Blog Lafayette

Burrr! It sure is cold out there. It seems that we are having an old fashioned Winter in the making. Anyone over the age of 45 will remember how the Winters used to be here in the Midwest. We could count on at least 2 to 3 honest to goodness blizzards in Illinois and Indiana each Winter. Everyone who had a little extra money owned a snowmobile and there was generally enough snow for people to use them for much of the Winter.

Then we went into the weather patterns of the last 25 years or so. Not as much snow and definitely not as many blizzards. That all seems to have gone by the wayside so far this year. We have had more cold weather and snow in the Midwest and in Lafayette in particular than in several years and it isn’t even officially Winter on the calendar yet!

So that leads me to my point. Road conditions here in the close of 2010 and coming into the holiday season are looking much worse than we usually deal with. Just today as I was traveling down the Interstate highway, I saw the aftermath of an accident involving a van pulling a camper trailer. The van looked OK, but the camper consisted of the metal frame and wheels intact and the rest of the camper shredded into little pieces that looked no bigger than sticks you would cut to put into your fireplace. The poor people who owned the camper basically lost everything in the camper.

That accident is not the only one I have seen this year so far. There have been too many people hurt and killed already this Winter driving season. I want to plead with you for the sake of you, your family, friends and the sake of all the other people on the road over the holidays, please drive safely! I want you to have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and I want to see you and yours return safely home from your travels during these holidays and even into the rest of the Winter. You are a precious life. Please be safe Lafayette.

We had a great Halloween evening here in Lafayette. Several of the kids in the neighborhood came to our house to get treats and the chance to say the familiar phrase “Trick or Treat”. I have to say that I was glad to see parents standing by to make sure that their little ones were safe.

You might ask why I make any comment at all about the parents being present. I guess it shows my age a little. When I was young enough to trick or treat, parents did not tag along with the their kids. We were let out in town and then told to show up at a certain location at a set time so that mom or dad could pick us up. I remember spending many Halloweens running around with my friends from school for entire evenings without parental supervision.

Wow! Parents reading this who have younger children probably cannot comprehend how a mother or father could allow their kids to have so little supervision on Halloween or on any other night for that matter. Parents were not less responsible in those days as you may be thinking. Parents loved their children just as much then as now. Things were just different that’s all. There seemed to be less crime against children in those days. I am sad that there is such a need to be more vigilant these days but I am glad to know that parents today take such special care of their children.

We can hope for a day that would see the absence of any people who would hurt our children, but until that day, God bless the good parents who take the time to see their children safe on all days of the year.

I have been hearing the word hero a lot the last few days. The successful rescue of the trapped Chilean miners by the heroic efforts of all involved and the heroic leadership of the last miner to come up out of the hole are two examples where the word was used as it should be. Many times I hear the word hero to describe a good Samaritan who is a hero because they donated items to someone in need or some other charitable act. While those acts are wonderful and very good, they are not heroic in my way of defining the word.

How do I define hero? A hero is someone who performs a selfless act that will mean added safety or life for someone else, possibly at the expense of his or her own. Using that definition, can you think of someone or some group of people that you know who fit that description on a regular basis? I can think of several. Our local Police and Firemen do that almost every day. Do they get the respect that a hero deserves? Not usually. It saddens me to see the animosity that is directed toward our police these days. What would Lafayette be like if we had no law and no people to enforce it? How safe would it be to walk the streets after dark or conduct day to day business? I wouldn’t want to live here without law.

Does that mean our police and firemen are perfect and flawless? No. I know that there are some who are only in it for the glory or the badge or the thrills. But for every one of those, I know of dozens upon dozens more, who do what they do because they are concerned about people and their lives. Look at the things they do in the course of a day. They put on equipment designed to minimize physical harm in case of accident or aggression. They travel to scenes of crimes, violence, destruction, and heartache. They confront dangerous people and dangerous locations while fighting crime or fires or whatever else they are called upon to do. They are asked to see things that would turn most peoples stomachs and then they are told not to talk to anyone about it. And they are confronted on most days by distrust and animosity from the people that they are spending their lives and blood to protect.

This is not the way we should treat our heroes. Where is the honor that we bestow upon them? Where is the friendly nod of appreciation or thanks when we great one of these on the street? Here is my nod. Here is my honor for them. These are only my words, but I hope these words will count as giving honor to these heroes. I am safe. I can sleep at night without fear. I am grateful.

Halloween is quickly approaching for Lafayette and communities all over the United States. Kids get to enjoy the fun of wearing this year’s favorite costumes and traveling from door to door in search of treats from their fun loving neighbors. Halloween is meant to be fun.

Our grandsons, Chase and Parker in costume.

My fun memories include dressing up as either Dracula or the Mummy and then finding my friends to hit the town with. We were in search of all the treats we could handle and then some. In all my kid years I was never afraid of getting hurt by mean people or harmful treats. Back then, it was so much easier to be a kid.

Times have changed. Every year we are reminded of the risks and responsibilities associated with the Halloween holiday. And that is as it should be. Our kids are the most important responsibility that we will ever accept. With that in mind, I have added a link, the Halloween Safety Guide, that I think every parent should click to get great information on how to keep your children safe during this upcoming season. The Halloween Safety Guide is great site that has been lending tips to keep children and adults safe during the Halloween festivities since 2000.

If you choose to participate in Halloween activities I hope that you will take the time to be prepared and to be extra safe this year. We can go a long way to ensuring that Halloween is great fun if we do our duty as parents to keep our kids safe. Here’s hoping you and your kids have a fun and spooky Lafayette Halloween this year!