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Thursday, 13 December 2007 |
'Tis the season
One of the most wonderful things about the Christmas season is the pervasive good will. As we dash through the snow, laughing all the way, we take time to roast chestnuts over an open fire, deck our halls with twinkling lights and pungent pine boughs, bake cookies and fruitcakes, and turn our warm, cozy feelings toward others. A time when the Golden Rule really gets observed. Yet it can also be a frenetic season, piled high with fund raising, parties and celebrations. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise when our Town leaders are absent from some of our community events.
Last week Town leaders were conspicuous in their absence from two community events. The Ullr Festival, put on by the Chamber of Commerce, was a huge success as a plea to the snow gods; and a mere three days later, the skies opened and snows descended upon our mountains. But we didn’t spy any of our Town officials—no one from the Town Council, no one from Tourism & Recreation, just Tony Barrett (thank you, Tony) from the Planning Commission.
Then, during one of our favorite annual events on Friday, the Town Tree was lighted. While it was great to see so many kids in the Footloose parking lot—singing Christmas carols, having snowball fights and watching wide-eyed as Santa came to town on the top of a sirening fire engine—we wondered why there was such a dearth of community leaders. Granted, the ubiquitous Stuart Brown greeted people and Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Sugimura made a token, brief appearance (we later learned she was there to flip the switch on the tree lights), while emcees Rick Phelps of the High Sierra Energy Foundation and Cleland Hoff of Sierra Wave TV 33 did a valiant job, especially since the only amplification they had was a bullhorn on its last legs. If you weren’t up close to the stage you couldn’t hear the sweet carols sung by the kids and the Eastern Sierra Community Chorus, nor could you hear what Phelps and Hoff were saying.
This time of year always heightens positive spirit and good will, and it’s a shame not to see our Town leaders out there meeting and greeting residents and guests.
Out with the old...in the wrong place
It does come as a surprise when people abuse the season, like the ones who have been exercising arrogance that impels them to drop off their old furniture and large appliances that have no usable function for them at the Cast Off during the hours when the shop is closed. If these individuals go to the effort to load all their discarded stuff into a truck, what’s keeping them from hauling it to the dump—the fee? The Cast Off is not the Salvation Army. It is a volunteer organization that raises money for the hospital. The Hospital Auxiliary is an organization with a huge amount of community spirit, year round—not exactly a group of linebackers who could toss the heavy pieces into the dumpster as if they were doll furniture. Using the Cast Off as a dumping ground not only dumps on the generous spirit of the Auxiliary ladies, it is also the height of laziness. It has caused the Auxiliary to spend precious funds for surveillance cameras, which would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. Won’t it be interesting to see whom the cameras catch in the act. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 21 December 2007 )
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