Compiled by Don Hoiness from archived copies of The Bulletin at Deschutes County Historical Society.

100 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

Aug. 11, 1918

Airmen’s slang has wide range

“We’d better translate some of this gimper talk into honest to gosh American, or the United Press readers won’t be able to step it,” observed Lieutenant Eddie Rickenbacker, American ace and former automobile racer, as he began some “gimper talk,” which is the aviation word for aero slang.

“We’ll start out with the rudiments of the aviators’ language,” said Rickenbacker. “It completely ignores the study of grammatical formations. The only formations we know are aero formations, which is group flying.

“First of all, there’s an airplane. With us it is never an airplane — it’s always known as a ‘can.’ Probably we call it that because it carries such big gasoline tanks and when you stop to think of how easily the Germans could set the can afire if we didn’t let them have it first, you understand why an airplane is a ‘can.’

“‘Letting them have it’ is just the aviation way of saying you’re firing the machine gun as fast as it will go. You almost always have a chance when you go to a pink tea.

“‘Going to a pink tea’ is going up in the air after a German. Cuckoo birds are always talking about pink teas, though they never have them. A Cuckoo bird is an aviator who does all his fighting while none of the others help.”

Rickenbacker declares that No. 16 German airman is to be termed real sport

“There’s a certain German airman I’d like to meet after the war, if he lives and I do,” said Eddie Rickenbacker.

“If we meet in the States, I’ll buy him an ice cream soda, and if it’s in Germany, I’ll expect him to buy us both a beer. He flies No. 16 in a certain German squadron. His machine is an observing and fighting type combined. For a German, he is an exceptional sport.

“We had four days’ successive rendezvous together without result and it was real fighting all the time.

“The first morning I hopped into the can and went up to a pink tea, looking for anything in general and nothing in particular. I soon spotted No. 16 and he spotted me. We jockeyed for position, both of us trying to get the blind spot in front of the sun.

“Finally I got under his tail, after half an hour of maneuvering this way and that, I let him have it. The gun fired two shots and jammed. There was nothing to do but zoom off for home, which I did.

“Next morning I went up at the same hour over the same spot.

“There was he in No. 16, escorted by two German fighting planes. He was higher than they, but I was higher than they, so I jockeyed for position. Again the gun jammed and I fell into a roll to get out of his range.

“When I zoomed away I got the gun working again and again jockeyed for position with the enemy, whose two fighters had been driven off by other Americans by now. He began shooting out of his belly at me and I zig-zagged to dodge his bullets, which were whizzing by me.

“Then we began sailing around and kept it up for three-quarters of an hour, each trying to get a bead on the other. Finally I got in the blind spot and started down on him. Again my gun jammed and of course he had the edge on me.

“Instead of running, which would have been more dangerous, since he had the altitude after I dived past him, I again jockeyed for position, though I knew my gun wouldn’t shoot. I wanted to fox him and make him think I was still in the fight.

“Finally we both had to zoom back because we were low on fuel.”

75 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

Aug. 11, 1943

Foreign news ban ordered by Badoglio

Premier Marshal Pietro Badoglio has issued a decree forbidding Italians to listen to allied radio broadcasts and providing stiff prison sentences for violators, reports from Italy’s frontier said today.

Listening to allied broadcasts was banned by the old fascist regime of Italy, but it was understood that the Italians started getting foreign broadcasts as soon as Benito Mussolini was deposed.

Recent broadcasts over allied radios, such as that at Algiers, have urged the Italian people to withdraw from the war and renounce their axis partnership with Germany. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, allied commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean theater, had warned Italy of the consequences of remaining in the war.

Night closing of beaches ordered

A proclamation by Gov. Earl Snell today closed Oregon beaches to the public during the hours of darkness.

The regulation was in conformance with a request by the western defense command. The army and coast guard maintain constant patrol of the coast, and the unrestricted use of beaches has made their work difficult, it was explained.

Gov. Snell’s declaration declared that, “In an area within the state of Oregon on the Pacific Coast, between the mouth of the Columbia River and the Oregon-California border and extending 10 miles inland during the hours between sunset and sunrise the building of outdoor fires, the use or manipulation of flashlights, flares or other devices in a way that might assist or guide enemy forces, loitering or moving about on the beaches shall be a misdemeanor and punishable for same as provided by statute.”

Washington beaches have been closed to the public since March 7, 1942.

Noted cast will appear in show, ‘This Is the Army’

Irving Berlin’s “This Is the Army,” which netted $2,000,000 for the army emergency relief fund for service men’s families when it ran for weeks on Broadway last year, and which it is hoped will send many hundreds of dollars into the same worthy tills when it is premiered here at the Capitol Theater Aug. 18, features the original all-army stage cast, plus a bevy of Hollywood’s best.

