Letter to the Editor

Letters to the editor

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Stolen bunting

Dear editor:

Thanks goes out to all who helped decorate cemeteries. I picked up another cemetery, Marvins Chapel. Thanks to the flag team for putting up the American flags. Great help from all the community!

On Saturday, June 18, I went to the Austin overpass and adjusted the bunting on the bridge, this was about 3 p.m. I added more ties and straightened all the bunting.

On Sunday, June 19, at 9 a.m., I went looking for my MIA/POW bunting, that was stolen from the overpass. I am now going to offer a $500 reward to information leading to the return of the bunting and apprehension of the thief. Whoever you are, you are a grave robbing, dirty little thief! You have no idea of the hours of work it takes to decorate Austin Boulevard, or the significance of the bunting!

If this bunting is hanging in someone's room, or garage, or basement, it belongs to the veterans of Vernon County! Give it back immediately! I am tired of having to finance robber's fantasies by replacing bunting every two years!

I chained it and secured the MIA/POW bunting with additional ties. You cut the ties and broke the chains to claim this bunting, did you ever think about the men who served this country and endured the many hardships of prison life?

Obviously not!

Maybe we should take away your freedom by putting you in jail, and let you experience what it is like to be without freedom. You have gotten the wrong person mad.

I'm not going to stop until I find you and see that you are punished for stealing and the desecration of a veteran's memorial!

The overpass will fly with a whole in the center so that all the thieves can be reminded of how little they value freedom or the men who fight for it.

Mad and not going to get over it!

Judy Knowles

Nevada

Dodging fire on

Bushwhackers

Dear editor:

Despite my appeal for civil discussion about Bushwhacker name possibilities I am taking fire from avid Bushwhacker supporters. Mr. Carlton, Mr. Daniels (who because of brevity and nature of his outrageous comments I almost despair to mention) and Mr. Brophy have come at me with both pistols blazing. But don't worry gentle readers ... as you can see I'm still alive and unwounded. No matter what ridicule and potential threats (Mr. Brophy warned me that I may be "summoning murder") is thrown my way I refuse to lower myself to like behavior.

I fully expected opposition and welcome different opinions. I only hoped they might come with dignity and respect.

Thus far my hopes have been dashed. Seems strange to me that these men who care so little about offending "other" cultures are so riled up themselves.

"If we offend other cultures and disregard their ancestors -- so what?" seems to be their attitude ... "just don't mess with our Bushwhackers!"

Mr. Brophy suggested that I take Mr. Carlton's advice to visit the Bushwhacker Museum. I had accomplished this long before Mr. Carlton's oh-so cordial invitation and found the museum and the library to be a very fine establishment.

Mr. Brophy exhibited his scholarly muscles to such an extent that I worked up a sweat and had to lie down a while after I read his "Rebel Yelling" piece. A special thanks to him for correcting my grammar. I'm quite sure he'd want me to be so embarrassed and intimidated by his historical deftness that I stop writing. In my younger years I didn't have the opportunity to go to college. The time lapse between high school and present have erased some of my remembrance of punctuation but strengthened my principles. I am a 36-year-old mother and wife who has undertaken my college career piecemeal over the last 6 years. Sometimes my grammar falters but rather my grammar than my character.

Mr. Brophy says in his book that Missourians are slow to change. Many folks are. Status quo (which by the way is Latin for "this mess we're in") is sometimes our comfortable zone.

Is all change good? No. But neither is it all bad.

No doubt Bushwhacker Days is economically beneficial to our community but there's nothing that says a name change would be detrimental. It just might accomplish the opposite. A thrust to promote cultural acceptance in this area might be the best thing Nevada could do (monetarily speaking) unless of course folks are intolerant of such.

Trying to make others look foolish, devaluing those of a different opinion (which devalues your own) and the negative economic implications ... all bullets I've had to dodge.

On that note it could be that by their friendly fire, or perhaps not so friendly, these gentlemen have proved what tensions do exist in our area.

I do not seek to disrespect any of them -- my apologies if I have.

Their obvious intelligence, and their opinions though disagreed with in some ways, are valued ... sure would be neighborly if they would do the same.

Walt Whitman was an American poet. He marveled over the beauty and diversity of our landscapes and people. I have my own marvelings.

I think God made America last. I think He dipped his finger into every other fresh-formed sod on the planet and placed each portion in His artist's palm where He worked together the soils of Europe, of Mexico, of Asia and Australia and Africa, until one could not be determined from the other. I think He then gathered that immense bulk of potential and hugged it so tightly to His breast that He left the thought, intent and purposes of His heart, and the complexity, color, and creativity of His personality on its unconcluded face. I imagine then -- almost unwillingly -- He tore it from His bosom, as if it were a part of Himself, spoke a blessing over it, and let it gently fall to earth's pining face.

Later, men gathered there some willingly, others torn from their mother's arm. Some looked upon one another with contempt while others cleaved to one another, forsaking their mothers, becoming one multi-colored flesh, reproducing and representing the entirety of earth and an endlessly faceted God.

This is my written admiration of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass:" This is my minuscule interpretation of America.

Shannon Harwell

Nevada