I am proud to have written several articles, opinion editorials and other works of interest for different social media outlets, local newspapers, radio stations and more. Please click on the links below to see and/or hear some of my contributions.
VIDEO
Desert Hot Springs Library Presents Local Author Series featuring Harrell Glenn Crowson
Radio Station KROP (Brawley, CA) interview of author Harrell Glenn Crowson
ARTICLES
The Desert Review August 14, 2013
Almost Eleven: The Murder Of Brenda Sue Sayers
OP-EDs
The Desert Sun August 11, 2016 (link not available)
None of The Above
by
H. Glenn Crowson
My first memorable election was in 1969 as a police officer in a small Southern California town. I was earning about $500 per month and the department had not received a salary increase in some time. Our sergeant told us that we might receive a raise if a certain person were elected mayor. He also advised us that as public servants, do not express political views on or off duty. We were instructed against engaging in political discussions, displaying candidates’ signs was prohibited, and placing a bumper sticker on our personal car was unthinkable.
The election took place without my involvement, and did not affect me at all. I got married a couple of years later, but I can’t blame that on the Mayor or City Council. Since then, due to a life of public employment, I have been subjected to many elections.
Trust me, I have seen numerous excellent citizens enter the arena and get elected. This country was built on small towns led by citizens who take the time out of their lives to build a community where the quality of life is the highest priority all this while not selling out the future of the town to an influential developer or a dangerous industry. Not-so-excellent candidates occasionally find their way to the ballot and win. Voters have a choice between good honest people and those more interested in ego, special privileges, and extra benefits. Reputation, motive, and experience ought to bring about the best person to win, though lately it seems the way to get elected is to have the most money, a large number of yard signs, and a strong affiliation with special interests.
Lately, most good, honest citizens decline to run for office. They do not want to subject themselves to the hassles of meetings almost every day or the frustration with the bureaucracy. On occasion, two or more undesirable candidates emerge leaving the voters with no choice. In that case the last choice on the ballot should be the following option: NONE OF THE ABOVE.
What would happen if we voters had the choice of total rejection? We could adopt a system where a local or regional judge would appoint a professional to serve in that vacant position on an interim basis until another election could be conducted as soon as possible. Of course, enduring a term without filling the vacancy could work. It might get expensive to continue to have elections until the voters’ selection is made, but putting some bonehead in office because of a default can prove more expensive. I once witnessed a City Council conducted business for over a year with only four of the five positions filled. They couldn’t agree on anything so few decisions were made. That may have been the best year that town had in a long time. If this system could work for local agencies, why can’t we adopt this procedure for the Presidential race? Give the voters another choice, NONE OF THE ABOVE. I’m still not taking sides. My old Sergeant would be proud.
The Desert Review August 24, 2014
Got Water?
by
H. Glenn Crowson
The State of California has finally recognized our drought. Cities, mostly in the Southern California desert, are imposing conservation methods and adopting restrictions on consuming water. It reminds me of a story concerning the fountain at the Plaza in Brawley.
During the early 1950s, my mother used to take me by the hand and walk downtown to cash my dad’s pay check. She didn’t believe in checking accounts.
She would go the Security Pacific Bank on the northwest corner of Sixth and Main Streets, get cash, and then proceed to pay her bills. After a quick visit with her sister who was working at JC Penney Department Store, making a payment at M. O. Kings Department Store, then some quick visits with Buck Watts at Brawley Appliance Store and saying hello to Marvin Lewis at his jewelry store, her last stop was City Hall to pay the water bill.
There she would instruct me to stand by the fountain outside the library and watch the water as it erupted from the top of the pedestal and sprinkled down the sides of the middle of the concrete structure. Sometimes there were fish swimming around in the six-inch depth, sometimes there were coins lying on the bottom, and sometimes there were nothing but gum wrappers and wet cigarette butts that had accumulated from discarded trash.
Nevertheless, the fountain served as a hypnotic babysitter while my mom went to pay our small, monthly fee for unlimited use of water at our house.
