Feeling summer

Tom and I attended a public input meeting this week at which consultants presented a draft of the City of Jamestown Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan. Coordinated by the Chautauqua County Health Network's Creating Healthy Places to Live, Work, and Play project, which promotes a more healthy and active lifestyle,  the focus of the plan is finding out how to safely and comfortably connect key destinations (for cyclists and pedestrians) such as schools, shopping, services and parks with neighborhoods and downtown Jamestown. There was a good-sized crowd there, including Team Hollyloft, and it seems quite possible to quickly implement some of the recommendations if interested parties work with city officials to make them happen. (Too often people sit back and wait for somebody else to do something.) Enhanced crosswalks with more visible paint and additional signage, for instance, are an easy and inexpensive way to increase pedestrian safety. The "walking school bus," where children walk to school together with an adult chaperone, just needs volunteers to come forward. Other things like bike lanes, and especially a bike track that traverses the city, will take extensive effort and the location of funding sources in order to be accomplished. The vision is there, and now we need to see some follow-through to put the usual grumbling naysayers in their place.

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I wanted to say something about the "working poor," since I see quite a few of them around these days and the stereotype of  "lazy, unmotivated" people who get food stamps is just WRONG.  In fact, I know some very hard-working young people who piece together two or three part-time jobs (because full time hours with benefits are not offered) and perform important (but low paying) functions like assisting disabled and elderly persons, or standing on their feet for hours and cashiering/bagging to help you on your way with your groceries.  Some of them take classes in addition to working, although one cashier told me she doesn't have the money to spare for college right now (it has gotten quite expensive, if you haven't noticed). Some of them are frightened off by the crushing debt some of their peers are incurring in pursuit of degrees which no longer guarantee employment that will cover both living expenses and loan repayment.  Oh, the two or three part time jobs these "lazy" people are working don't amount to a living wage either, so they find themselves accepting food stamps as well in order to feed their children. But of course they make just a little too much to qualify for Medicaid, so if they get sick, they're on their own.

Why have we become so mean-spirited towards those who don't fit some arbitrary definition of financial success?  I think about this a lot, because I grew up in a hard-working family, in a different time. My father came from a large family with immigrant parents. His father died when he was still a child and he had even younger brothers. So when the Great Depression came, he was forced to quit school after the 8th grade to help support the family. Fortunately for him, our government came to the aid of its struggling people with civilian jobs and job training, and a military that taught marketable skills in exchange for service, and he was eventually able to support a family of his own, become a homeowner, and build a successful business.  Because life handed him some formidable challenges, he lacked formal education, and he accepted government assistance, but nobody would have called him lazy and unmotivated. Nowadays, life is still handing out all kinds of challenges, but rather than extending a hand (via our tax dollars, which we would rather see spent on low interest loans to Wall Street tycoons and unmanned aircraft that kill people, I guess), we kick people to the curb, expecting them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they can't afford boots.  Farewell, humanity.

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We finally figured out our tile pattern for the new bathroom, and that will be our project this weekend.  Hopefully, we'll also have time to take a break and check out the Yassou Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Good baklava is hard to find. I'll be thin in my next life.