Rhoades - Was this a statement?

Was this a statement?

By Bob Rhoades

At about 2 minutes till 2 on Sunday, I looked down E. Third St. to check out the thundering hoard of Trick or Treaters about to descend on my house.  Nothing! Then I listened for the hoard. Nothing!  Then at about 2:15 they appeared three small kids and their mom.  Well that’s good for a start.  To make a long story short, the thundering hoard was in some other neighborhood, not on East Third! Part of the problem may have been that I made a sign that people had to READ telling them to go to the other door.  Then like an idiot I put up another sign with an arrow pointing to the doorbell button.

Earlier in the year, the “committee” to shelter Greenville from everything under the sun, had meetings in the park and other places to make sure that everyone knew that there might be some alleged perverts moving into three houses in the area of 3^rd and 4^th Sts. Before that it was the do-gooders making sure that none of us was killed or maimed from the sequestration of CO^2.   All of this while drinking a Coke, Pepsi or whatever which is nothing more than a can of sequestered CO² with some caramel color, some flavor and a little water.

It’s amazing how these things tend to work themselves out.  As it turns out the parents of our children have enough sense to stay away from areas that have alleged perverts in them.  That’s a pretty good statement for this experiment we call Greenville.  Whether it is warranted or not, we have people who have enough sense to not go where they don’t feel comfortable.

In like manner it was recently reported that the Andersons/Marathon LLC just signed a contract with Coca Cola.  What for you ask?  CO^2!  They’re going to sequester it into a big tank and haul it to the nearest Coca-Cola plant and put it in your soft drinks.  I’m wondering why, instead of the ulcer generation that they created, this bad of seemingly intelligent people couldn’t have figured it out before now. Perhaps it’s one of those “forest for the trees” things.

At any rate a couple of statements have been made.  On the CO² thing there was a lot of noise made on a problem that turned out to be another money maker for The Anderson’s/Marathon. That is not a problem. The statement is, it’s usually much better to have a solution to a problem than 200 meetings stirring people up without one.  The fact that the “world leader” in research and development Batelle couldn’t figure that out says we should be watching Government contracts a little closer.

On the other hand 30 years ago there were very few people who lived here who looked or acted differently than the guy next door.  But even though that isn’t the case now, it seems to be working it’s self out.  Of the kids I did see, most were with parents, even older kids.  All were quite cordial and polite.

The school problem is a real problem.  We have the lowest Graduation Test Scores in a 25 mile radius with or without a new school.  That’s sort of sad.  We have a district that spans the county from west to east.  We have citizens there who have also made a statement.  They don’t like the way our district functions right now. So, perhaps all you CO²  hunters and pervert chasers can help with the school problem.  Sit back, have a Coke with the knowledge that your CO²    is now home grown, and figure out what to do.

Let’s don’t allow anything else in the town that screws up Halloween, or Christmas or Valentines, and especially not Thanksgiving, when belonging to Overeaters Anonymous means very little.