Sue’s

The community is reeling, our hearts aching, since the disturbing and tragic death of everyone’s friend and favorite bartender and host Grant Hadler.

In just four years, including the prolonged pandemic shutdown period, Grant revitalized the defunct former restaurant into a bustling, casual-yet-upscale dining and gathering spot in the center of town: Grant’s at the Monticello Hotel. His wife Sherry said Grant dreamed of being a restaurateur all his life. Congratulations, Grant! And the community had fun supporting, and witnessing, and honoring the fufillment of this dream.

On behalf of CRR and its staff, advertisers, and readers, I offer our collective and heartfelt condolences to Sherry and the family.

Many are wondering if they will continue operating the restaurant. They can certainly count on the wholehearted support of the community who knew, admired, and loved Grant. We will all miss and remember this dear man.

Vidal Villagram

Publisher/Editor: Susan P. Piper

Columnists and contributors:

Tracy Beard

Hal Calbom

Alice Dietz

Joseph Govednik

Gary Meyers

Michael Perry

David Pettit

Ned Piper

Perry Piper

Robert Michael Pyle

Marc Roland

Alan Rose

Alice Slusher

Greg Smith

Andre Stepankowsky

Debra Stewart

Debra Tweedy

Judy VanderMaten

Editorial/Proofreading Assistants:

Merrilee Bauman, Michael Perry, Marilyn Perry, Tiffany Dickinson, Debra Tweedy

Advertising Manager: Ned Piper, 360-749-2632

Columbia River Reader, llc 1333 14th Ave, Longview, WA 98632

P.O. Box 1643 • Rainier, OR 97048

Office Hours: M-W-F • 11–3*

*Other times by chance or appointment

E-mail: publisher@crreader.com

Phone: 360-749-1021

by Hal Calbom

CRR featured Grant Hadler in our “People+Place” series, April 2020.

See photo tribute,this issue (Mar 2023), pg 10 The story gives a warm account of Grant’s background, personality and philosophy.

If you would like to re-read (or read for the first time) this story, visit crreader. com, click “Past Issues,” and then select specific issue from the 2020 Stack

I fear I’m a bit of an after-thought this time. At least it’s haiku.

Side photo,

Columbia River Reader is published monthly, with 14,000 copies distributed in the Lower Columbia region. Entire contents copyrighted; No reproduction of any kind allowed without express written permission of Columbia River Reader, LLC. Opinions expressed herein, whether in editorial content or paid ad space, belong to the writers and advertisers and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Reader.

Submission guidelines: page 36.

General Ad info: page 4. Ad Manager: Ned Piper 360-749-2632. CRREADER.COM

Visit our website for the current issue and archive of past issues from 2013.

Appreciates Hal Calbom’s Synthesizing Skills

A note to express my regard for Hal Calbom’s work. He is an important addition to CRR’s monthly efforts, which were already very good — and appreciated.

But in the February installment, Hal has outdone himself! Beyond fine writing, he’s captured disparate pieces of global, national and local history that have helped give me a fuller sense of how what is came to be. So, thank you.

Brian Davern Kelso, Wash.

By Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I fell on the ice, broke my shoulder and am mostly bedridden. My good friends have really stepped up, bringing me food, flowers and trashy magazines to enjoy. Each of them has said, “Now, don’t send me a thank-you note.” Do I honor their request, even if it feels ill-mannered?

GENTLE READER: No. You send thanks because you feel gratitude, which is not a chore from which your friends can relieve you.

Generosity and gratitude are indissolubly linked. The former will not continue indefinitely without the latter, as Miss Manners keeps hearing from fed-up grandparents whose checks go unacknowledged.

All your friends have done, with their good intentions, is to make your task harder. Now you have to write that you are so gratified by their kindness that you can’t help defying them and telling them.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I had a “friend”/coworker stab me in the back and betray my trust. She has no clue that I know, and she keeps asking/pushing me to go to lunch with her.

How do I politely decline so as not to cause friction? I don’t trust her and prefer not to associate with her, but unfortunately I see her regularly.

GENTLE READER: Probably any other adviser would tell you to have it out with this person, explaining that you were hurt by her betrayal. Not Miss Manners.

At best you would get an apology, which would not necessarily ensure its not happening again. But you might instead get a denial, a justification or a counter-accusation. If she really regretted what she did, she would have found a way to make that clear.

You have to work with this person. You have discovered that she is not a friend. So treat her only as a co-worker. That means that politeness is cont page 9