My Town Monday - Priorities

A neighboring big city is tightening the budget which includes closing a city owned park and recreation area, reducing the police force, and by reducing library hours, now closing on Sundays. The mayor of this big city has spent years working to improve the landscaping and parks of the downtown region, building up the police force, and working on the reputation of the city as a place to be. Enter the economic crisis.

Perhaps I am not astute enough to understand all the implications and wormholes that resulted in these decisions, but I do have an opinion. I keep hearing the economy will get worse before it gets better. People might want to vacation a little closer to home. The park, which has cabins and camping, might be a choice destination if marketed properly. Before closing, they charged little to nothing. Perhaps they could charge a small amount to keep the park, a historical treasure, open. Until it closed, I didn't even know what they had to offer. Now, it is too late.

And in times of crisis, people get desperate. Is that really the time to cut back on the police force? Perhaps it won't be as bad as they say it could be, but I'd rather be prepared than not. And as for the library, education seems always to be on the list of economies, yet it seems education is one of the greatest needs our nation has. A strong library system shows the strength of a community.

This was one small dissatisfaction I had with My Town for most of the years I've lived here: the library. As homeschoolers, we are voracious readers. Our house is lined and stacked with books. Because dh works in Big City, we were awarded library cards there. With each card, and we qualified for five, we could check out 99 items. We often had over 200 items out at a time. Picture books were taken out by the crate. The libary system loves us - we increase circulation.

In My Town, the library was small, and during the summer reading program, the children's book shelves were bare. Even during the rest of the year, we'd read most of the worn books in the tired old library. All of that is changing. Plans were laid long before the economic crisis and today, a new libary was opened.









Designed "green" and in a lodge style, it looks like a cool bookstore and a great place to hang out. It also sports many new books. While I doubt we'll be welcome to check out as many books as Big City library, the atmosphere, together with the teen and adult new books will likely draw us in when we didn't bother before.

I'm proud of My Town for making this investment, showing a commitment to the educational growth of all the residents. I will say it looked like a homeschool convention, as I saw at minimum six families, not counting my own, of homeschoolers. Likely, we'll be their biggest patrons.

We had one small "disagreement" while there as they were not allowing books to be checked out. Look only today. William, used to taking whatever pleases him, was very upset that he'd found the Star Wars novel that he always wanted me to read for him, and we could not take it. I promised to return for it another day. Likewise, he can't quite comprehend book stores where you actually have to pay for the books.







My Town Monday brings you to blogs from all over the world. It was invented and is normally hosted by Travis Erwin. But times are not "normal" for Travis right now. Tragically, he and his family recently lost their home and all their possesions when their house burned to the ground. Chris and I will continue to host MTM until Travis feels like claiming it back. If you'd like to show support for Travis' family, go Habitat for Travis. You can also keep his MTM idea alive for him by writing about your own corner of the world. He'd like that, I think.

If you do write a MTM, please let me know by leaving a comment and I'll link to it below.

Other MTM posts:

Chuck in Kentucky
Jennifer Jilks in Port Carling, Canada
Chris in Venice
Barbara Martin at Trafalgar Castle in Whitby Ontario
David Cranmer in Cranmer Hollow, New York

Patti Abbott with books in Michigan

Debra in Peninsula, Ohio

Cloudia in Royal Hawaiian (Waikiki)

J Winter in Cincinnati, Ohio


Notes:
William is 100% recovered from his surgery for adenoid removal and ear tubes. He continues to talk through his mouth but the snoring is gone.

Lauren has had two days of nausea following having her wisdom teeth removed. Is she allergic to the cocktail of anesthesia she had or the Percoset? Maybe the antibiotic? Still working on that. She is resting comfortably.

Please pray for or send nice thoughts to my dad, who is having a stint placed to repair an abdominal aneurysm. I will be going to be with him tomorrow. I will get the MTMs up as soon as I am able, but I will get them posted. Thank you for your patience.