Speakout 12/05

Sunday, December 5, 2004

When are you going to publish the High School Football All-Conference in the paper? The Dunklin Democrat had it in over a month ago.

All-conference and all-region teams ran in the Thursday, Dec. 2 paper, a day after the all-conference banquet.

A house on the corner of North West Street and Salcedo is decorated so neatly for Christmas. Anyone who is driving around to see the Christmas lights should go by there. It is just fantastic!

The man who has the lawn care service does not park his vehicle on school property. He parks on the street right-of-way. He mows the rights-of-way on Elm Street and Virginia Street at his own expense. He also helps the neighbors with their yard work. He is a good neighbor, especially to the elderly who can't get out to work in their own yards.

I live in Sikeston. People who live on the southwest side of town don't get your mail until after dark and don't get your paper until after 3 or 4 p.m. (sometimes after dark). If anyone thinking about moving to Sikeston, don't move to the southwest side of the city because there are not any "big wheels" who live by us. You can drive by the homes of big wheels early in the day and see the newspapers in their yards and the mail carriers deliver their mail early too. They must think we're just old dogs over here and deliver to us late in the day. We're the last ones on the totem pole. It would be nice if they could deliver our paper on time once in awhile and the mail delivery on time all the time, like they do in the big-shot neighborhoods.

We pay people in Sikeston to pick up our garbage twice a week. When there's a holiday during the week, our trash is only picked up once that week. We have gone as high as two weeks before they picked up our garbage and we still have to pay the same amount. I don't understand this. This is bad for rats and stuff in the city. We pay for it to be picked up and if a holiday is on a Thursday, and Thursday is your pick-up day, then your trash isn't collected until the following Monday.

I read the Monday SpeakOut where a woman said she had her living made because she was getting ready to have her third child. I have been saying this for years. These young people grow up on welfare. They know how to get in welfare, they know how to get their children and have medical needs paid for. They do sign up for every free thing given away. I have also been in homes where children have gotten more Christmas gifts than my only child because they are on every bank list, every church list, every donation list that comes around and the parents can drive the best and most expensive car there is, although they are not married. The young men are not taught to work; they are taught to do drugs. I am all for Paul Boyd and the judges to give them the maximum sentence they can each and every time they are caught out on the streets. It is a shame. You can go to other cities and you do not see the young men and women hanging on the corners like you see in Sikeston. You don't see the young women pushing baby carriages. Maybe they learned it from their parents who may have learned it from their parents. Education is free and that's what we need to be giving away - free education. Get these people off the welfare and off the streets.