Fathers

As the the departure time for our UK/Ireland trip drew near, I began considering what poetry I would pack and haul along with me.  First and foremost was to be a collection of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel prize winning Irish poet who passed away just a few months ago.  

I don’t know anything about Heaney, so I placed a copy of a recent title of his in my Amazon.com basket -- and never quite got around to ordering it early enough to pack.  Fair enough, thought I.  Dublin will a fine place to pick up a copy of Haney. Sure enough, the Hughes & Hughes Bookseller store just off St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin had plenty of Heaney titles, and along with a birding guide of Europe, my stack of traveling books got two texts heavier. 

I eventually opened Heaney’s New Selected Poems 1966-1987 on day two here at Holy Hill Hermitage in Co. Sligo.  I must say, much of what he writes about has such an Irish flavor that I feel I need a primer on local history to follow his threads of thought. 

Still, the concept of father grabbed me with the first poem I read.  A few lines from ‘Digging’: 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into the gravely ground:

My father, digging, I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging...

By God, the old man could handle a spade. 

Just like his old man...

And, of course, such a remembrance of Heaney’s made me consider my old man.  

I think about Dad often, but especially on this trip.  Having spent a few years of his young life in England in the US Army Air Corps during World War II, he told us a few stories of that dangerous time that have stuck with me.  Like when the ship on which he and hundreds of his comrades crossed the Atlantic sailed into the Firth of Clyde in Scotland after a week of radio silence to avoid enemy detection.  Story goes that Allied air support would survey the ocean for approaching ships.  One such recon sortie spotted a quantity of flotsam on the water and making a reasoned judgement, assumed the Aquitania, my father’s ship, had been sunk by a German U-boat.  All were surprised and delighted to find everyone intact.  

Dad’s place of duty was Bury St. Edmunds, England, where he worked in the kitchen cooking for crews of airmen who flew over Europe on bombing missions.  One of his most poignant stories was that guys flying out would leave their wallets behind, knowing that if they didn’t come back, whatever cash was in those wallets would buy a few rounds of drinks for the guys that did.  Even late in his life Dad couldn’t listen to taps without choking up with tears.  I witnessed that more than once.

Back when I was a kid, like my other brothers, I’d help him on occasional jobs when he installed floor covering on weekends and in the evenings to raise a little extra money for the family.  He did the same gig for Rike’s, a local department store, full time.  Later on in his career he went out on his own to ‘lay’ carpet and linoleum.  One summer I worked with him and honest to goodness, I’ve never seen a man sweat so much.  Imagine one guy -- with a little help from me -- jockeying a 400 pound roll of carpet, getting it into position, cutting it perfectly, then kicking the edges into the tack strip to make the installation secure.  Heavens.  He made it clear, by the way, that none of his sons would follow in his career footsteps.  We were all going to school.

I remember, too, plenty of Sunday mornings in my late teens when he would get me up early so we could make it to church on time to serve as acolytes for the 5:45 AM service at church.  It didn’t matter what time I had gotten in the night before.  We made it to church and performed our duties.  It was about then, too, when he would take me out driving after church when the streets were pretty empty.  Such was a special time for both of us.  

And then last week when Cindy Lou and I were in London walking along the Thames over by Westminster Abbey, I found myself in tears.   We had happened upon the Battle of Britain memorial.  Oh, my.  The airmen in the monument stood out in proud relief.  I could see my father among them.  I didn’t expect the tears, but there they were.  Pride in my father’s contributions in that war effort was rich and heartfelt.

Seamus Heaney writes of his father’s influence on him, even from the grave.  I feel some of that, too, I suppose.  For me, though, I’d have to say I felt it most authentically a while ago this evening when I went out into the dark for a slow amble down the little two-lane road in front of our hermitage. The moon was full, the air still, and the murmur of the Ardnaglass River carried through the trees.  Took me back to one of the nights Dad had us kids out for an all-night fishing adventure.  

Because of him, I’ve concluded, I love Nature as much as I do -- so much so that I’d travel across the sea for the chance to have a quiet week where I can listen for birds; photograph flowers; enjoy an amazing sunrise -- and warm, Irish rain; and drive up into the Ox Mountains just to get the best panorama of the countryside possible.  

