Not "Good News"

To the Editor:

As the doctor said, "The operation was a success but the patient died." That's what I thought when I read the letter from the Mayor telling us about the "good news" that St. Paul's might be turned into high-end condos. I thought we bought the property for community use, not to enrich developers. Condos will bring even more traffic to a beautiful residential area. More cars also mean more danger for the many children who use the excellent fields for athletics. That all seems too high a price to pay for what's basically just the preservation of a facade (in more than one sense).

If we truly cannot afford to save the building for community use -- and I'm not sure we've seen an unbiased study yet -- then maybe we should just say goodbye and tear it down, salvaging what we can for a smaller, affordable building to be built on site for community purposes. Selling a property for private use is the opposite of saving it for community use, which I thought was the sole reason we purchased the building and fields many years ago.

Andy McCann

Prepare For Battle

To The Editor:

Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road. Lions and tigers and bears, lions and tigers and bears. We're off to see the Wizard the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Expectations were high, the great and powerful wizard appeared on the giant screen evoking a gamut of emotions. And, as so often in real life, Toto pulled the curtain aside - revealing, revealing what?

We have reached the mid-point in the year of our Lord, 2006. May I write that or will the words be deemed politically incorrect, and if so, by whom and do I care? If nobody cares about anything, except for two things, why should I care? The word "care" is really a weak word. There must be an explosive, unequivocal, mind blowing word or phrase to express such universal malaise, the lack of caring. Read the last four words of "1984" by George Orwell.

At the end of each year media rehashes the events of the year, the highlights and lowlights of the year. I try to duck and dodge but for days our souls are laid bare. Why wait, it is the mid-point, where are we now?

No, I am not going to do it. You don't need me for that, you are perfectly capable of judging where we are and perhaps can see the future better than I. I will tell you if we continue to follow the yellow brick road the future will be grim.

We sorely lack leaders in our once great nation. We do have a bunch of politicians running around in circles chasing their tails, power and money. Mixed in the pack there may be a leader or two, a statesman or two but few and far between. If there had been any good ones they must have quit a long time ago. And behind the curtain stands the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. Great and powerful?

Elections are coming and we, the voter tax payers, have the power to make the necessary corrections. I believe in the Republic, the Democratic Process, I even understand the Theory of Representative Government but once we place politicians in office we lose control of them. I do not advocate anarchy, but, there is always a but, we must use the power of the ballot box to force change for the better.

Make a list of the five political issues which most impact your life. May I suggest you put confiscatory taxation at the top of your list? You could not vote directly upon any of the issues but somewhere, someplace, a politician did so. Yes, we must be patient. Yes, it does take time to solve major problems. We are so understanding that the creatures of spend and tax are laughing at our impotence.

Over the next several years the political demons will again be unleashed upon us. I swore I would not mention any names in this letter but why not? This is war! Ballots will be more deadly than bullets.

Because we have become such a peculiar and splintered nation we face in 2008 the possible election of the Clintons and in 2009 their return to our White House from which they left in disgrace in 2001. At this time I will not characterize the two creatures who continue to drag us down to their level, primordial slime. They have hurt us terribly.

Sadly, in this matter we are without innocence, we have been willing participants in the debauchery, seeking and accepting as cover the Clintons' stamp of approval. Faust redux, we have sold our souls to twin devils.

Now is the time to prepare for the battle to come. Elections in November of 2006 will provide the opportunity to get rid of those politicians, those incumbents, who for many reasons deserve to be kicked out. Do we deserve better? Well, perhaps not.

Defeating Mrs. Clinton and her sycophants in November 2006 will help to remove the sword which continues to hang over our heads. When she is beaten in her "home" state she will no longer be a viable candidate for, and I choke on the words, "The Presidency."

Edward J. Heaney

A Great Experience

To The Editor:

During the first week of July, when most people are celebrating the 4 th of July, going on summer vacations and relaxing at the beach, 56 youths and 12 chaperones from the Garden City Community Church went on a Mission Trip to Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Bayou La Batre is a poor shrimping town that was devastated by hurricane Katrina. I had the privilege of being a chaperone on that trip.

We met Sunday morning at LaGuardia Airport and flew to Washington, D.C., switched planes and flew on to New Orleans where we rented 12 mini vans. We caravanned from Louisiana, through Mississippi to our final destination, a Community Center in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Upon arrival, four staff members from youth works, the organization that ran our trip, greeted us and showed us where we would be spending the week. The boys were put up at the "Tarp Inn" which as tarped off corner of the gymnasium youth and leaders claimed their spot and spread their sleeping bags on the floor.

By comparison, the girls certainly had deluxe accommodations. We were lead up two separate staircases behind the stage to storage like areas that had triple level bunk beds, minus the mattresses. Our sleeping bags went on top of thin foam pads that we were happy to have.

