Column purists will tell you that it’s an easy out to touch on a number of random subjects as opposed to enduring the thinking through of one issue to its logical conclusion.
So sue me. I have a lot of different things on my mind this week.
Column purists probably didn’t envision the Internet when they were getting all snooty, anyway.
• Vance McBryde was a heck of a nice guy. The long time Erie weatherman and local news icon died last week at age 80. I’ll tell ya, he wore it well. If I can live that long and have the nice things said about me that people have been saying about the dapper gentleman from WICU this week, I’ll consider it a life well lived.
• What’s not to love this time of year? I was able to play a little golf this week under bright sun, blue skies and temperatures in the lower sixties. The leaves haven’t all changed but many of them have, brilliant gold and red and orange. There’s apple cider in the ‘frig, pumpkins on the porch and football on the tube. Somebody stop me, I’m gushing.
• It now appears that both the Mayor’s office and City Council have finally decided on a budget shortfall of about 5.5 million dollars for the rest of 2005. That’s a lot of money, but it is actually down from the doomsayers predicting a ten million dollar gap. The good news is that there is enough money left to pillage in water, sewer and garbage accounts to allow us to break even for the year. The bad news is that leaves just about all of the cupboards bare for 2006, meaning that more layoffs and cutting of services are inevitable. The fight will be over what to cut where and if past history is any indication it won’t be pretty.
• The quest for justice has been a long one in Oil City, where neighbors have waited some 13 years almost to the day for closure in the murder and sexual assault of Shauna Howe. Shauna would have been 24 this year but instead she never saw 12 after being kidnapped, assaulted and thrown off a rail bridge. Two brothers are now on trial this week in the crime that took not only Shauna’s life but the peace of mind of an entire community, as Halloween hours were changed to daylight and support groups of parents started walking kids home from school.
Well, that’s it. Hopefully, they accomplish together what each one wasn’t quite able to do separately.
I’ll try to stay more focused next week.