He was one of the best Nature lovers I’ve ever known.  Thanks for showing me the way, Dad.

Today’s elder idea:  Might be a computer for me, but you get the idea:  the finishing lines from Seamus Heaney’s ‘Digging’: 

  

...I’ve no spade to follow men like that. 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests. 

I’ll dig with that. 

images:  top:  Dad in his early 20s;  mid:  Battle of Britain Memorial detail, London;  bottom: moon out on the road by our place in Ireland. 

Problems of history

 A number of year ago, I remember hearing that history was written by the ‘victors.’  My first reaction was to bristle at the concept that the actual story of what happened in a particular battle or historical era was constructed through the bias of the folks who had either won a political victory or vanquished a particular enemy.  The more I thought about it, though, and the more I critiqued the history I taught and so much personally loved, I began to realize that, though such a criticism might be taken with a grain of salt, much truth resided therein.

Yesterday while Cindy Lou and I were on our ‘London in one day’ tour, starting at the Tower of London, I began to think back on another history lesson I began to appreciate a few decades ago.  Back then I was in a Massachusetts cemetery spending some time at the grave of Emily Dickinson.  Where I come from on the eastern fringe of the Midwest, the oldest local graves I ever found were early 19th century.  Woodland Cemetery in Dayton dates back to a time when cities established lovely wooded reserves as final resting places for deceased residents on the outskirts of town.  Graves were even moved from downtown burial plots to the more centralized Woodland in order to open up areas for development, I presume.  

But in Amherst, Massachusetts where Ms. Dickinson is buried, I noticed headstones with dates more than a century older those I had found at home.  It struck me in a moment of realization that American history in New England was, in fact, much, much older than anything I had grown up to learn about my part of the country.  Such a realization strikes me now as a ‘well, duh’ moment, but at the time it really made an impression on me. 

I had a similar reaction at the Tower of London yesterday when I learned that the oldest part of the structure was begun by none other than William the Conquerer, a Norman monarch who changed the island nation’s history close to a millennium ago on the field at Hastings when the claimant to the throne of Edward the Confessor, Harold, was defeated when a particularly well placed arrow struck  him in the eye.  That was 1066, the year I learned in an English linguistics class that marked the end of the Old English period.  Not only would the government of England be changed, but their language as well.

I was eager to listen to our guide, a Yeoman Warder, more commonly known as a Beefeater, who, moving from one spot to another, told us little snippets of British Tower history.  When we got to the site where a round slab of marble with a glass pillow, centered, marked the spot where Anne Boleyn lost her head when she failed to give Henry VIII a male heir, she ticked off the charges made against many of Henry’s wives before they were executed.  Among most of them was ‘adultery.’  No mention of Henry’s indiscretions or discussion of trumped up charges against the women was ever attempted.  

A few minutes later when I was able to talk with the Beefeater as our group moved on, I asked about Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of my favorite characters in English history made famous by Katherine Hepburn in the movie A Lion in Winter.  Both the Yeoman Warder and our guide for the day, Nick, reached back into their recollections to agree that, indeed, Eleanor was imprisoned by her husband, Henry II, for some time in another place, and that she had been kept at the Tower of London for 19 years for her ‘protection.’  I questioned the irony of the use of the word ‘protection,’ and they seemed a little shocked and repeated that, yes, it was for her protection.  Since my knowledge of English history is sketchy at best, I dropped the questioning, but walked on wondering about it nonetheless.

And so today I write on the problem of history.

I know as Americans we have black times in our past when native people were brutally driven off their land, slaves from Africa controlled as vital parts of local economies, and Japanese Americans’ interred during World War II because the powers that be in Washington decided so.  Trust me, the Brits have a black list a whole longer just because they’ve been at governance a whole lot longer than the US.  

I’ve always felt embarrassed about America’s intolerance and social mistakes, but I didn’t get that sense from our guides at the Tower yesterday about their past.  I came to conclude, in part, that telling the story of your country’s actions that might be determined unsavory is just part of the burden of retelling the story of your ancestors.  Surely value judgements can be made about what went on, but having a long history means that both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things are part of the victor’s tale.  

And besides, I suppose it’s really about where people are today.  What has a country learned?  Where has that led them?  How has their history brought them to the place in the present time where citizens, immigrants, and visitors are treated under the law?

