A Christmas crowd gathered at Judy’s Gym and Grill on Saturday, Dec. 19. It was a great time to discuss matters such as firewood, frozen pipes and fishing.

Local musicians Buz Cates, Dave Staigle, Will Wehinger, Alazar Holladay, Bud Rayburn, Roy McKinney and Diane Daggett put on a fun and entertaining show.

A special thanks to Judy Cates, who joined the band for a few songs and Kendra Staigle who runs the electronics that keep the sounds of the band sounding good. A long table of good-looking and tasty holiday goodies was provided for the hungry.

The daughter of Dave Hagen and Melica McIntire, Fille, won the winter dancing crown for most dances while on the gentleman side, Fred Warnock retained the crown he won last year.

In the “it pays to know your neighbors” department, Dave Turner, Mern Moore, Shari Warnock, Vicki Marks, Melica McIntire and Kathy Fanning volunteered for an eight-hour class in first aid/CPR/AED.

The class was presented by Dick Burch of Wallowa County Project Heartbeat. Lead organizations for the project are the Oregon Trail Chapter of the American Red Cross and the Rotary Club of Wallowa County.

It is the goal of the project to place as many automated external defibrillators (AED) in Wallowa County as possible and to provide training in their use.

Donations for training and placement of additional defibrillator devices may be sent to Project Heartbeat, P.O. Box 51, Joseph, OR 97848.

Fishing on the Imnaha River has picked up since the recent cool weather. It is so good, in fact, that some fish, when confronted with a skilled local fisherman, seem to throw themselves on the bank.

Sure, there are those that will point out that the steelhead on the bank are winter kill due to the ice that covered the river from bank to bank. These are usually womenfolk, climate scientists and fishermen from town.

Some of these people will further state that if it was not the freeze itself that decimated the fish, then surely it was caused by the ice dam that broke on Little Sheep Creek and sent a four-foot wall of water and debris down from the bridge at Imnaha to the Snake River.

Local fisherpersons know that it is the legend of fish stories spun year after year that caused these tasty fish to give up their free-swimming ways and line the bank in frozen form ready for the freezer.

There has long been debate whether the fishing is improved when the river is rising or when it is falling. No matter which seems best, for current conditions on the Imnaha and to see your tax dollars used in a helpful manner, load the following into the web browser on your computer: http://waterdata .usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_ no=13292000.

Robin Townsend is the Chieftain’s Imnaha correspondent. Contact him at robrites@gmail.com