Speak Out 5/8/15

Poplar Bluff's

dirty politics

Mr. Bagby was escorted from his office by police for whatever his crime was. Mr. Rushin breaks a state law, refuses to vacate his council position and the rest of the council wants to make him mayor? Are you kidding? Does he think he is above the law? Can Poplar Bluff's politics get any dirtier?

Giving thanks

on birthday

You know being a God-fearin' man. Today is the 18th day of April and I'm 71 years old today. I'm by myself. I'm a very happy person and bein' God-fearin' I make no bets or nothin' like that, but if I was a bettin' man I'd bet a million dollars to one that I'll never make it another 71 years, but I thank the good Lord for these 71. He's put up with me. Woke me up. Picked me up when I was down. Carried me when I was down and helped me all these years, so I wanna just say one thing on this birthday of mine--Thank you, Father, for all these good years. Thank you for anything you're gonna give me afterwards because everyone of them was unexpected. Thank you. God bless everybody.

Where's the

skeeter truck?

What happened to the mosquito truck that used to go by about 50 miles an hour? Did Kaplan do way with it also? Those annoying insects could carry a person away.

City manager's

self love

We should have realized when the new city manager got here at the first meeting he announced that he had to look at the engineering plans on the project on 67 North that had been approved by both councils, which he doesn't know they are the approving councils, not him. Both councils approved it, let a contract. Smith had already had the plans drawn up and started to work on it. He announced that he had to stop it until he inspected the engineering plans.

I told my daughter who lives in a large Midwest metropolitan city and she said, we were sure lucky to be able to afford an engineer that was also a city manager. Unfortunately, their budget didn't allow them to pay as much for a city manager as we pay in Poplar Bluff. I think we should recognize his narcissism at that time. There's no place for that in a city manager. In case the city manager's Latin is a little rusty narcissism means "self love" in Latin.

Got to earn

right to play

In reference to "Players didn't try out for Bench." I understand the parents of the bench sitters frustration and embarrassment of watching their child ride the pines. As a former player I didn't like that seat either. What I learned from it was this -- it takes long, lonely hours of dedicated practice outside of that one hour of gym time. It takes the guts to stay no to drugs and alcohol when all the "cool" kids are doing it because you know it will affect your game. It takes a love of the game and a passion for it so strong that you're willing to work harder than everyone else to win. The right to be on the floor doesn't come overnight. It comes after thousands of hours with the ball in your hand. The right to be in the game must be earned by the child not by a disgruntled parent.