I have to say that what I see in London is truly amazing.  It took us a couple days to find a person actually born and raised in this country.  So many different kinds of people are everywhere.  Our guide yesterday said something like three hundred languages are spoken here.  Regardless of the criticisms that can be made about the United Kingdom’s past, it surely is a place today where all are welcomed. 

Today’s elder idea:  On our first tour the other day, when telling of bloody and unfortunate times on the island, our guide reflected, ‘Such was a bad time to be here.’  And so it is with some times in history.

images:  top:  Henry VIII (from Wikipedia); below:  changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace the other day

Long awaited

Back in 2005 when Cindy Lou retired from the classroom, she talked about how she’d like to take me to England as her big celebration trip.  Sounded great to me. 

Now here it is 2013 -- and we’re finally taking flight tomorrow afternoon for London.  A first for me.  A third for Cindy Lou.  An adventure for us both! 

It’s not that we didn’t want to get off our chairs and jet off to the United Kingdom.  We started the reservation process a couple of times, but other things just seemed to get scheduled and, well, you know how that goes.  

A bunch of this trip was designed with the help of an American Automobile Club counselor, but the centerpiece of the excursion, as far as I’m concerned, is a week at Holy Hill Hermitage in County Sligo, Ireland.  If you and I chat very often, you are aware of my affection for the Nada Hermitage in Crestone, Colorado.  Been there a couple of times and even hauled a grandson to Crestone for a family week a year ago.  Nada is operated by the Spiritual Life Institute.  The SLI runs Holy Hill as well. 

If the truth be told, though, Cindy’s highlights will be in London and vicinity.  She’s eager to get me out in the neighborhoods where she says, “Everything you see is some part of history you’ve already read about.”  She even bought tickets for us to see Spamalot -- in London!  I cannot imagine a better place to experience the Monty Python mentality than in England’s capital city!  

Right now it’s mid-evening the day before we fly.  My suitcase and carry-on are assembled and waiting at the front door.  They’ll get a couple small things yet tomorrow morning, but they’re ready to fly.  I’ve assembled a few books of poetry for the trip and look forward to visiting a London bookstore for a leisurely peruse.  I have an updated poetry notebook prepared and another steno book ready for thoughts and ideas.  A few good pens and pencils are stowed, as well.  And, of course, there is the laptop that will provide the communication link to the outside world.  No phones this time, smart or otherwise.  I am looking forward to an experience without tons of technology.  Digital photography should be amazing. 

I will be blogging along the way and including some images of what we experience.  I hope you’ll stop by The Back Porch over the next three weeks to see how it’s going.  

Did I say yet how excited I am to get to Holy Hill?  ;-)

Today’s elder idea:  The tag line on the Holy Hill website:  

A retreat centre where people of all faiths can immerse themselves in silence, solitude, and beauty along the west coast of Ireland.  

For more on Holy Hill, see:  http://www.holyhill.ie

Purpose

Back in the day when the clock rang at 6 am and both Cindy Lou and I groaned about getting up in the winter dark for showers, lunch making, and heading off to school at an ungodly hour, life had plenty of purpose.  We’d show up at our buildings with smiles on our faces to work with 100+ young people each every day, trying our best to lead them to writing, thinking, and academic success.

Following our retirement, though, purpose has been a bit more difficult to discern. 

For me, I must say, the transition was not too hard.  I’m a morning person who likes to get up when the sun does (well, not at 5 am in the summer!) to get my day going.  It usually begins with a glass of orange juice or chocolate milk and thirty minutes of personal time with the Dayton Daily News, sitting next to our lovely dining room windows, reading and watching the Natural world getting going for another day.  Pretty soon it’s off to my computer for another news update, catching up with email, and maybe getting going on a new blog entry or continued work on other writing.  Generally speaking, I don’t have trouble finding stuff to do.  

For Cindy Lou it’s been a bit more difficult.  She’s one of those folks who is a slow daily starter, but then by evening she might get a burst of energy and stick with a project until 3 am.  The other night she unpacked and photographed the entire collection of demitasse cups and saucers left to her by her mother.  Must be at least thirty sets, I’d say.  It’s easy to understand, then, why she likes to sleep late into the morning.  Besides, I am advised, her vivid dreaming is just kicking in about dawn and heavens, does she love getting involved in those and so many other fictional narratives. 