As I grew older, the fountain continued to represent a major part of my life, unnoticed, but always bubbling fresh water from its fountainhead.
During my elementary school days, it was a meeting place on our way to the Saturday matinee. We would tell our friends and our enemies to meet by the fountain outside the library after school. As we got older, it was a nice place to meet a girl who you did not have nerve enough to call on the telephone.
Then, as studies became more important, we would convince our parents that we had to go to the library for schoolwork that night. Unfortunately, my time at the library was not as intense as it probably should have been.
As a Brawley police officer during the early 70s, my memories of the fountain included hauling out drunks and hobos that used it as their personal hygiene facility. The Station would occasionally get calls concerning kids vandalizing the drain and causing the fountain to overflow.
I remember a live, three-foot sand shark left in the fountain by someone who had been fishing on the coast. The fountain was filled numerous times with soap causing bubbles to cascade from the fountain like a horror movie.
The fountain was improved over the years, new paint, tiles, attracting different kids, but the clean water continued to gurgle from the top. Never stopping.
In the late 70s-early 80s, I enjoyed the first and third Mondays when the Council would meet. On those evenings, the powers to be would gather around the fountain to discuss the upcoming city council meetings. To me, listening to those discussions around the fountain before council meetings revealed what life in Brawley was all about. Community leaders such as Pat Williams, Nick Pricola, Chuck Valenzuela, Abe Seabolt, Wayne Zills, Grace Hull, Louie Curiel, and John Benson would discuss the local news with never any concern for political correctness, only what was best for our community.
Back then, Brawley resisted change. The old school way was the only way. Serious projects that faced opposition were subdivisions without alleys, less than twice a week trash collection, parallel parking, and water meters. All of which eventually, but reluctantly, came to be.
It was during that time the federal government conveyed displeasure to say the least with Brawley’s water conservation efforts and the way treated water was discharged into the New River and eventually the Salton Sea.
First, they instructed the City to conserve water by installing meters on every residence. Second, they required the City to conduct secondary treatment of the sewer discharge. Even though the water discharged through its primary treatment facility was cleaner than the New River, it wasn’t clean enough for the Federal Government. The feds threatened to take the City to court with hefty fines and restrictions if the City did not comply.
Brawley traditionally resisted water meters. Their reasoning: Keeping the community green with lush lawns and trees would certainly be in jeopardy if financial limits were place on the use of our inexpensive residential water. No one wanted the community to end up looking like Palm Springs with gravel lawns and drought resistant landscaping. Also, the fear of dead trees and yellow, dried up lawns did not set right in our lush, bedroom community.
Back to our fountain: When the United States celebrated its Bicentennial in 1976, each city was encouraged to construct a project or program that would pay tribute to this national event.
The feds distributed heavy brass Bicentennial discs, about one foot in diameter, to be placed at each project. City Manager Walker Ritter advised me that the City Council had voted to renovate and beautify the fountain at the plaza. An artisan was hired to re-tile the structure and place a new fountainhead on top.
As Parks and Recreation Director, I told my parks foreman, Abe Gonzales, to rope off the fountain during this reconstruction and shut it down while it was being re-tiled. I also told him that while it was down, to replace the circulation pump and all valves.
Later that week in the evening, Abe came over to my house with some disturbing news. Very reluctantly, he reported that when the fountain was shut down, they could not find any circulation pump attached to the water line that supplied that fountain. Evidently, the fountain’s water level was controlled by adjusting the volume of water to the fountain. The drain, which was raised six inches from the bottom of the fountain, allowed the water to discharge directly into the Brawley’s sewer system. No recirculation system at all. We immediately placed the proper pump and electricity needed to recirculate water at the fountain.
I checked with long-time employees including Bob Lane, Jeff Kissee, Amos Jones, and several others. No one had any recollection of a circulation pump. That explained why when the drain was plugged, it overflowed.
Who knows how long the fountain discharged the water directly into the sewer prior to 1976. I know it had been over thirty years since my mother had taken me to the fountain. I could find no record of how long the fountain had existed before then. But, I could only imagine how many millions of gallons of treated water flowed through the one-inch pipe twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for over three decades into the city’s sewer system.
