much. My sister’s Christmas lesson was the most valuable one that I received that year.

Twice a month, on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Cedar Point Road in Coquille opens their doors to assist those in need. According to Al Bigham, who has been in charge of the food bank for a number of years, they distribute about a ton of food each week. He said he has noticed about a 10-15% increase in clients this year.

 The Adventist church mostly supports its own food bank with contributions from the USDA and other sources, such as local grocery stores and food drives. The church has an impressive clothing room set up with a washer & dryer, where donated clothes are sorted, cleaned and hung neatly. Clients are free to browse the many racks to find suitable articles of clothing for themselves. The church also has a nice big sewing room, where volunteers sew stacks of quilts to be distributed to those in need.

Pastor Jose Agosto pictured above in the food room, had nothing but praise for the all of the volunteers who cheerfully and unselfishly donate their time and efforts to help those in need. Considering that charity dollars and volunteer time are an investment for a community, Coquille is truly enriched, thanks to the amount of support the local community gives to its own charitable organizations. Citizens of Coquille can donate to any of the local charities, confident in the knowledge that they are helping a person or family overcome a financial crisis.

 The Coquille Valley Ministerial Association helps coordinate charitable services that help people who have immediate short term needs not met by social services such as our welfare system. Every organization is in need of volunteers. Please contact the one of your choice and offer your help.

Gerald Marca of Marca Electric hangs one of the wood decorations, made by high school students, on the light pole at the corner of Adams and 2nd Street. The Coquille Rotary along with the cooperation of Marca Electric, Ken Heisten of Pacific Power and Light and Mayor Steve Britton of Capco, powder coated metal parts, and the Rotary club put new LED lights on the City’s Christmas decorations.

 Carl Wilson estimated they hung about 30 of the lighted metal decorations around town. Coquille is gearing up for the December 11th Lighted Christmas Parade, begenning at 6:30 pm. The parade will run down First Street, and merchants will be open late. Santa will be in the parade and at the Community Center where there will be refreshments beginning at 7:00 pm. The Christmas tree lighting at 7:15 pm. On December 12th, children will gather at the Fire Hall for SHOP WITH THE HEROES. If you would like to donate to this program, please call 396-2114.

I was delighted this week to get to see a flower I’ve never seen before. This was a Yacon flower. Yacon is a perennial root vegetable from the high altitudes of the Andes, down in South America. It is in the sunflower family, and a cousin to the better known Jerusalem artichoke or sunchoke, also a perennial root vegetable. I have been growing yacon for 4 years now, and this is the first time I’ve gotten to see it flower. Just last night we had our first real frost here, and the yacon plants appeared to suffer the most from it, having their tops shrivel brown and die as soon as they thawed out. Every year until now, we’ve gotten frost which froze the yacon before it had a chance to flower. That’s okay though, as it grows back from tubers.

In fact, it grows 2 separate sets of tubers. One set is smaller and rounder, all clumped together shallowly at the base of the plant. These tubers have “eyes” on them, like potatoes do, and those will grow into new plants come spring. I usually dig these up and divide them every year as I can never get enough delicious yacon. Fortunately, the other set of tubers are the ones that are eaten, so there is never that difficult decision to make – to eat it or plant it? These grow deeper, and are much larger and shaped like cylinders. Our climate here on the Pacific coast is quite unique. Especially here in Coquille, we get the moderating effects of the ocean, while being far enough away from it to not be all that windy, foggy or cold.

 Thus we have the opportunity to grow unique kinds of crops that can’t grow almost anywhere else in the country. Besides yacon, also from the Andes are Mashua and Oca, both also perennial root crops. Having evolved in a highland tropical climate, these plants rely on length of day rather than temperature to determine their life cycles.

Not until autumn, when the days get shorter, do these plants get triggered to put energy into their tubers. In most of the northern part of the country, day length shortening coincides with the onset of freezing temperatures, which these plants cannot tolerate. With our moderate climate however, we get to still have a pretty long frost-free period for quite some time after the fall equinox, when the days begin being shorter than the nights. This is when root crops such as Oca, Yacon and Mashua begin focusing their energy into their storage tubers, to get ready for winter, when their tops all die back. These three happen to be some of my favorite vegetables, and I find myself eager for winter, when the tops of these plants shrivel up, and the tubers are ready to harvest. The yacon tubers are amazingly delicious eaten fresh out of the ground (after cleaning them, that is). They are crispy and mildly sweet, reminiscent more of a fruit than a vegetable, an excellent snack it is (especially with peanut butter).

 It is also excellent cooked, and can even be boiled down to make a sweet syrup. Oca is also delicious fresh from the ground, it is also crispy and mildly sweet, with a bit of a tartness, somewhat like an apple. Rootfruit, I like to call these two. Mashua, on the other hand, is only eaten cooked. It has a unique flavor, somewhat like potatoes mixed with almonds, delicious! It makes potatoes seem dull and tasteless. All 3 of these can be dug up for eating anytime between now and spring, when they start sprouting. Any tubers left in the ground will just grow new plants for next year.