Dear Neighbor:

I don’t know you and you won’t see this. Even if you did, you wouldn’t change, or the behavior you exhibit wouldn’t happen. Remember this is a one lane gravel road with only 7 houses on it’s 8/10 mile length. It is a road that some of us like to walk for it’s hilly pastoral beauty.

However, you seem to think that someone magic is cleaning up your plastic cups, bottles, cigarette packs, and cans. It isn’t someone magic, it is your neighbors who do care what our rural road looks like.

You also seem to think this is a freeway and you have the right of way regardless when you speed up or down it at 45 mph around the bend in your sporty 2 wheel drive sedan, nearly hitting me as a pedestrian, almost causing a head on collision, or leaving those of us who have lived here for 20 or more years and proceed with caution, nowhere to get out of your way. Oh, and when the hilly road is covered with snow or ice and your 2 wheel drive sedan can’t get up it, abandoning it in front of a driveway for several days until it get’s towed by the State Police is more than inconsiderate.

Sincerely,

Your neighbor

Insecurity and fraud

I am extremely careful on the internet, social media, with online purchases, and very judicious with the use of a credit or debit card out in the world, yet once again, my credit card has been breached. We belong to USAA and they are great at catching the fraudulent use, catching 3 attempts to use it for about $1600 worth of ticket purchases in Houston. However, they did not notify me this time, we saw the declined attempts on our statement when another suspicious pending charge appeared. My card has yet again been shut down and a new one being processed for me. This is a tough time of year for it to happen, with the holiday’s approaching, as I don’t like to shop, don’t care for crowds, and currently due to DH’s injury, don’t leave the house for any length of time short of quick grocery or med runs.

Then to add to this frustration, today we went to pick up a regular prescription for DH to find that with the Rx insurance for which we pay dearly, the 90 days refill was more than double what it was last time it was refilled. Without insurance, the med was less than the old insurance cost. So we pay almost 3 times the med cost to use the insurance that we pay for to reduce or help pay for the medications required. I don’t understand how the insurance companies get away with that. It approaches fraud. How can the co-pay be much more than the cost of the medication.

How can other countries provide free or inexpensive medical care and free or inexpensive medications while our costs continue to rise.

Karen or Ken

Why have we become such an entitled society that such terms exist? I would hate to have the name or have named one of my children one of those names. I think it is unconscionable that names have been used to define those that feel entitled. Posts on social media are rife with stories of those that feel so entitled to cause physical or emotional pain or inconvenience to others.

Recently a social media friend made an offer to make a purchase for me from a craftsman that lives thousands of miles from me and whose shop I could not possible visit. She reached out to several other friends to purchase for them as well. My new fiber tool arrived yesterday and it is gorgeous, but I kept it to myself, only letting the friend know it arrived. This particular craftsman does a few events on the West Coast near their home, does online updates of their products where dozens of folks vie to make a purchase when the update goes live, and often offers their products as prizes for challenges for an online group of their followers. Additionally, they provide some of their tools to a couple of their grandchildren for them to sell and learn economics and earn money for big events. The friend that made the purchases and another friend who benefited from her visit posted their new tools online, so I did also. The friend then received a not nice message from someone who felt that it was unfair that they didn’t have the opportunity as well. As a result, we took our shares down from the site. To me, this is just another example of feeling entitled and it was a very petty expression of the message sender as my friend had been invited to the craftsman’s house to make the purchases.

Folks, life isn’t always about you. It isn’t always “fair.” Practice restraint and kindness, it goes a long way to making this a better world.