It was like leaving the kitchen faucet in your house on full blast for forty or more years. All that water was discharged into the New River and the Salton Sea.
A new circulation pump was installed. We also attached the Bicentennial brass plaque at the same time.
I haven’t thought about the fountain for years. Recently, I returned to Brawley to attend a farmers market at the Plaza, and standing by the fountain, I couldn’t help but recall the city’s Bicentennial project forty years ago. By the way, the brass plaque was stolen from the fountain a couple of months after it was installed.
A few weeks ago, I read an article in the LA Times about the water shortage in Las Vegas. The article talked about grass lawns, golf courses, and lack of conservation. But what really caught my attention was a photo of the fountain in front of the MGM Grand Hotel. Makes you wonder.
Desert Sun - January 13, 2012 (link not available)
Death Penalty Or Not
By
H. Glenn Crowson
Last year, I reported for jury duty at the Indio Court House. The defendant was a teenager who allegedly shot and killed a man during a robbery. The jury candidates were advised that we would not only be determining this boy’s guilt or innocence, but also, the judge asked if we could decide between life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
Which is worse? I thought about this question for some time. I know what I would choose for myself. I have been on supervised tours of county jails and a couple of prisons years ago, the memories are very fresh in my mind. It did not seem like a serene environment to write a book or spend the rest of my life getting to know your new cellmates.
I assumed life in jail without parole would be this young man’s worst fear. Not so, say the many veteran police officers and correctional officers that I have interviewed since. For a career criminal, sitting in prison for life is not much different from sitting at home. In prison he still has his gang brotherhood, constant violence, no pressure to succeed in academics or social skills, and an anointed level of prestige among friends and family. Most of those faced with this choice are repeat offenders and to them, jail time is just a bump in the road.
What about the death penalty?
Executions in California have existed since 1872. We’ve gone from hangings to gas chambers to lethal injections. In 1972, the California Supreme Court stopped all executions. From 1972 to 1977, over 175 convicted murderers were taken off death row and resentenced to life without parole. For those of us old enough to remember, among those “re-sentenced” were Manson, Sirhan, and numerous sexual perverts, serial killers, and other psychotic social outcasts. In 1977, the death penalty was re-instated by the legislature. A year later, the voters of California overwhelmingly approved an even broader version of capital punishment. Since this referendum, there have only been 13 executions in the last 32 years. At this rate we are not keeping up with the accelerating crime rate and we are running out of room on death row. Since the last execution in 2006, we have sent 115 inmates to be housed on death row, but none have been executed.
As of December 6th, 2011, there are 698 convicted male inmates awaiting execution on San Quentin’s Death Row. There are 19 women sitting in their own death row at Chowchilla Prison. One condemned prisoner has been x’ing out calendar days since 1978. Imagine, thirty-four years filing appeals on death row in San Quentin. Amazingly, he has his own website soliciting donations. Nowadays, terminal illness, old age or suicide tends to be the only avenue to death on Death Row.
A current moratorium on executions is in place while our State considers which lethal injection is mortal enough to be considered non-merciless and kind. No decision due on this subject until next fall.
Riverside County has 69 convicted inmates on death row. Even lightly populated Imperial County has three murderers on the Q’s death row. Two of Imperial County’s condemned inmates are there because they murdered their cellmates while in the state penitentiary at Calipatria. Both were previously convicted of murder elsewhere and were serving life in prison without parole when they committed murder again. There may be a message there.
With elections on the horizon, we must ask each candidate to tell us where they stand on California’s current symbolic capital punishment program and how they propose to fix it.
By the way, I wasn’t selected for that jury last year. The young man was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Lucky him.
(Source for all statistical and historical data: State of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Desert Sun – August 2, 2008
Ten Ways To Destroy Your Town
By
H. Glenn Crowson
Having just returned from a vacation where we stopped at many small towns and talked to as many residents as possible, we felt obligated to relay our results and findings. All communities have positive and negative factors. It is how these aspects of the towns are presented that makes the difference to others. Our general reflections of the communities that we visited were based upon the attitudes of the locals that we talked to.