Among the stars to give their time and talents toward the Warner brothers technicolor production are Kate Smith, George Murphy, George Tobias, Joan Leslie, (Lt.) Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Charles Butterworth, and the famous composer-author, Berlin.

50 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

Aug. 11, 1968

Frontier garb hides Sen. Morse making movie debut in Western film

The rider in the dusty broadcloth coat and black beaver hat stood in the stirrups peering down the road. “There’s a coach com’in,” he called.

“Cut,” yelled Director Josh Logan. “That’s fine senator, very good.” Senator? Senator Wayne Morse?

Yup.

Oregon’s senior member of congress was here this week acting in the movie version of the 1951 Broadway musical “Paint Your Wagon.” The film set in the California gold rush era, is being shot on location in Oregon’s spectacular Wallowa mountains near Baker.

Morse’s single line was to announce the arrival of a coach carrying six French ladies of “Joie De Vivre” en route to a Sonora brothel. It sets the stage for the hijacking of the women by Lee Marvin, the star of the multi-million dollar production.

Morse’s one take was followed by applause from the cast members, production workers and newsmen who accompanied Morse to the shooting location at Anthony Lake. An entire “town” has been built at another site on East Eagle Creek where most of the film rakes place.

Morse and Marvin talked before the scene and the actor praised the Oregon scenery and local citizenry hired as extras — some with speaking parts.

Marvin said they are enthusiastic and do whatever is required of them. “If they are told to get down in the mud, they get down in the mud.”

About 500 area residents were hired as extras.

The film is a musical and Marvin “sings.”

“Actually I don’t sing — I shout,” he says.

Morse’s roll lasts barely 30 seconds, but it took the better part of the morning to get the senator into costume and made up.

In addition to his frontier garb as a mounted courier, he was fitted with a flowing white wig and mustache over the one he sports naturally.

Morse’s presence on the set awed many members of the company, but the film world’s famous informality slipped through when Hollywood makeup artist Clara Holgate referred to him as “honey.”

After the scene was shot (and a second insurance shot), Morse stayed for several hours on the set watching the company work. As it turned out the light failed and the Morse scene was the only one completed that afternoon.

Morse discussed Oregon history and politics with Logan and actor Ray Walston, joked with aides and newsmen and generally enjoyed himself before leaving for Pendleton.

Gov. Tom McCall has also been signed up for a role in the film which is about one-third completed. He will “report” to the set Aug. 22.

25 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

Aug. 11, 1993

History has a moving experience

Moving houses is all in a day’s work for Carl Spencer. Moving a highly visible piece of history is something else. Spencer House Moving Inc. today finished a two-day 60-foot move of the Allen-Rademacher house to a new site beside a public plaza being built along Mirror Pond. It’s all a part of Bend’s Riverfront Connection project.

It’s a special job for Spencer, who was born and reared in Bend, but It’s not the biggest or heaviest house his firm has moved.

“It’s a little heavier” than most, Spencer said, carrying two of the wooden posts being laid as “tracks” for the move. “It’s got two fireplaces in it.”

The 85-year-old house remains in good structural shape, he said, but eleven pieces of steel were used to support it during the slow journey, made eight feet at a time.

The house escaped demolition last year, when city commissioners agreed to keep it in plans for the plaza, renovated parking lots and Brooks Street pedestrian thoroughfare. They agreed to a $1-a-year lease of the home to Central Oregon Arts Association, which is raising $150,000 to turn it into a regional arts center.

But that process and other late wrangling over project plans pushed back construction to late summer, which has contractor Hap Taylor moving fast. The house was moved 10 days ahead of schedule.

“We’re scrambling to keep up with Hap,” said Kris Rees, leader of the preservation effort.

The house will remain up in the air for about a week while a new foundation is poured. Donations continue to play a key role in the project, Rees said.

Much renovation and remodeling lies ahead for the house, with completion estimated for December or January.

“We’re going to celebrate when it’s done and not until,” Rees said.

Silver Lake unveils upgrades

Antler Trailhead isn’t exactly teeming with hikers and horses, but that suits Dan Applebaker just fine.

“This country doesn’t get a whole lot of use,” he says. Usually I only see one vehicle. If I saw three vehicles here, I’d be really surprised.

The Klamath Falls man is sitting in the shade on Saturday afternoon waiting for clients of his wilderness horse and mule packing school to arrive. When they do he’s going to lead them up the sometimes steep and dusty Silver Lake Trail and across a roadless area that encompasses part of the Fremont and Winema national forests.

Its relative seclusion is one feature that draws him back to Antler Trailhead. More important to Applebaker, however, are the amenities for horse users that make him and his stock more comfortable before and after a trip.

For the animals it has a four-section pole corral, hitching posts and water troughs.