The Meadville Tribune

Saturday, November 12, 2022 A5

OPINION&COMMENT
“Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” — From the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

Sound-Off
WEEKEND
By the readers of The Meadville Tribune
Editor’s note:  We invite readers to use this space to
share positive thoughts of our community and/or construc-
tive criticism and ideas that can make our community a
better place to live. Moving forward, this space will not be
used for any national political purposes.
I really don’t get it. Twitter is not worth $44 billion.
Difficult to fully understand why a college of higher
learning with fiscal issues would purchase a liquor license
for $130.000. When did this become a good idea?
After watching the Pittsburgh Steelers so far this
season, they should change their name to the Pittsburgh
Melters.
Going “trick or treating” in your neighborhood
growing up was the way to go. Just the idea of walking
through a parking lot called “trunk or treat” just isn’t the
same.
I’m totally against the City of Meadville hiring a person
to create a “social media presence” at a rate of $18 an
hour. This is only another waste of money with so many
financial problems the city is facing.
When it takes alcohol to draw students to enroll in a
college or University then something has broken down in
the system.
Instead of using the American relief monies for the
budget, why not replace the street lights with LED
lighting?
To the retired folks that were notified of the rent
increase of several hundred dollars a month, the more
positive and effective message would be to find help to
relocate and move into alternative housing.
As a lifetime citizen of Crawford County, I can’t see
the City of Meadville continuing to operate the way it
has been since the first of this year and expect it to move
forward under its current leadership.
Quoting everybody about everything
Sometimes it’s hard not?’ Some people have advantage of being its own app, the
to know which is more GENE to go to work and don’t irrefutable indicator that its modern
frightening — that have time for all that.” quotations are plainly accurate, because
there are people in this COLLIER It’s little short of you can find the person saying the exact
world who write or miraculous that such thing on video without breaking a sweat.
say things expecting earnest and scholarly Joe Biden’s astounding quote from
they’ll be remembered, or that there are quote herding has been going on since just last month lives in infamy, if
other people in this world who not only 1855, when a Cambridge, Mass., book probably not posterity, at any of a
remember those things, but write them store owner named John Bartlett started hundred internet locales: “Let me start
down. collecting “familiar” quotations in spite with two words, made in America!”
This is one of those times people, of his own reservations. Unavoidably, Donald Trump
because the new Bartlett’s Familiar “It is not easy to determine in all made it to Bartlett’s for a handful of
Quotations is out, meaning revisions cases the degree of familiarity that may his mindless jactations, including “I
have been made for the first time in belong to phrases and sentences which love the poorly educated!” The best
10 years. As you would imagine, the present themselves for admission,” evidence of Trump’s stable genius,
re-arranging of a civilization’s most Bartlett finally got around to admitting again a personal favorite, didn’t make
durable alleged wisdom is no small in the fourth edition, “for what is it: “Nobody knew health care could be
undertaking, as the authors like to familiar to one class of readers may be so complicated,” an infamous citation
limit each edition to about 1,400 pages quite new to another.” of the one thing about health care that
allowing for some 20,000 quotes going Well no kiddin’ J.B., and while that’s everybody knew.
back 5,000 years. truer by the minute, Bartlett’s earliest Those who’ve argued that Bartlett’s
I’m no expert, but I expect this means compendiums were dominated by collection could do with more voices
if you’re going to put something in, sources that most people who could read from pop culture should be cheered by
you’ll have to take something out, so out tended to be reading. Research being the first appearance from Dolly Parton:
goes Dan Quayle, who magnificently done as recently as 2013 still indicated “It takes a lot of money to look this
misremembered “A Mind is a Terrible that Irish writer Oscar Wilde was the cheap,” and should be relieved that there
Thing to Waste,” the slogan of the most quotable figure in the history of appears to be nothing from the Real
United Negro College Fund, as “What a the language, with another Irishman, Housewives of Any Venue, not even
waste it is to lose one’s mind.” George Bernard Shaw, coming in Ramona Singer’s “So what if I’m self-
But it had to go. second, none of which is surprising. My involved, who else should I be involved
New contributors to the latest edition favorite Irishman’s quote is from the with?”
include Barack Obama, Hunter S. Dubliner who warned me about being Ultimately, any compendium of
Thompson, Patti Smith, David Foster in the city’s pubs, because the Irish, he quotes that has enduring relevance is
Wallace, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Jimi said, while both collegial and hospitable, your own, whether it’s a half page or
Hendrix, Steve Jobs, Julia Child, Warren “will talk the ass off a donkey.” 1,400 pages.
Buffett, Emily Post, Che Guevara, Fran Wilde would talk to the wallpaper, it One quote will do if it’s the right one.
Liebowitz, the Dalai Lama, William F. is written, and ostensibly said to it on his “Darkness cannot drive out darkness,
Buckley, Steve Jobs, Desmond Tutu, deathbed, “One of us must go.” only light can do that,” said Dr. Martin
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Inescapably, many of the enduring Luther King Jr. “Hate cannot drive out
Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy. entries in Bartlett’s have a hazy origin hate, only love can do that.”
So this is where it gets tricky. and multiple versions, but that needn’t And always remember, if your quote
The quote most readily attributed to mitigate their value. When, for example, strikes you as too weighty, go straight to
Kennedy — “Some men see things as in about 1765, Voltaire yipped, “Ya Yogi Berra.
they are, and say why. I dream of things know, those who can make you believe “When you come to a fork in the
that never were, and say why not,” is absurdities, can make you commit road, take it.”
clearly inferior in both durability and atrocities,” he was, then and now,
wisdom to a similar burst from George darned right. For verification, uh, take a Gene Collier is a columnist for the
Carlin: “Some people see things that are look around. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He can be
and ask, ‘Why?’ Some people dream of Fortunately, the freshest edition of reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com
things that never were and ask, ‘Why Bartlett’s enjoys the technological and Twitter: @genecollier.