I’ve heard plenty of folks say that they don’t look forward to retirement because they are afraid they’ll be bored.  A month or so of sleeping late and they won’t know what to do with themselves.  I think some are concerned, too, that hanging out all day in the same space as their spouse will get on everybody’s nerves before too long.  And I’m sure that can happen. 

  

I offer these situations, including the lovely Cindy Lou’s, as case studies of those who somehow struggle with what to do with unassigned time.  Employment undoubtedly gives our day purpose.  No daily preassigned job equals a different personal equation. 

I don’t know that I have a definitive solution to this conundrum facing so many of us Baby Boomers these days.  Maybe what I have to say is specific to those morning types who love to engage with a new day, just because.  If one is not made up that way, I suspect it could be a perpetual challenge for later years. 

For me, though, it seems to resolve around the concept of zen.  Not zen meditation so much, though I’ve tried that unsuccessfully a handful of times.  For me it has more to do with finding some good thing to do today because it calls out for attention.  

Wikipedia says zen used as an adjective means ‘extremely relaxed and collected.‘  I suppose when one relaxes and considers the day, a zen purpose emerges.  Cindy Lou might use the term gestalt, since that is so big in her professional and personal background.  Wikipedia defines gestalt as ‘a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts.’  I like to think of it as being grounded in the moment.  

In any case, as a member of the working class, purpose might not be hard to define.  Answer the bell, do your work, and enjoy Reds games on summer evenings.  

But for those who struggle with unassigned days, I think taking time daily to stop and quietly listen for the voice or spirit or whatever the entity -- or non-entity -- can offer the insight needed to lead us into good work that the world needs, whether it’s holding babies at Children’s Medical Center or raising tomatoes in the front yard.  Some purpose surely has broader and deeper ramifications, but all daily purpose works toward the good of the one, which overall is beneficial for the whole community.  

As solitary as we might be, we’re all in this together.  Finding personal purpose and working on it makes the world in which we all live a better place and from what I can tell, is much better for one’s health.  

Today’s elder idea:  Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.  It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. 

Helen Keller

image:  Scavenged from Google search at purpose.edelman.com

Home

for Jerry Thaman 

1.

I said good-bye to him on Friday night 

and learned on Sunday afternoon 

he had lost consciousness.  

Such was drug induced but the only 

alternative to intensifying pain. 

I gave him a lucid week or more 

when I grasped his hand that night, 

looked into his eyes, 

and told him I loved him

and that there was much love present

to help in whatever happened next -- 

that lots of people were sending energy

for whatever was needed. 

His grip and his eyes showed something 

that seemed like understanding.

2. 

I walked out into that warm Florida night

and just stood by the rental car in the dark, 

not wanting to get in --

not wanting this next part --

my going away from him for what would inevitably be 

the last time on this plane of existence -- to begin. 

Next time I see him, I thought, 

he’ll be in an urn.  I cringed, 

but knew that it was true.  

I turned around in the palpable darkness, 

facing the porch-lit house 

to consider what was inside: 

a dying fifty year old man

with all three natural brothers at his side, 

or at least in the room.  A sister.  A sister-in-law.  A niece.  

The hospice nurse that everybody likes so much. 

And a wife, exhausted, crashing while the others

hold vigil before her shift, motivated by love, 

begins again. 

3.

I don’t know much about death. 

I understand hospice practitioners refer

to the process of dying as a transition: 

a gradual easing from the world of the living 

into a place of unconsciousness where the body 

can let go of the life spirit, freeing it from matter

to become part of whatever it is that happens next.  

I only hope that when he began moving in that direction 

it felt at least as good as home. 

Tom Schaefer

23 September 2013

prior & post Jerry’s leaving

Island time

Yow.  I know my goal is to write here weekly but that it’s usually more like once every couple of weeks.  I’ve never missed a whole month.  Until now.  Sorry about that.  

But know that life has been rich.  I was able to spend two of the last five weeks on stunning Hog Island in Maine.  Most of that time was spent scrubbing pots in the kitchen, but it was done with good people for a good cause:  feeding moms ‘n dads ‘n grandfolk ‘n kids that made up Family Camp.  That means about 60 folks for each meal, including the big lobster feast their last night on island.  

