Opinion

Merry Christmas friends! I hope you had a wonderful 2022. I started the year reading Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People.

It takes a special person to work in a public service career. Public service professionals serve their community in immeasurable ways by offering social services, educating children, protecting the welfare of others and promoting public health. For this reason, I have never understood why the salaries of public servants are often much less than the salaries of other professions. It’s a sad state of affairs when occupations such as professional athletes earn unfathomable amounts of money in the form of a salary. I’m of the mindset that if you want insight into what a business, society, family or employer does value, just follow where money is spent. If this is true, society has proven over time that professions such as police officers, EMTs, teachers, First Responders, and social workers are not truly at the very least, a fair day’s wage.

This isn’t one of those silly columns with funny stories and incidents you can see in your own mind. This time of year is hard for a lot of people.

The city workers were busy this past week hanging the banners and Christmas decorations. It was always so hard as a kid to get thru the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The Gardner and Edgerton communities should be proud of what the Gardner Edgerton High School football team and coaches accomplished this season. This was a total team effort without a big star.

On the quest to raising good humans, I realize that most people tend to use the holidays as a teachable time for kids. We encourage the need to do good for others who might have less than we do as we donate food, toys, money and help in our communities and beyond. We do this on overdrive in November and December because these months are within the “season of giving.” And while I wish this was more of a year-round notion; I still jump on board with my own three kids to embrace the season as a time to do for others with no expectation of gain. Many of the best ways to help others costs nothing at all, aside from some time and effort.

While I am quite fond of the Vince Guaraldi, the solo artist and his Trio, there are limits to my affection. I happen to dislike Christmas songs. Yes, each and every one of them. Even the ones by the Vince Guaraldi and his Trio.

While I enjoy watching the Food Channel, I’m not a foodie. I come from a family that eats the basic provisions. We’re not big on spices, or fancy dishes. My mom is a good cook. She will tell you that she isn’t, she is modest that way. She has cooked for our family for decades and if you’ve seen any one of us, you know we aren’t starving. Her potato soup with its simple ingredients, has the power to heal bruised hearts, tired souls and the common cold. I think it’s the love she puts into her cooking. Love enhances food more than exotic ingredients ever could.

I refuse to call something I want to do” bucket list”. To me that seems to imply you have put an ending point to everything and from that point on, well it’s a done deal. I prefer a need to see or do list. One of the items on my list was a trip to New Orleans. New Orleans is a city that is constantly moving. Being on the Mississippi river at the crescent turn of the water. Trade and history are a big part of the story. The people of New Orleans want you there. They are friendly and helpful. They are fun and pleasant and grateful for tourists. The weather in late October was perfect. 70 deg with little humidity. There were a couple of mornings with showers, but the sun showed up for the afternoon. The trees were green and pretty. The flowers were beautiful. The architecture was amazing. French, Spanish and modern. There was a story and a history behind everything. I traveled with my neighbor Dana who has relocated with her husband to Texas with his employer. It was a girl’s trip. We purchased transportation passes for trolly, bus and even ferry. They were cheap and made our excursions super easy. We stayed in the Garden District. The trolly ran right outside the front door of the place we stayed. Trolly cars are clean. Safe and full of tourists and locals traveling without using their own vehicles. They run every 15 minutes. You get on, flash your pass and take a seat. Dana oversaw destinations and trolly changes. She gets and A+ for tour guide. Our first day we visited St Louis Cemetery #1. Final resting place of many prominent New Orleans families. Plus, the believed resting place of Marie Laveau. She was the proclaimed Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Being built in hurricane territory and on the Mississippi, the cemeteries are above ground mausoleums holding many generations of the same family. Reused and reburied constantly. The history is amazing. We saw amazing history of the city. We did it at our own pace. We ate great food. My only negative take away is

Libraries have come a long way, baby, from when I was a little girl strolling with my parents into the Mid-Continent Public Library in Claycomo, a Kansas City suburb, to obtain my first library card. I was a new reader, and excited by the vast number of books the library held. Back then, the mid-1960’s, the library was primarily a place to check out books or conduct research for a report. My young mind would never in a million years have dreamed of what libraries would become by 2022. You see, libraries in most communities have changed with the times. The public can still check out books and do reports, but there’s much more going on. Libraries serve communities in many more ways; in fact, some are learning centers for their neighborhoods. There are libraries where people can obtain passports, register to vote, get online to research genealogy or apply for a job, learn how to speak languages, knit, hold classes and events. Libraries, if implemented properly, are community centers.