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Change your community for the better

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Across our country we are coming to the time when cities will host elections for the council members and mayors.

Often, as Americans, we look towards the big races taking folks to Washington or the state capitols around the country but we forget about those positions that are closest to us. We forget those that really have the greatest impact on our daily lives – those who run our cities, counties and school systems.

They collect and spend money that we actually see as we drive down our streets or walk along our sidewalks. When we turn on our faucets or flush our toilets, they are often responsible for delivering those services.

They hire the men who dig in the ground and install the pipes and make sure they keep flowing.

They hire the folks who run the water and waste water treatment plants.

The trash trucks which roll by our houses, they often buy them and employ those working to use them.

The police, fire and ambulances that respond to our emergency calls, they are the ones that spend our money to buy them, employ and train those coming to help.

The school buses, the teachers, the principals, the schools, the football and baseball fields, they are the ones that buy or build them for us and decide about what our children are taught and do in those places.

They build the parks and recreation facilities with our money and then decide whether to charge us to use them.

In odd years, we are mainly dealing with city officials, but they sometimes run the schools in their communities.

Ultimately, the men or women that you choose to run your city or your town control millions of dollars. They decide whether they will tax you more or charge you more for services. They decide how the money is spent. Are they spending it on things you need or pet projects to feather their credits for a higher elected goals?

Friends, I urge you to wake up and pay attention to who you are electing to run your lives. They are not always what they appear to be or what they say they are.

If you are not pleased with the ways things are going in your town. Step up and run for an office. At least attend your council meetings and share your opinions on the topics that are important to you.

If we do not make the effort to create the communities we want to live in, then we and our families will be the worse for it.

Please pay attention to your city and town council elections. Just because someone has been in office doesn’t mean they are the best person for the job. There are many who serve just because no one else better is willing to run and endure the slings and arrows of public life.

I have been there. I have served as an elected council member. You can too, that is, if you want to improve where you call home.

Decorations upon the heart

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I crawled up the ladder into the attic and pulled the string illuminating the surroundings.

Only a small area above the attic pull door was floored, and it was covered in cardboard boxes, as were the rafters, except for a space to move around the door.

I knew where I was going. It was my job as a boy to bring down the Christmas decorations which were all stored near the heat exhaust fan in the hall ceiling.

Generally, there were about six boxes including lights, Christmas ornaments, a faux fireplace, our artificial tree, and the exterior lights.

The first week in December was always a time that I looked forward to, because over a couple of days all these items would go up.

We would put the Bing Crosby or Elvis Presley records on the player and start working. Bill Monroe’s “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” or Jimmy Martin’s Christmas album would always be in the mix too.

Our tree went up in front of the living room windows, so the curtains could be pulled and any drivers by could see its lights. We chose the artificial tree beginning the year that I was diagnosed allergic to the trees. Despite losing the smell of the fresh tree and me eventually helping sell them with my Boy Scout troop. I still enjoyed putting the tree together. That was my job. Then mother would guide me placing the ornaments and icicles. The round ornaments included a mixture of red, green, silver and gold colors. There was a sparse number of off shaped smaller ones used in the upper areas of the tree. Most of these ornaments, my folks accumulated in the 1950s and 60s. On the top of the tree, my dad, when I was small enough would lift me up and we would place an angel with a light.

On one wall, near the front door, we would put together the faux fireplace with the electric lights behind the logs, and upon it would go our stockings and the Christmas cards that would come in.

Each window in the front of the house featured an electric candle. While every table in the house was swapped to seasonal doilies, candles, and decor.

On the exterior, that was dad’s domain with my help. All the bushes along the front of the house would be covered with lights, as was the trellis by our door. On the trellis near the door, we placed a two-foot lighted face of Santa. Plugging in one plug would light up the outside.

Once complete, the look and sounds for me meant Christmas was coming. While nobody’s life is all roses, these Christmas traditions helped me as a boy to have a blessed memory to grow upon each year.

Adulthood for me, unfortunately, didn’t bring the pleasant Christmases that were there in childhood. Instead after a certain point of not successfully finding that, I realized my way to create new traditions was by helping others have an amazing Christmas by helping meet the needs of those less fortunate.

Seeing the smiles on children’s faces when they receive a special unexpected gift. Filling a fridge and cabinets with food when a family doesn’t have money for that purpose. These were traditions that I also saw my parents quietly do when I was a child.

Those actions weren’t to make my Christmas better then. But today as I think fondly upon the decorations of old, it was the quiet service to others that I saw my parents do, that’s what really sunk into my memory and resurfaced as what Christmas is really all about.

For this Christmas, continue your family traditions, but add a new one for your young ones to see. That is, if you don’t already, why not help folks in need and let your children take part, maybe those actions will stay within their hearts for years to come.