Lots of silverware and plates went through the Hobart.  I took it upon myself to sweep the dining room after every meal, which meant lifting a raft of heavy chairs first, then sweeping, then lifting them all down.  I almost always got help from one or two folks moving chairs, which was much appreciated.  And, it should be noted, my sweeping technique proved to be quite effective, if I don’t say so myself.  ;-)

Aside from the busy days at the Hog Island Audubon Camp, I did take time off from my volunteer responsibilities for some personal island meditation -- and came away a bit different from when I came aboard.  Islands can do that to you, I’m told.  Still, this was a special stay on Hog Island for me.  

It was thirty-two years ago this July when I made my first visit to the Audubon Ecology Workshop in Maine on Hog Island.  With a non-scientific brain in a very scientific atmosphere, I made some good friends and discovered a piece of Emily Dickinson history that would impact the rest of my life.  

As you know, I am writing a second book of Hog Island history, once again focusing on the family of Mabel Loomis Todd.  Miss Todd, as all Dickinson scholars know, is the person most responsible in the world for our being exposed to Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters. She brought important pieces of Emily’s poetry into a public place where we all can grapple with their complexity and beauty.    

And, oh, some of those letters are as rich as the poetry.  We have Mrs. Todd to thank for saving them. 

Eighteen years after the publication of that first volume of Poems by Emily Dickinson, Mabel Todd went in with a friend from Boston to purchase huge tracts of Hog Island, which was said to be one of the largest pieces of spruce island wilderness left on the Maine coast.  She would come to build a compound of summer buildings on the west side of the island that she would call her Camp Mavooshen, a term celebrating Native American influence in the region.  She spent many summers there.  

Mabel Todd and her husband, David, spent time most every summer from 1909 on in the Hog Island area.  First they stayed at the summer camp of the other Hog Island investor, Etta Glidden, who had a summer place of her own at Martin’s Point, located on Bremen Long Island near Friendship.  Day trips on the water took the Todds to Hog where they climbed, hiked, waded, had lunch, and marveled at the beauty of the place. 

By 1910, the Todds spent weeks at the Point Breeze Inn and Bungalows, also located on Hog Island, but on the developed small, northeast peninsula.  The Point Breeze opened as a summer resort in 1908 and was the proud home of a small group of New York and New Englanders wanting a place out of the heat where they could read, listen to music, commune with nature, and find some peace in America’s vacation land of Maine.  

By 1915, the Todds occupied buildings at their family compound and took on the tasks of improving the property and living a comfortable summer life there.  And they did.  

In any case, on the two days when different groups of campers trekked the island, I asked if I could meet them at Camp Mavooshen.  There I talked with everybody about the family and what went on there.  I ended up going on a bit too much about Emily, as it turned out, but it felt so good talking about the Todds in that place that meant so much to them.  At another time that week I read aloud Mrs. Todd’s unfinished essays about the island, The Epic of Hog.  I concluded it was most probably the first time in decades that writing was heard in that place.  Felt pretty damned good.  

Near the end of my time on Hog Island, I found myself on a Sunday afternoon composing my eleventh new poem of this road trip.  I very creatively called it ‘Hog Island 11.’  

I leave it with you today.  

Today’s elder idea:

Hog Island 11

The most vivid memory of my first 

coming to Hog Island long ago 

is sitting behind the Fish House

on huge expanses of exposed granite 

watching a yellow orange sun 

rise over Bremen Long Island while 

the bay was still morning still at mid-tide.  

The only sound was silence

and the occasional lobster rig’s diesel 

and cawing American crows

announcing the day and direction overhead. 

It was transformational.

I remember.

Here I am again on the east side 

just south of the Slade cottage, 

only now on a Maine-cool August

afternoon thirty-two years later, 

loving how the sun spotlights Crow Island, 

while this side of Hog experiences

the first sensation of dusk. 

Little water traffic this blue sky Sunday.

Not many birds, either.

A second cormorant takes off, 

slapping water with wingtips 

as speed and lift build in the cooling air currents.  

No gulls, no loons, no warblers, no osprey. 

No seals. 

The lap of rising tide on granite

headdressed with sea wrack the nearest sounds.  

Crickets have begun their evening discourse.

