Many Disabled Use Pool to Get Exercise
To the editor:
The Centralia indoor pool is a great asset for Lewis County. I am 83 years old, a resident of Centralia. We pay property taxes as well as spend most of our pensions in Lewis County. So that money stays right here.
In 1996, when the city of Centralia offered exercise classes in the pool, I paid the fee and got a lot of good out of the exercises. When Thorbeckes took over management of the pool, I paid its fee and continued the exercises.
I have had both hips replaced, and I have a pacemaker. I cannot walk very far, so this water exercise is necessary for my health.
Several people go to the edge of the pool with crutches, walkers and wheelchairs. They can then exercise in the pool without assistance.
Many other adults use the exercise classes to help keep them physically fit. The 9 a.m. class usually has about 40 people each morning; we have had as many as 60 people. There are also exercise classes at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The pool is a wonderful place for school children. They learn to swim and it is good recreation. Swimming and water exercises are something they can keep up all their life. Being overweight has become a national problem, so exercise should be encouraged.
Instructors, lifeguards and maintenance people are employed to take care of the pool. If the pool is closed, they will lose their jobs.
With a household budget, we plan for the cost of maintenance before we spend the money on something new. Governments do not seem to work that way.
Our taxes support many things in Lewis County. Some way should be found to repair the Centralia indoor pool.
For many older people, the only way they can exercise is in the swimming pool. If they don’t keep moving, soon they will be unable to walk or move around.
Barbara Hayward
Centralia
Vote All of the Apples Out of the Barrel
To the editor:
There are no facts, only issues, defined by those in office. When things go wrong, those in office are not to blame as it is a mystery how the evils are caused.
When things go right, those in office get credit and will supply a portion of those gains to those who keep them in office. The spoils all go to those who have the power to keep the incumbents in office.
Those who do a fairly good job and cover for the bad apples are not to be called shills. Those who vote for what they believe is right are wasting their vote. Either get with Jackson’s “get rid of the Republicans” or Lincoln’s “get rid of the Democrats.”
Get the Democratic Republicans and the name Thomas out from government (Thomas Woodrow Wilson becomes only Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman lets Hitler’s Volkswagen into the economy to stop Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 election).
Call gouging the poor to make industrialists richer “defense spending” and sacrifice American youths to that cause. The gouge created the homeless class government OK’d.
Call any who would point to facts that can be observed with the five senses (without interpretations) weird and of non-effect; certainly not team players and with the out crowd.
Buy the mainstream media. Label those who check the BBC and Russian television as cynical. Favor lobbyists and campaign contributions. Divide improvement attempts with a choice of one part or the other.
To share a bit of a real political science class (Western Washington State College, 1967) pragmatism, not practical is what works, right or wrong. Quoting Boss Plunkett, leader of Tammany Hall, “I seen my opportunities and took ’em.”
It looks like I will never get my main goal of a coffee house by Merced College, thanks to government intervention. I do not see much difference between that and the nation’s problems.
Governments cannot get it through their heads that you cannot spend more than you take in, or eventually who is behind it will take what you have.
Also, if you trade sovereignty for the ability to push others around, eventually you have no government, only a worn-out prostitute begging other nations that held their sovereignty not to hurt her.
I am not alone in my urging all to vote all the apples out of the barrel. In World War II, a veteran (chief petty officer) who noticed the fact that the government made sure they were paid while the military was put on hold is also right. There was another letter several months back also advocating it.
The incumbents wail, “But your way will put you in a group that does not have the experience and political savvy we do.”
Thank God.
David Granville Oster
Onalaska