This brought back memories of the basics of Economic Development 101. Private citizens play a major role in presenting the image of their towns. Believe it or not, one person can make a big difference in the way their home town is perceived. The average person may meet ten people a day. Seventy people a week. That’s almost 4,000 people a year. But, if you don’t think your attitude is important to your community, here are ten ways to destroy your town:
Here is an extra one for free: Be a grouch. Why make it friendly for snowbirds, tourists, and visitors? More traffic, more lines at the grocery, more lines at the gas station, more slow drivers… Who needs it?
Attitudes such as those listed above are unfortunately common. We hear them everyday and sometimes we catch ourselves thinking or even saying them. We should all try to look at the positive side of your community. Improving the quality of life in your neighborhood and town may begin with one person, you. How you interact with others will make a difference.
On our trip, we went to a minor-league baseball game in a small mid-western town. They gave away free t-shirts to the first 500 fans. We didn’t get there in time to get a shirt, but after the game a young man took his free shirt off his back and gave it to us after he discovered that we didn’t get one. When we asked him how he liked living there, he told us that it was the greatest place in the world. That town will always be one of our favorite places also.
VIDEO
Desert Hot Springs Library Presents Local Author Series featuring Harrell Glenn Crowson
Radio Station KROP (Brawley, CA) interview of author Harrell Glenn Crowson
ARTICLES
The Desert Review August 14, 2013
Almost Eleven: The Murder Of Brenda Sue Sayers
OP-EDs
The Desert Sun August 11, 2016 (link not available)
None of The Above
by
H. Glenn Crowson
My first memorable election was in 1969 as a police officer in a small Southern California town. I was earning about $500 per month and the department had not received a salary increase in some time. Our sergeant told us that we might receive a raise if a certain person were elected mayor. He also advised us that as public servants, do not express political views on or off duty. We were instructed against engaging in political discussions, displaying candidates’ signs was prohibited, and placing a bumper sticker on our personal car was unthinkable.
The election took place without my involvement, and did not affect me at all. I got married a couple of years later, but I can’t blame that on the Mayor or City Council. Since then, due to a life of public employment, I have been subjected to many elections.
Trust me, I have seen numerous excellent citizens enter the arena and get elected. This country was built on small towns led by citizens who take the time out of their lives to build a community where the quality of life is the highest priority all this while not selling out the future of the town to an influential developer or a dangerous industry. Not-so-excellent candidates occasionally find their way to the ballot and win. Voters have a choice between good honest people and those more interested in ego, special privileges, and extra benefits. Reputation, motive, and experience ought to bring about the best person to win, though lately it seems the way to get elected is to have the most money, a large number of yard signs, and a strong affiliation with special interests.
Lately, most good, honest citizens decline to run for office. They do not want to subject themselves to the hassles of meetings almost every day or the frustration with the bureaucracy. On occasion, two or more undesirable candidates emerge leaving the voters with no choice. In that case the last choice on the ballot should be the following option: NONE OF THE ABOVE.
What would happen if we voters had the choice of total rejection? We could adopt a system where a local or regional judge would appoint a professional to serve in that vacant position on an interim basis until another election could be conducted as soon as possible. Of course, enduring a term without filling the vacancy could work. It might get expensive to continue to have elections until the voters’ selection is made, but putting some bonehead in office because of a default can prove more expensive. I once witnessed a City Council conducted business for over a year with only four of the five positions filled. They couldn’t agree on anything so few decisions were made. That may have been the best year that town had in a long time. If this system could work for local agencies, why can’t we adopt this procedure for the Presidential race? Give the voters another choice, NONE OF THE ABOVE. I’m still not taking sides. My old Sergeant would be proud.
