A few things demand comments this week.
First, the possibility of rolling blackouts of electricity – for an hour at a time – caused a few folks to be concerned about their inability to use air conditioning or baby bottle warmers. To use a clichA?©, Hello! If you can’t live without electricity for an hour – better take a look at your life routine.
If these blackouts become necessary, we can only blame ourselves. As a group, Americans probably waste more of everything – except compassion – than anyone else. And to think that many of my generation started life in homes heated with wood, lit with kerosene lamps, and air conditioning provided by open windows. And then managed to thrive through a depression and five or six wars including two world wars.
Second, the question of using schools for child care. It must have been 15 years ago when a huge group of Windham residents, mostly working mothers, was desperate for child care, affordable or not. I remember a lot of meetings amongst day care providers and agencies and people, working together to try and find a way to provide this necessary service, particularly on Wednesdays when school was closed at noon. I was one of those involved at the beginning of this project, and the rhetoric surrounding the issue was lively. Everyone not affected had an opinion (stay home and take care of your kids) and a whole lot of advice (get a job so you can pay), but not much in the way of solutions. I was glad – and surprised – recently to learn that this idea finally bore fruit and that the schools are the places where this care is provided. This non-profit group, centered around children, seems a likely group to make use of school space. If they were a profit making group, I could understand charging them to use the school.
Remember that one of the selling points of the new high school and its generous meeting space was that it was for the community to use. There has always been, and still is, an extreme scarcity of public meeting space(s) in town. Even less, now that the Aikins Annex will be used by municipal offices. Churches don’t have much space and if they do, it’s taken up by the many organizations affiliated with the church. The library has one meeting room which is booked pretty solid – and there is no charge to use it, as far as I know. We don’t hear about charging groups for electricity and heat and janitorial service. Why can’t the high school follow suit?
The High School Alumni Association – with more than 500 dues-paying members, the very oldest of all organizations in town – uses the Middle School cafeteria for its annual dinner, and is charged for extra janitorial/kitchen help. But that is once a year, and is held on a Saturday.
If the School Board wants public input on this, I for one, say let the child care group use the school. What better use could there be? Our taxes should always be so wisely spent!
Third, a light-bulb of an idea about New Orleans and the massive needs there. Why not make a group of National Guard folks, all the help-thy-neighbor organizations and the missionarying-to-other-countries folks, also Habitat for Humanity and Doctors Without Borders, and send them all to New Orleans with a few volunteer contractors, architects and engineers. Truckloads of lumber and building materials (and Poland Spring water) could follow. Build the hospitals, schools, houses. Lay the roads. Landscape the yards. Contact all those who had to leave and pull them back into the fold. Get everyone back to work. I know, I know. I’m a dreamer. The National Guard is busy in another country, and probably all the other helping hands have their plans all made. But whose country is this, anyway?
Some things to think about. See you next week.
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