Sayso

Saturday, August 03, 2002     Page: 9A

I’M CALLING IN to thank two gentlemen from Berwick on Saturday at the Giant
parking lot. Our dog got hurt, and they went out of their way to help us. The
dog is fine, but without their help, he would have bled to death. I want to
thank them very much. God bless them. I don’t know who they are. Thank you.
   
ISN’T IT SOMETHING? No “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. No flags in
national parks and certain housing areas. Yet when they televise the recovery
efforts in Somerset, almost every second word is pray or prayers. There are
flags all over the place, and the sign in front of the church says “God bless
our miners and their families.” For God’s sake, where is the ACLU?
    I’M CALLING ABOUT the United Methodist Church the Wyoming Conference having
that Wesley Village Retirement Home, but it is all the way up in Jenkins
Township, up in Pittston way. I wish they would build one down the
Wilkes-Barre area way to accommodate people from Mountain Top area, Sugar
Notch area, Ashley area, Nanticoke area.
   
I’M CALLING IN regards to the gay and lesbian store in Wilkes-Barre. I’m
reading today’s SAYSO’s and there’s three or four that are praising the place
and that it’s cool. Well I’m offering an opposite point of view. The place
should be burned down. These people should be sent to an island in the middle
of an ocean where they can catch their AIDS and they can just float into the
ocean and drown and stop corrupting our people.
   
I’M A KINGSTON resident most of my life and a taxpayer. I’d like to make a
comment on the absentee landlords. I don’t understand why absentee landlords
aren’t charged some kind of fee up front for all the problems they create in
neighborhoods that were decent neighborhoods at one time. What happens is they
rent to these Section 8’s and they are bringing in a lot of what we refer to
as … trash. And all you have to do is walk around a neighborhood and take a
look at some of the houses and yards with garbage laying all over the place
and not kept in containers with lids on and so on, and they keep them outside
their yards and in front of their houses. You look at these things and then
you have drugs coming into the neighborhood.
   
IN 1969 I joined the Marine Corps and volunteered for Vietnam. It was there
I was introduced to heroin. Ever since then I have been an addict for 33
years. Is it my own fault? Sure it is. I don’t blame nobody but me and the
devil. I had a wonderful wife and three beautiful children. I destroyed
everything that got in my path over drugs. My wife won’t talk to me; two of my
kids, who are highly educated, won’t talk to me. I have one daughter that
stands by my side through thick and thin. The other two children kind of say
they forgot where they came from. I’d like to say I know what a free will is,
but I don’t really believe I have one. I pray to God every day and every night
to give me help and strength to stop using drugs and it never works. Is it my
own fault? I always blame myself for all of these problems. But I want to
thank my one child who sticks by me through thick and thin.
   
EVERY TIME THESE greedy oil companies push the price of gasoline up, I
fight back the only way I can. I put $5 worth of gas in whenever I need it and
I drive less.