Some small public service can be big enough to make a difference in our lives. The morning after the storm provided an example worth mentioning.
My wife and I woke up with a big tree straddling our driveway, immobilizing both our cars and us. We had earlier given away our power saw and a few people we thought might have one were unavailable.
Our situation was not dire, and we were well supplied. But our age and the unpredictability of both the storm and my health produced a nagging concern.
A telephone call to the Public Works Department in Cumberland removed our anxiety.
Within an hour and a half city workers left only kindling wood on the edge of the driveway. They also checked the status of numerous other trees on our lot.
My personal needs were miniscule, hardly worth mentioning given the huge storm-related needs elsewhere. What is worth noting and remembering last week (and in the future) is that public service employee sometimes perform vitally important functions.
We saw vivid examples of that. All too often we minimize, and sometimes disparage, the role of city, state, and workers in our lives. What they do may sometimes seem small, even humdrum.
But we never know when our need of them becomes very important. Sandy should surely remind us of this.
We might also be grateful for their less dramatic service to us, day in and day out.
John Wiseman
Cumberland
Editorials
City public service workers filled vital role after storm
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Walk Smart
Many local residents will be visiting Ocean City this summer, so it is worth noting that the resort has launched a campaign that it hopes will keep pedestrians out of harm’s way.
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Frostburg’s Bridge Program was important
After hearing rumors of possible changes being made, I just wanted to take a few minutes to put into words what the Frostburg Bridge Program meant to me as a child. Growing up in Frostburg, my parents were small business owners, my mother a teacher, and my father worked for the postal service.
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Trailer case bound to increase scrutiny on town of Piedmont
This letter is in response to the recent story concerning the guilty plea entered in federal court by Piedmont’s town foreman (“Piedmont town foreman Shingler enters guilty plea,” May 21 Times-News, Page 1A).
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Fixing community’s problems starts with your young people
I am writing this letter to the editor because I think our community really needs to work on plenty of issues. Some of them are:
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High priority
Maryland school officials on Tuesday put an exclamation point on the need to take student-athlete concussions more seriously.
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Cashing in
As anyone who lives in the area knows, economic gains have been hard to come by in recent years. The opening of the Rocky Gap Casino Resort is one of the biggest boosts the region has seen in some time.
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Why have the media been silent all this time?
When I read the Cumberland Times-News Editorial this morning, Friday, May 17, entitled, “Outrageous,” I laughed like a kid at a birthday party!
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What are chances this much money will be spent on road?
I was intrigued by cost data summarized in reporter Kathy Mellott’s recent article, “Completing southern link of U.S. Route 219 said to be best use of highway funds,” which appeared in the Cumberland Times-News on Tuesday May 14 (Page 1A).
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School board should be doing better job with less money
The Allegany County Teachers Association (ACTA) board of directors recently submitted a letter to the editor asking the Allegany County commissioners to fully fund the Board of Education’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year (“Commissioners should fund school board request,” April 29 Times-News).
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Better ‘Click It’
If you notice more police on the highway this week, it’s for a couple of reasons.
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