A Retirement Message From A Letter Carrier
Editor:
If you live from 82nd Street up to (but not thru) 94th Street, I’ve been your letter carrier for the past nine years. After 23 years with the post office, it’s time for me to get out while I still have my good health and can enjoy myself a little more. This Saturday will be my last day.
I’ve gotten to know many of you really well through the years, and it has been a real pleasure to see and talk with you on a regular basis. A lot of you I only knew well enough to say ‘hey!’ when we saw each other. And there are a few names that were simply that … just names, because, sadly, I never got to see or meet you.
Throughout those years, several of you went through a lot of grieving at times, whether from the loss of a pet or the loss of a loved one. I felt your loss as well. Sometimes it was more personal for me as when Joe Fetchko passed away last fall. He had become a good friend over the years and a great source of advice and knowledge. I’ll truly miss him. A lot of you, I’ve seen your families grow. Several of you, I’ve seen you grow. I’ve seen new cars, new houses and new jobs. I’ve seen marriages as well as divorces.
To those of you who always offered a hot coffee in the winter or a cold beverage on those hot summer days, I appreciated that.
I plan to work somewhere close to home (Millsboro) a few days a week so I don’t totally get on my wife’s nerves, but I will still have time to come into OC occasionally to have a beer or four with some of you. Maybe actually get to sit on a bar stool at Kirby’s, or bug Joan at Liquid Assets, have a cigar with Art, have a cold one with Dick and Frank, take Ethel out to lunch in the Mustang and to see Patience graduate from JROTC.
Just too many more names to mention, but, I truly will attempt to keep in touch with a lot of you.
Tell all of my canine friends (except the one that bit me), I won’t be around any more to see them and that the next carrier may not carry dog biscuits.
Thank you for everything. It’s been my privilege serving you over the years.
Steve McIlvain
‘Bush League’ Comment
Not Accurate Here
Editor:
Oh, you’ve gotta love small town politics. Typically, I like to assume the position of "fly-on-the-wall", and not run about burying my nose in other peoples business, but a recent letter to the editor caught my eye and I felt as if it were my civic duty to respond, to set the record straight.
"All Ocean City taxpayers owe a debt of gratitude to Council member Margaret Pillas for her persistence in pushing for publication of the total compensation paid to various Ocean City employees,” wrote "Veronica M. Potter", on Feb. 20, 2009. Ms. Potter goes on to praise Ms. Pillas for raising the question of which exact employees pay grades exceed the average statistic of a local county employees reported pay of around $500 per week. And then goes on to state, "Pillas’ persistence was discredit[ed] by Council member Mary Knight’s efforts by requiring to come up with the hours and cost to produce the compensation information requested."
I wonder if Ms. Potter knew that Pillas’ request is not only unnecessary, due to the fact that such a document is printed every year in the local papers as is, but also time consuming, and costly. Knight was not trying to discredit Pillas by any means, but raise questions as to why Pillas would require such documentation on command. Who cares if certain employees make more money than the average statistic from last year? And Knight’s request for the amount of money and time consumption of producing such information proved to cost the city’s taxpaying dollars nearly $2100, and city employees almost 55 hours of wasted time that could better be spent on performing the duties their jobs require.
May I not only suggest, Ms. Potter that next time you write a letter to the editor, you have your facts straight, but you also refrain from name calling. In the conclusion of Ms. Potters article, she demands citizens of Ocean City to not vote for Knight, whom she refers to as "bush league." Once again Ms. Potter, you are clearly uninformed. The definition of "bush league" is someone who is unprofessional, and unprofessional is something Mary Knight is not. Why don’t you go ahead and read Knight’s credentials on the Ocean City Council homepage, I think we can all agree on who is unprofessional.
Naomi M. Dodge
Contributions Appreciated
Editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank everyone who contributed to those in need.
Through your overwhelming generosity, Coldwell Banker Residential Realty at 120th Street in Ocean City was able to keep the less fortunate warm this winter. Without you, this exercise in giving would have been impossible.
Thank you for making our coat drive a huge success. There were over 2,500 coats and warm clothing donated and
distributed because of you. Because you care.
Sheila M. Hodges
Ocean City
Lifting Tuition Cap
Is Cruel To Many
Editor:
There are Assemblymen saying, “We’re gonna lift the cap on tuition increases at state colleges – but we’re gonna keep state college education affordable.” What a crock.
Lifting the cap is neither magnanimous nor wise. It is, rather, both mean and stupid.
It is mean because it denies college to some students but also because it swells the tuition debt of those who do attend. They graduate so debt-saddled that it will be hard for them ever to buy a house. Unlike prior generations, much of their income will go into rent rather than equity, a major the middle class is declining in America.
The major reason Jefferson and others founded state colleges was to be sure the John-Boy Waltons, the young people of “virtue and talent” but of modest means, got a chance at higher education – and for the country as well as for themselves.
Tuition increases are stupid because each one causes America to produce fewer of the well-trained minds that are our only chance to remain a great power. And stupid also because they cancel out the enlargement, in the federal stimulus package, of Pell Grants.
Some Assemblymen threaten BG&E style hikes when the cap does come off. Why must it come off at all? Why must we replay the Republican Plan: Bumbling Bob Ehrlich’s 11 ¼-percent hike every year, 45 percent for his four years as governor? Why not instead make rich people pay big income tax rates? Why not make big corporations pay at least a minimum income tax?
Assemblymen, try this logic: we keep the cap that keeps affordable the education that creates young engineers who create affordable non-carbon fuels that liberate us from oil slavery. They can also buy houses. Now there’s a crock of magnanimity and wisdom.
J.A. Hoage
Severna Park