The Desert Review August 24, 2014
Got Water?
by
H. Glenn Crowson
The State of California has finally recognized our drought. Cities, mostly in the Southern California desert, are imposing conservation methods and adopting restrictions on consuming water. It reminds me of a story concerning the fountain at the Plaza in Brawley.
During the early 1950s, my mother used to take me by the hand and walk downtown to cash my dad’s pay check. She didn’t believe in checking accounts.
She would go the Security Pacific Bank on the northwest corner of Sixth and Main Streets, get cash, and then proceed to pay her bills. After a quick visit with her sister who was working at JC Penney Department Store, making a payment at M. O. Kings Department Store, then some quick visits with Buck Watts at Brawley Appliance Store and saying hello to Marvin Lewis at his jewelry store, her last stop was City Hall to pay the water bill.
There she would instruct me to stand by the fountain outside the library and watch the water as it erupted from the top of the pedestal and sprinkled down the sides of the middle of the concrete structure. Sometimes there were fish swimming around in the six-inch depth, sometimes there were coins lying on the bottom, and sometimes there were nothing but gum wrappers and wet cigarette butts that had accumulated from discarded trash.
Nevertheless, the fountain served as a hypnotic babysitter while my mom went to pay our small, monthly fee for unlimited use of water at our house.
As I grew older, the fountain continued to represent a major part of my life, unnoticed, but always bubbling fresh water from its fountainhead.
During my elementary school days, it was a meeting place on our way to the Saturday matinee. We would tell our friends and our enemies to meet by the fountain outside the library after school. As we got older, it was a nice place to meet a girl who you did not have nerve enough to call on the telephone.
Then, as studies became more important, we would convince our parents that we had to go to the library for schoolwork that night. Unfortunately, my time at the library was not as intense as it probably should have been.
As a Brawley police officer during the early 70s, my memories of the fountain included hauling out drunks and hobos that used it as their personal hygiene facility. The Station would occasionally get calls concerning kids vandalizing the drain and causing the fountain to overflow.
I remember a live, three-foot sand shark left in the fountain by someone who had been fishing on the coast. The fountain was filled numerous times with soap causing bubbles to cascade from the fountain like a horror movie.
The fountain was improved over the years, new paint, tiles, attracting different kids, but the clean water continued to gurgle from the top. Never stopping.
In the late 70s-early 80s, I enjoyed the first and third Mondays when the Council would meet. On those evenings, the powers to be would gather around the fountain to discuss the upcoming city council meetings. To me, listening to those discussions around the fountain before council meetings revealed what life in Brawley was all about. Community leaders such as Pat Williams, Nick Pricola, Chuck Valenzuela, Abe Seabolt, Wayne Zills, Grace Hull, Louie Curiel, and John Benson would discuss the local news with never any concern for political correctness, only what was best for our community.
Back then, Brawley resisted change. The old school way was the only way. Serious projects that faced opposition were subdivisions without alleys, less than twice a week trash collection, parallel parking, and water meters. All of which eventually, but reluctantly, came to be.
It was during that time the federal government conveyed displeasure to say the least with Brawley’s water conservation efforts and the way treated water was discharged into the New River and eventually the Salton Sea.
First, they instructed the City to conserve water by installing meters on every residence. Second, they required the City to conduct secondary treatment of the sewer discharge. Even though the water discharged through its primary treatment facility was cleaner than the New River, it wasn’t clean enough for the Federal Government. The feds threatened to take the City to court with hefty fines and restrictions if the City did not comply.
Brawley traditionally resisted water meters. Their reasoning: Keeping the community green with lush lawns and trees would certainly be in jeopardy if financial limits were place on the use of our inexpensive residential water. No one wanted the community to end up looking like Palm Springs with gravel lawns and drought resistant landscaping. Also, the fear of dead trees and yellow, dried up lawns did not set right in our lush, bedroom community.
Back to our fountain: When the United States celebrated its Bicentennial in 1976, each city was encouraged to construct a project or program that would pay tribute to this national event.
The feds distributed heavy brass Bicentennial discs, about one foot in diameter, to be placed at each project. City Manager Walker Ritter advised me that the City Council had voted to renovate and beautify the fountain at the plaza. An artisan was hired to re-tile the structure and place a new fountainhead on top.