Now a red squirrel rattles.  Other of Nature’s people, 

unrecognized, add to the Natural conversation.

I try to be grounded here in paradise,

wanting to know what new life is born 

of this visit:  

          the hope to be more prepared 

to tell Mrs. Todd’s story fairly and with color -- 

animating dear David & Millicent & Mr. Lailer -- 

seeing the Mother move about her island life 

seeking to shed New England tensions and find peace 

astride this spruce covered eruption of rock and soil

bringing loved ones’ lives to ‘God’s own heaven,’

where circadian rhythm adjusts all quieter

and, after a morning of hard work, able to savor 

an hour prostrate on a forest of moss 

or lying prone in the hammock behind the main house

bordering a universe of ferns, watching 

treetops dance in the afternoon breeze. 

Tom Schaefer

on Hog Island 

25 August 2013

Informed opinions

I must say, there are times when I put the daily paper down after having read the opinion page when I don’t feel very good about my Dayton neighbors.  Comments that demonize whole classes of people as less-than-worthless Americans makes me shake my head and wonder what kind of world we not only live in, but are leaving to our grandchildren.  

Informed opinions, I think, are key to the process of making the world a better place for everybody.  

One aspect of the daily newspaper that I always enjoyed perusing was the newspaper’s opinion on issues.  These are the people, after all, who are out interviewing folks and trying to get to the bottom of issues by ferreting out the facts.  

Oddly enough, in recent changes the Dayton Daily News has opted out of writing regular editorials.  Instead, they ask readers what they think about the issues, then assemble a variety of public opinion to print on the editorial page.  

Don’t get me wrong:  I like letters to the editor, even if I shake my head when I’m done reading.  Still, public opinion does not take the place of the newspaper’s thought process. 

With that in mind, I wrote a letter the other day to Julia Wallace, editor of the Dayton Daily News, expressing my disappointment with the paper’s new practice of running only syndicated columnists and ‘letters to the editor.’  

I thought I’d share it with you: 

***

Dear Ms. Wallace:   

I am a dedicated fan of local news and, therefore, a subscriber of the Dayton Daily News.  As a former Journal Herald newspaper carrier in my youth and a retired teacher who employed Newspaper in Education issues in my high school history classrooms, I’ve not only used the Dayton Daily News myself, but encouraged my students to be aware of its value as well. 

That being said, sometimes I’m a little slow on the pick-up.  I just realized that recent changes to the Dayton Daily News editorial page leaves readers without opinions regularly written by DDN editorialists. 

I understand that the editorial department queries readers for their opinions on a variety of subjects and publishes them.  This practice certainly continues a long and proud tradition of giving Miami Valley residents and others a venue to publish and have their voices heard. 

But asking residents their opinions is not the same as the Dayton Daily News publishing its own viewpoint.  As a newspaper actively gathering news and therefore aware of trends and practices in local governance and business through news gathering and interviewing decision makers, your writing staff is in the unique position to understand more than the rest of us about what is really going on. 

I find your investigative reporting crucial.  Answering the all important who, what, where, when, and why questions provides readers with the information needed to comprehend issues.  Still, I would like to know what you -- meaning your editorial department -- think about what is happening.

Tonight on televised news, a report quoted a number of Virginia newspapers’ opinions on the questionable behavior of their governor.  I realized then that the Dayton Daily News no longer has the capability for synthesizing and explaining government practices via editorial columns.  

I, for one, am disappointed as well that the Dayton Daily News has given up the progressive bias of your founding editor, James M. Cox.  In today’s news, I recognize the practice of giving editorial voice to both sides in the persons of syndicated columnists and cartoonists.  As a Democrat, I miss the Dayton Daily News’ leaning to the left.  I am sure in this day and age Mike Peters would never have been given the editorial cartooning post at the News.  My guess is, the DDN would not even have an editorial cartoonist and just print syndicated postings for fear of being called a liberal rag by conservative critics.  

I think that the opinion of the Dayton Daily News is important to many of us in the Miami Valley.  We certainly don’t need to agree, but to read the opinion of the local print standard that has by definition paid attention to all the details, is a most valuable service to the Miami Valley community.  I feel that by your withdrawing from this practice/responsibility, the Dayton Daily News has left our hometown area diminished.  

***

Today’s elder idea:   Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. 

Mark Twain