The Coastal Point encourages the exchange of ideas. Letters to the editor must be signed by the author with phone number included for purposes of verification. Please send your letters to P.O. Box 1324, Ocean View, DE 19970.

Darin J. McCann

Every so often the urge strikes me to really look at a serious conflict facing the world today and take a stab at offering potential solutions or alternatives. Monday morning, while combing through the front pages of the top daily newspapers in the world, I ...

Excuse me.

Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50. Susan turned 50.

Wow, that felt good.

I swore I’d be good — that I wouldn’t use this space to discuss the significant birthday our publisher celebrated on Tuesday, and I would not discuss her personal business to the people who read this paper.

But, come on.

This is good stuff. It’s not every day someone turns 50 ... well, fine, I guess every day somebody does turn 50. But not our Susan. No, this is an event to cherish, to grasp close to our collective bosom and let loose with a cheer worthy of her first half of a century on this planet.

Ha.

Actually, Susan saw this column coming. While sitting in her office a few weeks ago, she suddenly grew very serious and looked at me from across her desk.

“Be nice,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“When you write that column about me turning 50, you better be nice.”

How can you not agree to that?

Therefore, I will not be mean to Susan as she celebrates the dawning of a new era in her life. I will not make any jokes concerning new hips or how she now coughs dust, nor will I do something cheesy like point out how a first class stamp only cost 3 cents when she was born in 1955, and how that was also the birth year of fiber optics. No, the simple thing for me to do would be to inform people that On the Waterfront won best picture that year and the Federal Republic of West Germany became a sovereign state on May 5, 1955.

There’s no way I’m going there.

I’m not going to note that the very year Susan was born the Syracuse Nationals beat the Ft. Wayne Pistons in the NBA championship (though neither Syracuse nor Ft. Wayne have NBA teams today) and the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in seven games to win the World Series (even though the Dodgers have been in Los Angeles longer than many of us have been alive).

That would be too easy.

I had to look at this creatively. I mean, come on, it’s pretty hack to suggest that Susan would be 350 years old if she was a dog, or that her age is now a speed limit on many wide open roads. She means way too much to me personally to opine in a public forum like this that our reporter John Denny and photographer Ruslana Lambert combined do not hit that magical chronological number she has reached.

That would be low.

What I needed was a different angle. I needed to look past the observations that she is now a grandmother and no longer spends her evenings hopping from night club to night club, instead choosing to hop from one episode of I Love Lucy to another via her remote control. Surely there was a direction I could go that did not include her eyeglasses getting thicker or her patience growing thinner. I mean, come on, I’m above all that.

Actually, after much specualtion, I decided I’d just tell her how happy I was for her in reaching this age at a point in her life that should make her feel comfortable. Look, she has a husband who loves her, parents and siblings she gets to spend time with, kids out of the house, me as a business partner and Sam Harvey mere inches away from her office door at all times.

She has a beautiful new granddaughter, employees who would fight each other to walk through fire for her and friends who stop by the office just to say hello. She has good health, great clothes and only a few signs of the aged, ancient woman she has become — though those signs become stronger ...

But I digress.

To Susan, my publisher and dear friend, I offer birthday wishes and an old Irish birthday toast:

We drink to your coffin. May it be built from the wood of a 100-year-old oak tree that I shall plant tomorrow.

Council did the right thing

Grab hold of something steady. The Coastal Point is about to praise Sussex County Council.

There are compelling arguments on both sides of the fence regarding the expansion requests made by 84 Lumber in Clarksville. Yes, there would be increased truck traffic and an undetermined level of impact on the surrounding properties. And, on the flip side, 84 Lumber has been a good neighbor in contributing to various causes in the community, as well as their significance to the critical building economy in the area. In order to serve their customers, 84 Lumber saw the need to expand their operations.

Regardless of your individual stance on the matter, it is hard to find fault in the manner in which the county council and planning and zonign commission conducted this process.

Like many matters of zoning, the item got bounced back and forth between the two governmental organizations, with each giving their opinions and hearing from both sides of the argument. Finally, on Tuesday, Sussex County Council approved the expansion request by a 4-0 vote.

We are not endorsing this decision, nor are we protesting it. No, what we are supporting is the move by Council Member Dale Dukes to recuse himself from the process since there could be the appearance of a conflict of interest with Dukes owning a lumber business himself. We are also supporting the due process the county gave the sides to present their arguments.

Like the decision or not, the process was done absolutely the correct way in this situation.

We often get on council for their development-first decisions and collective propensity of ignoring potential conflicts of interest among their members.

It’s only fair we acknowledge their efforts this time.

FOSCL offers thanks to those who helped
Editor:

On behalf of the Friends of the South Coastal Library, I would like to offer my sincere and heartfelt thanks to our fantastic Cottage Tour Committee and the wonderful volunteers who worked together to make the 14th Annual Beach & Bay Cottage Tour a resounding success. For the sixth year in a row, the tour attracted a sellout crowd, netting approximately $100,000 to benefit the library.

