I returned home to discover that my old pal George Atiyeh is missing from his home in the Santiam Canyon, located directly in the path of the monstrous Beachey Creek fire. George is the Hayduke of the Ancient Forests. If he went up with the forest he defended all his life, it’s the way he would have chosen to go, like Harry Truman at Mt. St. Helens. But I have the sense he’s out there somewhere, perhaps floating down the Santiam on a big fat Douglas-fir log, cursing the timber industry and the Forest Service, like one of the Stampers from Sometimes a Great Notion… More