As Parks and Recreation Director, I told my parks foreman, Abe Gonzales, to rope off the fountain during this reconstruction and shut it down while it was being re-tiled. I also told him that while it was down, to replace the circulation pump and all valves.
Later that week in the evening, Abe came over to my house with some disturbing news. Very reluctantly, he reported that when the fountain was shut down, they could not find any circulation pump attached to the water line that supplied that fountain. Evidently, the fountain’s water level was controlled by adjusting the volume of water to the fountain. The drain, which was raised six inches from the bottom of the fountain, allowed the water to discharge directly into the Brawley’s sewer system. No recirculation system at all. We immediately placed the proper pump and electricity needed to recirculate water at the fountain.
I checked with long-time employees including Bob Lane, Jeff Kissee, Amos Jones, and several others. No one had any recollection of a circulation pump. That explained why when the drain was plugged, it overflowed.
Who knows how long the fountain discharged the water directly into the sewer prior to 1976. I know it had been over thirty years since my mother had taken me to the fountain. I could find no record of how long the fountain had existed before then. But, I could only imagine how many millions of gallons of treated water flowed through the one-inch pipe twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for over three decades into the city’s sewer system.
It was like leaving the kitchen faucet in your house on full blast for forty or more years. All that water was discharged into the New River and the Salton Sea.
A new circulation pump was installed. We also attached the Bicentennial brass plaque at the same time.
I haven’t thought about the fountain for years. Recently, I returned to Brawley to attend a farmers market at the Plaza, and standing by the fountain, I couldn’t help but recall the city’s Bicentennial project forty years ago. By the way, the brass plaque was stolen from the fountain a couple of months after it was installed.
A few weeks ago, I read an article in the LA Times about the water shortage in Las Vegas. The article talked about grass lawns, golf courses, and lack of conservation. But what really caught my attention was a photo of the fountain in front of the MGM Grand Hotel. Makes you wonder.
Desert Sun - January 13, 2012 (link not available)
Death Penalty Or Not
By
H. Glenn Crowson
Last year, I reported for jury duty at the Indio Court House. The defendant was a teenager who allegedly shot and killed a man during a robbery. The jury candidates were advised that we would not only be determining this boy’s guilt or innocence, but also, the judge asked if we could decide between life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
Which is worse? I thought about this question for some time. I know what I would choose for myself. I have been on supervised tours of county jails and a couple of prisons years ago, the memories are very fresh in my mind. It did not seem like a serene environment to write a book or spend the rest of my life getting to know your new cellmates.
I assumed life in jail without parole would be this young man’s worst fear. Not so, say the many veteran police officers and correctional officers that I have interviewed since. For a career criminal, sitting in prison for life is not much different from sitting at home. In prison he still has his gang brotherhood, constant violence, no pressure to succeed in academics or social skills, and an anointed level of prestige among friends and family. Most of those faced with this choice are repeat offenders and to them, jail time is just a bump in the road.
What about the death penalty?
Executions in California have existed since 1872. We’ve gone from hangings to gas chambers to lethal injections. In 1972, the California Supreme Court stopped all executions. From 1972 to 1977, over 175 convicted murderers were taken off death row and resentenced to life without parole. For those of us old enough to remember, among those “re-sentenced” were Manson, Sirhan, and numerous sexual perverts, serial killers, and other psychotic social outcasts. In 1977, the death penalty was re-instated by the legislature. A year later, the voters of California overwhelmingly approved an even broader version of capital punishment. Since this referendum, there have only been 13 executions in the last 32 years. At this rate we are not keeping up with the accelerating crime rate and we are running out of room on death row. Since the last execution in 2006, we have sent 115 inmates to be housed on death row, but none have been executed.
