Marmot update

Peaceful Valley resident and former state legislator George Orr strolled over to The Inlander office recently with a story that involved our two favorite urban wild beasts: marmots and red-tail hawks. As Orr tells it, one of the family of red-tails that has been haunting downtown these last couple years came flapping right down Main Avenue with a marmot in its talons "big as a house cat." Straining, straining, at the last minute the raptor gained enough altittude to clear the first houses at the bottom of the hill, veered downriver and let out a piercing cry as if to exult, "Look at me! I'm top o' the food chain!" Orr reports.