America’s Treasure

There are homecomings. And then there are homecomings. I’ve watched my friend Neighbor Laura go through the gamut  of emotions when it comes her son Tim. When he graduated from college she was so proud. On the day he was commissioned an officer in the Army, she beamed. On the day he left for Germany, she waved him off and smiled. On the day he went to Afghanistan she cried.

But he’s home, if only for a little rest and relaxation. And we all were excited and and we all cried.

As we welcomed him home, one thing kept going through my mind.

This is truly America’s treasure. Truly.

These bright handsome young men can be said to fight for an administration, a policy or a even a country.

But they what they truly fight for is their fellow man.

Against the forces of evil.

It’s the bigness of it that got me.

And my heart hurt for him mama. Because I too have a son. And I would want him home and away from danger.

Welcome home Tim.

Shovel Ready

Warning….Warning….Warning….political post coming up. Remember, this is just my point of view and as I read on Cheerio Road, “the point is just you.” Karen Maezen Miller is quite the wordsmith. She’s a modern day Shakespearean housewife and author. Quite unlike myself, snort, snort. On that note, I write on.

A few days before I went home, Nanna told me there was work being done on the bridge down the street from their home and that we would have to take a detour. I was searching the far reaches of my mind…”what bridge? what bridge?”

I didn’t think much about it until we arrived in town and saw the detour sign. I said to the husband, “What bridge?”

It took a while but I realized that the bridge in question is the eight foot bridge that spanned a creek about a mere 15 yards from my parents’ home. It was more like a bump.

It was take apart and completely impassable. And the work would apparently take three months.

I will venture to guess that this project is part of the “Shovel Ready” projects that the last stimulus package was designed to fund projects like this in order to stimulate the economy. Well, it stimulated something alright.

The residents along the road were unprepared for the start of the work. So much so that they called a meeting with the state representative for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

State geek/official, “We informed your township supervisors.”

Well, two of them were there, Superintendent Ozzie and Chairman Fred. They apparently looked at each other incredulously and slowly shook their heads before one of them said, “No you didn’t.”

State geek/official, “umm…blah…blah…blah…blah…well, we informed Lanesboro township (the adjacent township within whose jurisdiction the project lays).”

A resident asked, “When did you do that?”

State geek/official, “Yesterday.”

No provisions were made for trash pick-up, mail delivery, or emergency procedures. It was an amazing set of circumstances. The detour was eleven miles out of the way. Poppop now counts an extra 45 minutes of commuting time every day. No more just running out for milk…

Poppop claims he saw the structure after it was torn apart and that it was perfectly stable, no sign of corrosion on the beams and the concrete was not eroded at all.

So I ask, “There’s nothing else in Susquehanna that needed fixing?”

How about the part of main street that was partly washed away from a big flood a couple of years ago and is now caving in?

No matter what side of the political debate you are on, you would agree, the circumstances are incomprehensible-ible, flaggerbastable, waste-our-money-and-make-use-mad-ical. So I’m not a wordsmith. But I can get my point across.

The Chairman

Warning—-this is a political post. Actually, I think the next couple of days of content will be political. I’m not sure since I haven’t written them yet.

I said on my “How I Roll” page that I don’t know anyone in office. Well, as it turns out, I do.

Meet Fred. He is the Chairman of the governing body for Harmony Township in somewhere Pennsylvania. He is responsible for 500 constituents and 23 miles of dirt roads. We need someone like Fred to stare down some officials from PennDOT or the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. More about that later.

Fred is married to Carol who is the sister to Gwen who is married to my Uncle Ed, who really isn’t my Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed and Gwen are good friends of my parents.

Okay, moving on.

Fred won his election by a very slim margin of votes, 14 – 11. The incumbent either forgot to vote for himself or didn’t realize that Fred was a force to be reckoned with so he just stayed home on election day. Not only did he forget to vote, but so did his wife and his mother. Which would have made it 14 – 14. There would have to at least be a run-off.

I do believe that he deserved to lose.

Here is Fred showing me the permit that he issued himself for the fireworks display scheduled for later on that night. Sorry Fred, no anonymity here, you’re on the world wide web now.

Of course we were not in his jurisdiction which renders the permit moot. Anyway, the cops may not know it if they did come.

Yippeee!!!!

By the way, in the next election, he can count my Uncle Walt and Aunt Annaliese for votes since they have now officially moved to Harmony Township from LonG Island. So even if the loser’s wife and mother both vote next time, Fred will still have him by two.

How many times in our democracy do we have to reiterate this? Every vote counts!