To the 10 homeowners whose beautiful homes were on the tour, I offer our utmost thanks. Without their generosity there would have been no tour. We greatly appreciate their warmth and graciousness in sharing their lovely homes with tour-goers, thus enabling the Friends of the South Coastal Library to raise funds to expand the services and facilities of the library.

Another thank you goes to the restaurants that provided prizes for our annual “Dinner for Two” raffle. Six lucky ticket holders won dinner at DiFebo’s, Nantucket’s, The Parkway, Magnolias, Sedona or The Den at Bear Trap Dunes. We were also fortunate to offer a second raffle, thanks to popular artists Dorothy Harrison-Braun, Aubre’ Duncan, Carol Dyer and Laura Hickman, each of whom donated beautiful framed copies of their limited edition prints.

We extend special gratitude to Greg Hastings and John Mitchell of the Indian River School District for providing two school buses to carry patrons to two of our homes in Fenwick, and to William Clark and James Sample for tirelessly and good-naturedly driving on both days of the tour. Special thanks go to the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce for the use of their parking lot on the days of the tour and to Karen McGrath for her support. Also, we thank Father Kelly for allowing us to use St. Ann’s parking lot as a staging area for hostesses and parkers.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who attended the 2005 tour. I hope you had a wonderful time here in the Bethany-Fenwick area as you visited these ten delightful homes. Please join us again next year; the 15th Annual Beach & Bay Cottage Tour will be held on Wednesday, July 26 and Thursday, July 27. Reservations for the 2006 tour will be taken after Jan. 1, 2006 by mail, and at the library beginning in late April 2006.

As we approach the time of making the expansion of our South Coastal Library a reality, we thank you for your support.

Donna J. Repass
Tour Chairman

Substitute teacher has appreciation for staff
Editor:

I am a substitute teacher within the Indian River School District. My primary responsibility, as a substitute teacher, is to maintain a continuity of students’ education in the absence of their homeroom teacher.

It may shock parents to learn that there are students who disobey and/or disrespect substitute teachers. My authority allows me to dismiss errant students from the classroom and send them to the office. These students would then be placed under the jurisdiction of other school staff members for behavior interdiction.

I most certainly value the assistance of the intervention team specialists, and have many people to thank at the various schools for which I have fulfilled teaching assignments. At Indian River High School, my contacts were Mr. Smack, Mr. Walters and Mrs. Marvel. At Selbyville Middle, my contacts were Mr. Eyre, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Parker. At Sussex Central Middle, my main contact was Mr. Purnell. At Sussex Central High, there were several people who assisted me. In all circumstances, I needed their help to reassign unruly students so as to reduce classroom disruptions.

I am extremely disappointed that these “non-teaching” professional staff positions are scheduled to be eliminated for reasons of economy, as though these positions have no importance in education. I am deeply concerned about deterioration of students’ safety in the absence of these behavior modification people. What is even more perplexing to me is the situation that, apparently, has precipitated the school firings — namely, the giveback of school funds to the state of Delaware.

Mr. Lake
Indian River School District

Townsend family thanks community for support
Editor:

The family of Phillip J. Townsend would like to thank the Ocean View Police Department, Delaware State Police Department, Masonic Lodge, St. George’s Church, Mercantile Peninsula (Baltimore Trust Co.). Howard’s Pub, the Department of Corrections and their many community members, family and friends for the much needed love and support provided after Phillip’s death.

It was your food, flowers, cards and phone calls that gave us emotional strength at the funeral. And it is your continued thoughts and prayers that will help us in the days ahead.

Your kindness and generosity were much needed and appreciated last week. We thank you from the bottoms of our hearts as we miss our dad (husband, son, brother, uncle, grandfather, friend).

The Townsend Family

Our youth are paying the price for war
Editor:

Finally, a reality check from U.S. officials — not from the press, not from Democrats — but rather from U.S. officials on the U.S. handling of the war in Iraq.

“According to U.S. officials ... the United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society where the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges ... U.S. officials say ‘What we expected to achieve was never realistic … We are in a process of … shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning.” Washington Post, 8/14/05

“For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents. The … vests … cannot withstand certain munitions the insurgents use … tens of thousand of soldiers are still without the stronger protection … Upgrading the plates [for vests]…will cost at least $160 million, according to industry estimates.” The New York Times, 8/14/05

And the human cost — 1,850 American soldiers dead, at least 10,000 soldiers injured and maimed, and just recently a minimum estimate of Iraqi deaths: “Iraq’s Ministry of Health estimates bombings and other attacks have killed 4,000 civilians in Baghdad … [just] since April 28.” Washington Post, 8/14/05

No, Mr. Cheney, the insurgency is not in its last throes.

Where is our outrage? Impeachment comes to mind. At a minimum, Secretary Rumsfeld should be fired.

God bless our troops and all their families. What a terrible and costly burden they have been asked to carry for an uninformed, ideologically conceived and ill-planned war. Our youth have paid a terrible price. May God forgive us.

Mary K. Ryan
Frankford