You are starting to sound a lot like I did when you interviewed me before my retirement !

Your reflection on “Sad Exposures” was one of the best for the Evening Sun I have read to date. Unfortunately, societal decay has come upon us in beautiful Chenango County. Scoundrels, drug addicts, and rapist now abound among us like an American inner city. Humans who cannot entertain themselves appropriately, have no spiritual life, and live arrogantly are creating hell on earth. The grand potentials for humanity in America are now stalled in its courts and county jailhouses. No country can sustain growth and prosperity without personal responsibility and some measure of accountability to the community. Criminals will always be a part of any society. But why does there have to be so many of them? Reading the Police Blotter for the county is distressing. Thank God most of the citizens of the county behave themselves; otherwise, the chaos that some of our neighbors live in will become the norm and that “casual breeze” across your arm will become a storm for the land of the bullthistle (Chenango). I still love this land; the forests, streams, and the hills will forever be a part of my being. But sometimes I sense that it doesn’t deserve some of the humans that live on it. You have good existential insight, just keep the Light on in your personal life. Tragedy is part of human life, but society need not celebrate it or ignore its teaching of wisdom.

Mike Pusz
Georgetown