My January column had a goof up as you may have noticed. The subject was on headline goofs and the longest word in the dictionary in 1943. I spelled Antidisestablishmentarianism correctly in the turned in copy, but somehow in print the ‘A’ disappeared. Talk about a goof! I hope it has returned in this later spelling.
On that note I want to let my wonderful editor of KCN, Rebecca Pirtle, know how much I am going to miss her as she is leaving for a new job. We have become good friends through sharing e-mails, personal thoughts and news of our families in these last years. I have often told her stories about people and events that have occurred in my 50 years of living here. Wow, some I wouldn’t dare put into print. Most of these folks have gone to the here after, or some to the where ever, but the few us that are left still laugh and do the “remember when” bit.
This column is submitted in mid-January, and happily the snow has disappeared; only now we have the problem of flooding from rain and warmer temperatures. Watching beginning lacy snowflakes floating down to carpet the ground was a wonderful and awesome sight the first day; especially during the Christmas season, but oh how quickly most of us lost the feeling of enchantment as the power started to flicker.
The anxiety set in as the news told of more white stuff to come, and freezing temperatures. Then the questions started. Do we have enough propane for a possible long haul? Or enough gas to run the generator for a few days? I wail, “I haven’t finished my gift shopping yet, we’re not ready for Christmas, and what if the power goes off and I have four families coming for dinner Christmas Eve after candlelight service? Sounds a little familiar, huh?
This area made it through the snow, ice and holidays better than we expected, even though the weather curtailed some of our planned activities. The less fortunate families are still facing problems of losing jobs, maybe their homes, or people who are homeless altogether, due to circumstances. Can you imagine families living in broken-down cars in this last month of weather? We hear that programs to help these folks will be cut back, or out, because the economy with budget shortfalls, doesn’t have the funds to take care of much-needed services.
How can it be, that in a country as rich and wasteful as ours, the government can use taxpayer money to support wars by taking away from the needs of our own countrymen? Or, how we can bail out banks and companies with CEOs still raking it in while the little guy is lucky to make minimum wage, that’s if he still has a job. When do we start taking better care of our own people? Oh, sure, blame it on the unions who fight for a living wage, decent housing and health benefits. Unions don’t send businesses to other countries for cheap labor where the commodities are constantly being recalled because of flawed or unsafe products, even poisoned sometimes.
Riches have always been built on the backs of labor. You can have all the brains in the world for business, but you need one kind of labor or another to do the hands on work. No, I’m not a socialist, nor communist, or any other winger, just an ordinary citizen who has been through hard times in the past who wants to see her neighbors get a fair shake. People need jobs, a roof over one’s head, food on the table, a decent education, and health care to make a healthy nation. I guess some would say that makes me a bleeding liberal.
With the economy so disrupted right now and a new administration coming in, I pray we give it time to work out some of these problems. One shouldn’t expect miracles in the beginning, yet small miracles will come along if we again become a nation of caring about the other guy once more, and not just the me. How complacent we become until the me becomes touched by circumstance. Only when walking in someone else’s shoes do we seem get it. Possibly the ‘Man Upstairs’ is allowing this shake up to get man back to the basics. He’s pretty clever at his job, you know!
