A friend of the Nickel Plate Trail
A few days ago, my husband and I took our bicycles out to the Nickel Plate for a ride. While there we encountered a grandfather with his grandson.
Talking with him we discovered that he lived close to the trail and was out walking on it often ... mostly with his grandson. He said when he first heard of the plans for the trail, he was skeptical; however, he has changed his mind and thinks it is a very good thing for himself and the public.
In seeing him with his grandson, I was reminded of walks on the weekends with my father as a child growing up. Living in Maryland at the time, nature trails were close by and readily available, something I miss living in this part of Indiana.
These walks were some of the fondest memories I have of times with my father, who like many men of his day had to work hard and long hours to provide for his family.
Like the credit card commercial reminds us, “Cassville to Rochester land ... $1,” “federal fund grants... $2 million,” time on the Nickel Plate with your grandfather, father or husband ... priceless.
Gale Keppel, Kokomo
Unhappy with the president
After listening to President Obama’s speech the other night concerning his health-care package, I came away noting just how arrogant he really is. He is determined that “his” health-care program gets passed even though it might mean the end of the careers for several of his Democratic members of Congress.
Here is a man who is more interested in his own destiny and image than he is in the arena of public opinion. Public opinion polls show that 70 percent of the American people do not like the health-care package that has been presented to the people. They are in favor of scraping this plan and beginning all over again with Republican input. However, Obama doesn’t want to wait because he wants this package to be his package and not a bipartisan package. What little bipartisan pieces that he has accepted in his package are not the real big issues that are at stake. Just enough that he can blame the Republicans for not helping push “his” health-care through Congress and yet still call it a bipartisan bill.
When President Obama was campaigning, he promised on more than one occasion that his health-care proposal would not be passed by “50 plus one” votes in the Senate. This is only one promise he has broken since he has been in the White House. He has broken the promises of earmarks and of lobbyists that he made in his campaign.
To say the least, President Obama has been disingenuous ever since he has occupied the White House. It is his policy to blame the Republicans for everything that has gone wrong in the economy, not willing to take any responsibility for himself. He has inflated the national debt more in his one year in office than all the presidents combined before him. He wants only to take responsibility for what he thinks we Americans need, not what we want.
It is too bad that the Presidential election isn't this fall along with the House of Representatives and Senators. Such arrogance on Obama’s part is going to be the downfall of political freedom in our country unless the voters do something about changing Congress this coming fall. I admonish all voters to not forget this point in our history when we all go to the polls this fall.
Melvin E. Armstrong, Galveston
