Letters to the Editor
Thanking our caregivers
To the Editor:
In the United States, approximately 42 million adults provide what is called “unpaid” care, yet many do not consider themselves to be caregivers. A lot of these individuals are struggling with the daily responsibilities of being a caregiver. A new study shows that nearly three in ten people who are taking care of someone say their life has changed because of caregiving. Many caregivers admit that things like their social life or their ability to make time for themselves has drastically changed. They might consider visiting www.aarp.org/caregiving to connect with help, information and with others with the same experience.
As we get together for the holidays now and in the weeks ahead, this is a wonderful time to acknowledge the critical role caregivers play in our lives. AARP has developed the “Thanks Project” to send love and gratitude to those caring for a loved one. Visit thanksproject.org to thank your favorite caregiver. I’m thanking mine: without my daughter to help me, my life at 90 would be very different and I’m grateful every day for all she does.
Jane Magnus
AARP Maine volunteer
Windham
The gift of the season
To the Editor:
Thanksgiving is the most fun day ever, in Guilford! The 11th annual Free Community Thanksgiving Dinner welcomed over 100 people at the door, delivered 12 meals to homes and packed up about 35 meals for takeout.
Many stories have played out over the years: Old friends separated for 20 years have an unexpected reunion; a solitary young man finds new friends; a “regular” stops in for pie because she knows we’ll be looking for her; split families meet on neutral ground and set aside their differences; teens bring guitars and play original songs; the old piano gets dusted off for an impromptu sing along.
In the meantime, the kitchen is happy chaos. Volunteers bond through this wonderful opportunity to share. Many come back year after year and most stay for the whole day. There is no better place to be than this kitchen, in this town, with these people, who turn joy into food, give it away, and watch it turn right back into joy.
I can’t help feeling that more people could be uplifted by this experience, and I wonder about a better way to get more joy out there. Can this Thanksgiving glut of warm labor and intention be finessed into a slow, steady current flowing continually where needed? I think so. I boil a pot of onions, my friend roasts a turkey, and her friend bakes a pie. Spread that around a bit, and pretty soon there’s enough to feed over 100 people. Honestly — it’s not that hard! And remember that providing food is less important than paying attention. Food helps, but valuing people is the shortest path to joy, and that can be even easier than feeding them.
Volunteers always tell me they’ve had the best Thanksgiving ever. Many make a commitment to come back next year, or ask if we are doing it for Christmas. I tell them, no we’re not doing it for Christmas, but you can! It’s not that hard!
Christina Pratley
Guilford
The compassionate tyrant
To the Editor:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
This blunt and apt description of the “compassionate” tyrant by the great philosopher C.S. Lewis is most fitting for the society in which we live. We are, if anything, overrun with “omnipotent moral busybodies” more specifically in our government. Government is by its very essence the most vulnerable to the congregate of the totalitarian nanny.
As government fawns and mothers over its wayward children, the regulatory apron strings tighten ever closer as government addresses what it deems is in the best interest of its charges. The lifeblood of freedom constricts. Its functions are limited.
But still the overbearing matron holds on. A few more apron strings. Maybe something baked sweet and comfy, an entitlement if you will, keeps the “dearies” near. The maternal government can never acknowledge that what her charges desperately need is to be free from her.
They must rise and fall on their own merit without someone hovering near to soften or prevent their fall. They need the experience of failure not to be shielded from it. Mistakes are a healthy part of growth and not something to be regulated against.
The ancient proverb that there is “nothing new under the sun” is something our modern society struggles to grasp. The idea that perhaps we are not so modern, still entirely human, and bound to our repetitive nature is an affront to many. But our Founding Fathers were not so outdated as many would like to portray them.
They studied the civilizations that had preceded them and realized the horrific tendencies of government. They came to the conclusion that government, with its proven weakness for control, must be limited. They drafted a document of, yes, negative liberties; a document intended to say “no” to government. They decided that people should decide what they needed and did not need, not government. They knew from studying history what we have ignored and are sadly learning now. There is nothing more oppressive than a compassionate tyrant.
Andy Torbett
Atkinson
Appreciates her
hometown connection
To the Editor:
I sit here in North Carolina on a cold 24 degree Black Friday morning not shopping but reading the Piscataquis Observer. The Observer’s reporters are top notch. They structure their reports with human interest at the core, giving the facts in an interesting way, using correct English and there are only two of them!
The front page of my current read (November 20) shows me a caring, lively community and region that fostered me when I was growing up in Dover-Foxcroft from the 1940s to the ‘60s; the involved teachers, the hard working folks of the Dexter Grange, the variety of sports available in the schools, the Maine politics.
I look forward to seeing what local business is highlighted with the Shop Local Tree. What a good spot for it in the top of the tree in the 39th Annual Christmas Craft Fair at SedoMoCha ad. I had to go through twice to find it!
Thank you to all of you at the Observer for keeping me connected to a place and a people that are and always will be a part of me.
Kitty King Wells
Greensboro N.C.