Perhaps you have been shivering a bit with all this snow and cold. Would you ever think that perhaps a heavy snow fall could serve to keep your home warmer?
That’s what Nellie Schraeder remembers from her childhood in the very northern part of Maine, just below the border with Canada. Nellie, who now lives in Dover and is the owner and publisher of the “Open Door” real estate publication, says that when there was a hard snow, and there were plenty of those in northern Maine, her father used a snow plow to push snow up against their farm house.
He covered the house on four sides up to a point just below the windows. The result was that the snow, which lasted all winter, acted as insulation.
We probably won’t get that much snow in these parts anytime soon, but it’s an interesting idea to contemplate if global warming takes a U-turn, as seems to be the present case.
But the folks who believe sincerely that we are having just a blip in the climate change toward a warmer climate don’t seem to be shaken. And local residents of a certain age don’t have much trouble remembering when there was skating on Silver Lake.
Orange growers in Florida might take a little more convincing.
Global warming isn’t actually in the ascendancy in Great Britain, according to Angela Alper, who is from the Isle of Wight just off England’s southern coast. Angela’s mother and the rest of her family still live on the island, and they are now waiting for about a foot of snow to go away. What happened to the Gulf Stream’s warm water?
Snow just isn’t seen on the island, Angela says. Her sister had to stay at where she works for a day because she couldn’t get home. Main roads were cleared but not the smaller country roads. Her mother has enough food to wait it out, Angela says.
Besides her work as a waitress, Angela keeps up a part-time career as a singer, performing with a partner chiefly at private parties. She also is an actress.
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With all the emphasis on governments at all levels being prudent in terms of spending, it still makes sense for the city of Dover and the county of Kent to get together for one super library instead of having two separate ones only a half-dozen miles apart.
To repeat what has already been pointed out, Dover’s present overcrowded library serves more county clients now than it does city residents.
What if representatives of the city and the county met at a joint public meeting and explained to the public their positions on the issue? My guess is that this would bring out a healthy attendance and perhaps quell the dissatisfaction felt in many quarters about what is happening.
Might the city extend such an invitation to the county?
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After working full-time at the Dover Post for more than 30 years I was used to keeping up with people I knew in the community in the normal course of a working day. Now it seems there are people I used to see regularly whom I miss seeing.
This came to my mind when Doug VanSant was kind enough to come up to me in a local restaurant the other day to say hello. He and his wife Linda were just leaving when he noticed Mary and me sitting at our booth.
Doug is one of the long-time residents of the city who enjoyed Dover when it was smaller and everybody knew everyone else. He has written fondly of his early life in Dover and his remembrances are a valuable part of local history.
In a similar way I bumped into Fred Jester the other day as well. He is active with the Dover Post now in circulation, a critical part of any successful publishing business. He is also serving his fifth term as president of the Camden-Wyoming Volunteer Fire Co.
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Certainly the recent report to the Sports and Video Lottery Commission by an experienced Louisiana consulting firm can’t be taken lightly. In brief, the consultants recommended adding a maximum of two new gambling venues, commenting in the process that two more shouldn’t affect too drastically the three gambling venues now in operation.
I haven’t read the report, but I do see the stories about states surrounding Delaware being interested in ramping up their own gambling operations.
And if these states do that, no doubt they will siphon off many of the patrons now coming to gamble in Dover, Harrington and near Wilmington.
Also, at some point there is going to come a time when there just aren’t enough people with extra money to use for gambling. When that happens, there might well be a major fall-off in the gambling business. States with big stakes in that area will be hard hit.
Isn’t it a good idea for Delaware to hedge its bets and not go into more gambling locations than it can reasonably support?
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It was tough to see the Eagles fail so miserably in playing the Dallas Cowboys twice within a week, but in Baltimore there is rejoicing that the Ravens knocked off the mighty New England Patriots, with Joe Flacco continuing to be such a major part of the Ravens’ success. The fact that Flacco gained fame as a University of Delaware quarterback makes the attraction of the Ravens to Delaware fans quite understandable.
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Vice President Joe Biden’s tribute to his mother, who died at the age of 92, was eloquent:
“She was the center of our family and taught all of her children that family is to be treasured, loyalty is paramount and faith will guide you through the tough times.
She believed in us, and because of that, we believed in ourselves.”
*****
This couple had been debating the purchase of a new car for weeks. He wanted a new truck. She wanted a really fast sports car so she could zip through traffic and really cruise on the open road.
He would have been ready to settle for an old truck but everything she seemed to want was out of their price range.
“Look!” she said finally. “My birthday is coming up. And what I want is something that goes from 0 to 200 in under 6 seconds. You could surprise me.”
So he did. For her birthday he bought her a brand new bathroom scale.