As of December 6th, 2011, there are 698 convicted male inmates awaiting execution on San Quentin’s Death Row. There are 19 women sitting in their own death row at Chowchilla Prison. One condemned prisoner has been x’ing out calendar days since 1978. Imagine, thirty-four years filing appeals on death row in San Quentin. Amazingly, he has his own website soliciting donations. Nowadays, terminal illness, old age or suicide tends to be the only avenue to death on Death Row.
A current moratorium on executions is in place while our State considers which lethal injection is mortal enough to be considered non-merciless and kind. No decision due on this subject until next fall.
Riverside County has 69 convicted inmates on death row. Even lightly populated Imperial County has three murderers on the Q’s death row. Two of Imperial County’s condemned inmates are there because they murdered their cellmates while in the state penitentiary at Calipatria. Both were previously convicted of murder elsewhere and were serving life in prison without parole when they committed murder again. There may be a message there.
With elections on the horizon, we must ask each candidate to tell us where they stand on California’s current symbolic capital punishment program and how they propose to fix it.
By the way, I wasn’t selected for that jury last year. The young man was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Lucky him.
(Source for all statistical and historical data: State of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Desert Sun – August 2, 2008
Ten Ways To Destroy Your Town
By
H. Glenn Crowson
Having just returned from a vacation where we stopped at many small towns and talked to as many residents as possible, we felt obligated to relay our results and findings. All communities have positive and negative factors. It is how these aspects of the towns are presented that makes the difference to others. Our general reflections of the communities that we visited were based upon the attitudes of the locals that we talked to.
This brought back memories of the basics of Economic Development 101. Private citizens play a major role in presenting the image of their towns. Believe it or not, one person can make a big difference in the way their home town is perceived. The average person may meet ten people a day. Seventy people a week. That’s almost 4,000 people a year. But, if you don’t think your attitude is important to your community, here are ten ways to destroy your town:
- Complain about the local government officials. Spread the word about how incompetent and crooked they are. Let everyone know that they have no common sense and are only in it for themselves.
- Whine about the local newspaper. It doesn’t print anything important, certainly not the truth. It is biased and never accurate.
- Stay away from community events. It isn’t important to attend local ballgames, concerts, parades, or school activities. Who cares? We can watch more important things on TV.
- Never go to community meetings. City councils, district boards, planning commissions, and local committees that are working to improve our lifestyles never listen to us anyway.
- Boycott getting involved in service clubs, church groups, youth sports organizations and neighborhood watch programs. Never volunteer at the library, or at neighborhood schools. What a waste of time!
- Bad mouth the local Chamber of Commerce. Those people are only in it for the publicity and the money. We don’t have time to serve on any committees or attend their activities.
- Don’t shop locally. Buy everything at the big discount store miles away. Plus everyone knows you can get items cheaper at the outlet mall or on line. Forget that the local businesses pay local taxes, employ our residents, and contribute to our community activities.
- Don’t get to know your neighbors. Stay inside your fence and don’t concern yourself with the welfare of others. They won’t help you so why help them.
- Complain bitterly about the environment. It’s too hot. It’s too windy. It’s too cold. Too many ants. Blowing sand and dust is constant. Don’t forget to tell your best earthquake story.
- Generalize often and loudly. We know that all kids are a bunch of delinquents. It doesn’t do any good to call the police, they can’t solve the crimes anyway. No need to report vandalism or graffiti, it will just occur again.
Here is an extra one for free: Be a grouch. Why make it friendly for snowbirds, tourists, and visitors? More traffic, more lines at the grocery, more lines at the gas station, more slow drivers… Who needs it?
Attitudes such as those listed above are unfortunately common. We hear them everyday and sometimes we catch ourselves thinking or even saying them. We should all try to look at the positive side of your community. Improving the quality of life in your neighborhood and town may begin with one person, you. How you interact with others will make a difference.
On our trip, we went to a minor-league baseball game in a small mid-western town. They gave away free t-shirts to the first 500 fans. We didn’t get there in time to get a shirt, but after the game a young man took his free shirt off his back and gave it to us after he discovered that we didn’t get one. When we asked him how he liked living there, he told us that it was the greatest place in the world. That town will always be one of our favorite places also.
