Opinion

Trail: Year in review: pool, chamber and Jimmy Carter

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

The last day of a significant year in our lives. It is a good time to sit back and review 2024. Good, bad, or was it just another year gone by? Actually, my sister Margaret, age 92, (I think!) summed it up nicely in her Christmas card. “2024 has been a good year for us as we’ve stayed well and active. Life in a retirement home keeps us safe, fed and active.”

You may know that Grannie Annie and I have our names on the waiting list to move into one of McCook’s wonderful Independent Living Facilities. Twenty-five years in the Air Force has taught us how to move, set up a new household, and find ways to enjoy life in a new location. Grannie has been preparing by giving away “stuff” accumulated over the years. “Stuff,” being defined as treasures, some valuable, some not, but occupying shelf space. “Here take this to remember me by.”

TV news at the moment is occupied by paying tribute to the memory of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of our United States—mostly, good memories as a forever marriage to Rosalynn; a never-ending love affair. Jimmy was a lifelong Sunday School teacher and a living example of the good of a church-centered community. Seldom mentioned was that he was the one that gave away the Panama Canal resulting in the current political disaster that it has now become.

I was an officer in the military when Jimmy Carter ran for president. He was a graduate of the Naval Academy, and I a graduate of the Air Force Academy. Jimmy had also attained leadership in the nuclear submarine service under Admiral Rickover. Admirable achievements in my estimation, at the time. Then, following the death of his father, Jimmy resigned from the military to go back to Plains, Georgia, to take over his family’s agriculture interests. Rather paralleling my career at the time, so I voted for him to become President.

Bad mistake. Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, had no clue as to how to manage the United States economy, and it became necessary for this new farmer to pay 10% up to 20% interest to the bank for operating money. Pretty tough to break even, and a lot of us farmers did not do well. Served me right for voting for him, and I’ve not voted for a Democrat ever since. Lesson learned! Jimmy Carter also didn’t do well when the Iraqi government took over the Embassy in Iraq. The final insult was turning our prisoners – the Embassy staff – loose on the first day that Jimmy’s replacement, President Reagan, was put in office.

Congratulations to McCook with our new Aquatics Park. Pretty popular, and at least for now, the tariff to use it is $0.00, which helps.

The McCook Chamber is making a good effort to organize community events “on the bricks” in our downtown area. The Art Bank is a neat community asset that we can all be proud of.

It may have been a mistake to tie the new athletic complex into the vote for funds to finance the Aquatics Park. People who have to pay taxes to support such new projects in turn, refused to pay for a complete remodel of the Junior High School building. In retrospect, maybe it would have been a better plan to redo the Junior High building and continue doing baseball at the fairgrounds which rent for $1.00 a year. With the ball diamonds gone from the fairgrounds, a friend tells me that the area will be perfect for a gambling casino. Making the big bucks!

Now, one of my favorite topics, that being the sad state of affairs at our McCook Airport. Yes our Essential Air Service continues with Denver Air Connection, giving excellent service to and from Denver. The contract hires for the City are providing fuel services to our airliners when required and with visiting general aviation. No maintenance or repair facilities have been available since Red Willow Aviation declared bankruptcy. It will be interesting to see how that all gets resolved in the future.

So, our jail is now empty. Painting and maintenance were required and accomplished. Now, there is a lack of trained personnel to house the prisoners. So it is that we have to rent jail space and provide transportation to and from for our local prisoners. That is how we did it when I was Commissioner, but certain people insisted that a new, expensive jail would solve all our problems. Interesting!

On a happier note, this year, Grannie Annie and I have been enjoying eating our noon meal at our McCook Senior Center each Monday. The price is right and we enjoy the company of the “senior population” of our community. Sure, home delivery of that meal is available, and it is also possible to drop by the center, and the meal to go can be delivered to your car. To each his own but we enjoy the company of eating with friends. That is how I saw it.

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  • LtCol Trail, It's nice to know that I'm not the only one in this world to make a mistake now and then. Voting for Jimmy Carter is an interesting admission. While in High School there in McCook during his term I wrote an essay on how lousy of a job he was doing - I was rewarded with a C- or a D+. I guess the English teacher was a Jimmy Carter backer ?

    -- Posted by dameister on Tue, Dec 31, 2024, at 8:06 PM
  • Not sure about the teacher’s leanings but if you ended statements in your paper with question marks, we could be on to something.

    -- Posted by hulapopper on Wed, Jan 1, 2025, at 6:24 AM
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