Great job, Crawford County Democrats! Nice to see

such a large turnout in the Halloween parade.

Many years ago, Medicare supplement benefits

were standardized so that we could compare different
companies and get the same coverage. It appears that it is
time to do it again.

The Meadville Area Recreation Complex is nothing

more than a business. Why is the City of Meadville paying
$125,000 per year to keep it going? If the MARC can’t
make it on its own, then close the doors and turn out the
lights.

Addressing the liquor license at Allegheny College, I

guess you don’t stand in the way of people that want to
make money and at the same time not pay any taxes.

It’s almost time to see the Christmas tree lights along

Conneaut Lake.

Which business will open first: Arby’s or Starbucks?

Wake me up when election season is over.

THIS WEEK

Are you interested in paying

$8 a month for Twitter?

Voice your opinion by voting on the poll

at meadvilletribune.com.
An every day Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is
not just about turkey
LAST WEEK and pumpkin pie. Not
that those things don’t
Do you think any matter.
changes need to But the point of the
be made to holiday is (1) to give SHARON
voting by mail in thanks; (2) be with our RANDALL
Pennsylvania? loved ones; and (3) eat
turkey and pumpkin
• Go back to the pie.
way it was: 52.2% A friend wrote recently to say, “For
the first time in 49 years, we won’t have
• Keep it the same: all our children and grandchildren here
29.4% for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
• Make some Her long-kept family tradition is
changes: 18.4% being uprooted by changes in jobs
and lives. It’s true for a lot of families,
230 readers including my own.
responded My husband and I share a big
to the poll. “blended” family with five children,
their “others” and nine grandchildren.
For years (except 2020, when the
pandemic kept us apart) most of us have
SOUND-OFFS AND LETTERS been together for Thanksgiving.
This year, due to jobs and other
Each week, Weekend Issue offers Tribune commitments, we’ll still be together in
readers the chance to have their opinions heard spirit, but in small groups miles apart.
We’ll still give thanks, connect on
on a topic. After reading the Page One feature, FaceTime and I won’t have to cook. But
readers may send in Sound-Offs on the topic. I will miss the hugs.
Readers may Sound Off by mail to: Sound-Off, Things change. If we’re wise, we try
to make the best of them.
The Meadville Tribune, 947 Federal Court, Mead- Yesterday, I stood in a grocery store
ville, PA 16335; by fax at 724-8755; by the Sound- staring at a frozen turkey I wasn’t going
Off link at the Tribune website at meadvilletribune. to buy. Suddenly, I recalled getting a
voicemail from Chip a few days ago. I’d
com; or by dropping it off at the information desk forgotten to call him back.
in the Tribune lobby. Before I tell you about that voicemail,
Letters at a maximum 350 words may be sent I should tell you this. I lost my first
to the same address or fax number above. husband to cancer some 20 years ago.
He was a high school teacher, basketball
coach and father of our
three children. His years
of teaching and coaching
brought a lot of teenagers
into our lives. A few of
them lived with us for a
while.
Chip was just starting
his senior year of high
school when his dad’s
job required them to relocate. Chip
asked if he could live with us until he
graduated. We said yes, if he didn’t
mind sleeping in the attic. If he minded,
he never complained.
Our kids were ages 8, 5, and 2. Chip
gave them lessons in ping pong and
basketball. They gave him headaches
and chickenpox. Somehow we survived
that year.
Then Chip left for college, got a
masters in finance and landed a job
that took him around the world. He’d
call me and say, “Guess where I am
now.”
I never guessed right. He’d visit once
a year or so and often phoned, especially
after the Coach became ill. He couldn’t
make it to the memorial service, but
came to see me soon after.
I remember the day he called to say
he was getting married in Holland, and
that I had to come be his “Best Man.”
Which I did.
There were other memorable calls:
When he and his wife learned they
were with child; when his daughter was
born; and when he was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis.
Over the years, as MS took its toll
on his health, Chip and his wife and
daughter have lived and worked all
over the world. Today, when I
apologized for not calling sooner, he
laughed at me.
He does that a lot.
Then we spent a good hour catching
up on each other’s life and loves.
His daughter is a senior in high
school, the age Chip was when we met.
They recently took a two-week trip to
visit schools she might attend in various
countries next year.
Finally, Chip gave me the really big
news: “Four months ago,” he said, “I
started a new kind of therapy. And now
I’m climbing stairs with no pain.”
Two memories flashed into my mind.
In one, he was sitting in a wheelchair. In
the other, he was shooting hoops in my
backyard.
We said goodbye with a promise
to talk soon. Then I sat for a while,
celebrating an early Thanksgiving,
overcome with gratitude for Chip’s
good news.
Family is more than blood kin. It’s
every soul that we hold dear. And
Thanksgiving is more than a holiday.
It’s every moment in life when we are
truly thankful.
We don’t need to be in the same
room with our loved ones to count
our countless blessings. We just need
to remember we’ll be forever in each
other’s heart.
Whether you’re cooking for a crowd
or celebrating alone, I wish you a true
Thanksgiving.
Sharon Randall is the author of “The
World and Then Some.” She can be
reached at P.O. Box 922, Carmel Valley
CA 93924 or www.sharonrandall.com.