Looking at some old pictures today and I started thinking about our town, the old families, the trees along Main Street, and sitting on our old front porch counting the cars on a Sunday afternoon. The summer evenings closed down watching the neighborhood boys play basketball at Beck’s barn til they turned the night light off so the June bugs could go to bed.
Life was much simpler then. Our water bills ran around $7 a month and if you had a telephone, it was shared with the neighbors on a party line. Back then, it was a given that English is our language and we better, by golly, learn to speak it properly. The other night, we were picking up some groceries, etc. and I found it very disconcerting that many of the canned goods at the Plainfield Walmart have labels with two languages on them and I am not just talking about the garbanzo/chickpea aisle. Now the welcoming signs at Lowe’s in Avon have been like this for a while, but Plainfield seems so much closer. I mean, Cloverdale is the next big exit destined to develop past Monrovia, which is also developing at a pretty good clip.
Our country is changing all around us and it seems like we have little control. Looking backwards, usually the invading armies brought their language into a country, by force. Spanish is infiltrating in a very different means. It isn’t a southwest cultural thing anymore. I read in the Star that My Man Mitch is planning to run again and one of his goals is to make English the State’s language. Who would have thought that would have ever been necessary?
Reading a recent Banner blog, I was reminded how very close we are to a major drug trafficking artery. Much of this garbage comes up through Mexico and whizzes across I-70, our side yard. The border patrol along the Rio seems more relative this morning. I can almost imagine how the border states’ old time families feel since they, too, can remember how quiet their summer nights used to be as they sat on their porches. Is it any wonder there is so much unrest over this?
In a factory near here, there is a man who came up from Mexico to work a couple of summers ago. He had his papers and worked until winter. He went back home to his family in Mexico and spent Christmas and the winter season there. The following spring, he showed up back at the factory to start working again. He had his papers, but they had a different name on them. Because he was a good worker, the factory turned a blind eye. HELLO, WAKE UP CALL. This is one of those examples where big corporations are part of the problem.
Anyway, back to my title. There are just a few days left of the 2004-2007 Davis/Whitaker regime. By regime, I am including their minions, some of whom, I have come down on pretty hard. Unless, they do something completely ridiculous, I am through discussing the pros and cons of their actions for the year. So a Christmas amnesty is in order. The raison d’etre (see Norman Invasion and its influence on the British culture and English language-now that was an invasion!) of this blog was to inform voters of the behind the scenes, underreported actions of the town’s power players in order for the citizens to be informed by other than propaganda reports printed in the Hoosier Topics. I think I did that.
In a larger sense, amnesty is needed in order for the town to get over the bickering and infighting and look beyond our insular borders. The new board has much work to be done and some of it will be controversial, some of it will seem harsh. They will make mistakes. The difference is, there won’t be the meanness for meanness’ sake. With a group of five who have a general cohesiveness in regards to the main subjects, I believe they will be able to govern in a much more pro-active rather than reactive manner, except for the invariable lawsuits.
We have a great town with some great people living here. As the new Board settles in and plans for the future, I strongly encourage them to make the planning, zoning and controlled growth section as a key point of their mission. Open up communications and invite input from the citizenry, and reach out to the county and the state for help.
Since Cloverdale has location, location, location, it is going to grow. It is inevitable. Let’s try to control our destiny by planning what kind of businesses we want here, what kind of “look” our town should develop, how we can strengthen our tax base. Let’s package and market what we have to offer and recruit the kind of businesses we want to settle here.
I guess I don’t have to explain the other word of my title. I am through ramblin’ for the time being. I may erase this tomorrow when I re read it and it doesn’t flow or make sense! Back to my cooking, ham, brocoli cheese soup, German Chocolate Cheesecake and all those Christmas cookies we make with Ark animal cookie cutters. Messy but fun!
