Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

My friends, in light of what faces our troubled neck of the clear-cut, I must suspend my usual lame attempts at tomfoolery. Times like these call for serious thought and sober deliberation, both by our elected leaders and columnists, in whose status the public, thankfully, played no role.

I speak not of the financial bailout for the monogrammed, silk-shirted pickpockets of Wall Street. Nobody sober could have thought up that plan.

What teeters on the razor's edge of total toppling right here in our own backyard?

Why, it's apparently our beloved Clallam County Public Utility District. The signs are everywhere. You can't miss them. Unfortunately. "Save Our PUD," proclaim the signs. Come on, you've seen them. Even if you've tried to avert your eyes. They're pretty hard to miss.

The signs sprouted up next to others promoting the candidacy of Hugh Haffner, the PUD commissioner, who is being challenged in the Nov. 4 general election by Bob Jensen. Haffner said at a recent PUD meeting that although the signs were erected by a group that supports him, he doesn't agree with them and believes our PUD is in fine shape.

I guess that's a relief, coming from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Besides, I've always thought highly of Haffner because his name is so similar to Hugh

Heffner, the founder of Playboy magazine. But when I saw Haffner's photo, I realized he looks more like Steve Forbes, another publishing magnate.

When Forbes ran for president as a Republican, his big thing was supporting a flat tax, which frankly scared me. Flat tax sounds too much like flat line and that doesn't set too well with someone like me who's had more heart attacks than you can count on one hand.

Now I must assume the signs refer to some other PUD, or just plain Pud, that needs to be saved. I've been doing some serious and sober research on the subject. Well, serious anyway.

My investigation reminded me of the long hours - OK, the intermittent hours - I spent studying in the University of California at Santa Barbara's library, whenever it wasn't being evacuated because of one of the frequent bomb scares perpetrated by campus activist groups.

No PUDs or puds to worry about in those days. Times have changed, however. In other parts of the country, PUD stands for planned unit development, and in Petaluma, Calif., the Fry family doesn't exactly want to save their PUD's bacon.

The Frys are accepting signatures on an Internet petition from anybody, anywhere, hoping to convince their city council to get rid of the fine print in an ordinance covering their development. The law bans animals over 100 pounds in the Fry's PUD, as a neighbor pointed out - after the family's pet potbellied pigs had strayed onto his property one too many times, from his point of view.

In the Frys' case, their crusade is "Save Our Pigs," with the SOP acronym proving even more unpleasant to the ear than PUD. But it does seem piggy-appropriate.

I have increased my knowledge of all things pud, in some ways too delicate to discuss. For example, I doubt that anyone wants to save the PUD that stands for Peptic Ulcer Disease.

The English use pud to abbreviate pudding, which in a roundabout way is how James Frances Galvin got his nickname. Pud Galvin, who played in the 1890s, was the first major-leaguer pitcher to record 300 wins, notching 364 victories in all. His teammates tagged him with his nickname because he made rival batters "look like pudding," as foes stood at plate, their legs shaky as jello, dreading the stocky right-hander's humbling heat.

So here's to Pud Galvin, along with Russian digital artist Afanassy Pud, whose amazing computer creations can be viewed at his Web site, www.apud.spb.ru. He's a cross between Hieronymus Bosch, Pablo Picasso and what Miles Davis' music would look like if you could see it.

They are two Puds definitely worth saving.



Jim Guthrie's journalism career has spanned 41 years with newspapers in California and Washington. He is interested in playwriting and poetry and lives in Port Angeles.