Letters to the Editor Nov. 13, 2009

Stop and take a breath before you do something regrettable

When I was at a local store the other day, there was an employee who seemed rather upset. I gleaned this by his treatment of the “next line, please” sign, which he was slamming down several times as if it just ate his Chihuahua. I remember, from my time in retail, one must always wear a smile and concede that the customer is correct in all matters.

This belief has its roots back in the caveman days when the customer asked for a wheel and was given something in a square shape. The customer was certain that this was not the wheel shape he saw in the ads and told the carver thus. The carver of the wheel would then respond to the customer, which would usually include a bonk on the head with a T-rex leg bone. Soon it was bad practice to hit paying customers over the head, and “the customer is always right” saying was born.

What struck me odd at the time was the anger he displayed. We are so used to putting a spotlight on our emotions for all the world to see. Do I really need to see this guy wrestle with a little plastic sign? Do I really need to hear a couple fighting about intimate details of their lives? Do I really need to know who is on “Jerry Springer” today? For some reason we have gotten into the habit of feeding our anger, showing it off, having it perform for absolutely total strangers.

The big question is: Can we control our anger, or does our anger control us?

I choose to believe that we all have the capacity to stop and take a breath before we say or do something we will regret.

Brian Farr

Crescent City

Thanks to C. Renner Petroleum, Pacific Power for turbine help

I would like to take this opportunity to thank C. Renner Petroleum for its time and expertise recently donated to install our new Skystream 3.7 wind turbine at Crescent Elk Middle School.

The installation team did a fantastic job of securely raising our turbine, and then diagnosing an electrical problem. After waiting until Monday for uploading new specifications via computer, our turbine reached output spikes of 4,500 watts on strong gusts of wind. Our computer monitor allows us to see exactly how much power is generated in real time.

We are lucky to have a certified wind turbine installer right here in our community, as well as a distributor of the magnificent Skystream 3.7, in C. Renner Petroleum.

I would also like to thank Pacific Power and its Blue Sky Grant program. Without its funding and strong interest in seeing projects of this type take hold in Northern California, we would not have this opportunity to learn about wind power in Crescent City.

Joe Gillespie

Science teacher

Crescent Elk Middle School

Let freedom ring: Don’t forget the Berlin Walls in our own lives

This is in regards to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It divided people from the freedom of entrance and exit. It was kept so by soldiers. Near it were earth-smothering circles of barbed wire. Some simply called it The Wall.

Oh, if only one could have seeped within its fibers, the stories it may have let fall upon that being’s ears. How wet with tears would that being have become, for surely those tears were shed and carried across to live within that wall along with its stories of fear and weary loneliness. How difficult it would have been to view the evil which had caused it to be formed, how cold the corridors of hate that lived there. Then came the prayers of hope, the faith and struggles for a better tomorrow that served to warm yet other corridors.

And then at last, came forth the cries of those imprisoned behind and before the walls, who longed to hold loved ones once again, to walk forth at last onto long-forbidden land. So happy were the mothers who carried babies born years ago, or yet within the womb, to know their children would have true hope for the future.

Bit by bit, powdery bits of mortar began to drift downward from the walls as the lovers of freedom climbed to its top, no longer threatened with death by those once their guards.

Soon more than hand-held tools touched the wall’s surface as chunks, then whole pieces, of the mortar fell on what was now at last free soil.   Giant snips cut through the surface of the barbed wire and heavy boots jumped upon it to drive it into the ground beneath. Much of the evil remained undestroyed for it lived on in the hearts of some of its population still, and those leaving knew they fled a threat that would live on and need always to be struggled against … least walls once more form.

It was a terrible wall and a joy to watch it fall, to hear the shouts of freedom ring out from those upon its tumbling surface as they worked to bring about its demise.

Let us not forget the walls in our own life and pray that the evil that threatens still shall fall, leaving only that which is … in the hearts of all … that which is good and right. Let freedom ring.

Vickey Stamps

Crescent City