The Community Center was air conditioned, had a small kitchen and his and hers bathrooms with 3 shower stalls each. One of the perks of being a leader was being able to cut the line for showers, a perk I was happy to take advantage of. The work days were long, hot and dirty and the lines for a shower were not something the youth looked forward to. We were told that after Katrina hit, 600 people were put up at the Community Center.

Our group was divided into work crews. Each crew was given a chore with the Community Center. The breakfast crew got up before everyone else to prepare and set up for, not only breakfast but lunch too. It was up to each of us to make our own lunch, bag it and put it in an assigned cooler that would go to the various worksites.

The clean up crew loaded dishwashers, scrubbed pots, put food away, wiped down tables and counters and swept floors. The bathroom crew cleaned toilets, sinks, showers and took out the garbage. The dinner crew and clean up were similar to breakfast. Everyone pitched in. Vans left for the work sites by 9 a.m. Half of us went to a nearby church that was badly damaged by the storm. The sanctuary was the only room habitable with air conditioning and a fresh coat of paint. Kids Club was held here.

Once our kids set up, we had to pick up small children from their homes. My route was the FEMA park that was set up on what used to be a baseball field, the score board was still standing. Paved black top roads, white pebble lawns, light posts, cars, kids toys, bikes, wandering pets, a common shower trailer at the end and kids outside waiting to be picked up by total strangers. No one stuck their head out the door to see who was picking up their child. For me, that was a very unsettling feeling.

There was no "getting to know you" time, these kids were ours from the start. A little one seemed to latch on to one of our youth and they were pals for the rest of the day. It was almost unnatural the physical and emotional need these children have. A smile, a kind word, a hug, a held hand and everyone's favorite, a piggy back was all it took.

Our youth were so unbelievably giving. These children were often dirty, the kind of dirty that comes from missing more than one bath. At one point one of our boys was on his hands and knees with two kids on his back. One in front, hitting him with a rope and one in back, hitting him with a flip flop. The ground he was on was not a nicely manicured lawn but a work site.

His hands and knees had to hurt. When those kids shouted "faster!", he went faster and all three were laughing. It was a moment of joy in the middle of this great mess and that was just one of many.

When the arts & crafts, songs, skits and outdoor games were over, it was time to bring the little ones back to the FEMA park. After hugs, kisses, "you are my bestest friend", "can you come see my room?", "will I see you tomorrow?", we left them by their trailers with no one sticking their head out the door to see that they got back safely. There were 8 people in one child's trailer and everyone in the park is being evicted as of August 31st.

Our teens were loving, caring, nurturing and a lot of fun to be with. They were selfless and always wanted to do more. Their desire to make these kids happy was something beautiful to see, I'm lucky to have been a part of it.

After 2 days of doing Kids Club, the work teams switched places with the construction site teams. Two houses were adopted through some process that measured their degree of need. While driving down the block the first day looking for the house we were to work on, we topped at every house thinking this must be the place. The houses are literally falling down, debris is everywhere and there is a trailer on the property for the families to live in.

When we arrived at our house we had a hard time comprehending why the previous team came back so tired and dirty, it looked like they hadn't touched the place. After a few minutes of utter shock we went to work. Demolition, hauling trash, insulating, sheet rocking, painting with mold and mildew killing primer and roofing after tar papering and getting the roofing shingles up onto the roof.

The house my team worked on was destroyed not because of flooding like the other house that was adopted but because the roof was like a sieve. These people lost everything. It was hard to determine what was trash and what was the "to keep" pile. There were piles in the yard that were covered with plastic, held with a few bricks then covered with pieces of old wood paneling. Under the plastic were the family belongings, clothes, hangers, books, pocketbooks with papers still in them.

Working with the children was emotional because it was direct people contact, working on these houses stirred a completely different set of emotions. Your first thought is to call a bulldozer but after a few minutes of picking through stuff, you see that their lives are strewn throughout the yard.

I praise our youth for the compassion they showed and for the respect they had for the family and their belongings. The thought of wearing clothes that have been outside for 10 months with who knows what kind of animal nesting in them in unthinkable. Our teens were humbled that day.

Our groups worked very hard, probably harder than they have ever worked in their lives. Hot, tired, mosquito bitten, blistered hands, hurting thumbs due to lack of experience with a hammer and the knowledge that when they get back they have to wait their turn for a shower. All this and not one complaint.

This trip was an unbelievable experience for these young people. They were challenged in many ways and each time they stepped up to the plate and shined. Opportunities like this can be life changing. I guarantee that not one person who went to Bayou La Batre came back the same person, myself included. We all left a piece of our heart in Alabama.

Hats off to Ian Rottenberg, Youth Minister at the Garden City Community Church. He is a gift to us all.

In closing, I invite and encourage other community groups to organize trips like this for their youth. At Sunday's service the kids shared their experiences with the congregation. The pride and respect we, as a community, felt for our young people at that service was overwhelming. Teens, for the most part are good and decent, sometimes they just have to be shown the way.

Janice Mazzari