Troubled youth leads to a career of helping
Editor’s note: The writer is referring to a July 22 story, “Holding fast to her dreams,” about a young woman who is now a nurse.After all, she knows firsthand how personal missteps and bad decisions can sabotage a life ó and how determination, coupled with opportunity, can redeem it. Erika Delaney is that “diamond in the rough,” and there will be many more in our community, organization and county who need the mentoring and polishing opportunity.
What can you do to help unleash their potential? In your organization? In your church? In your county?
Mentoring occurs any time someone transfers knowledge to another, but the term isn’t restricted to an older person passing on knowledge to a younger one.
Erica will become a very polished individual and will provide a ladder for some bright, low-income, motivated youth to climb past their adverse circumstances to excellence. She represents the notion to others in similar circumstances that they are in control of their lives, their internal states of mind and of what they give to and get from the world. She graduated from an institution with the motto: “Enter to Learn … Depart to Serve.”
Congratulations, Erika. Your willingness to endure will pay off well.
ó Yvonne Dixon
Salisbury
Thanks for tax increase
Thank you, thank you, thank you Rowan County commissioners! My wife and I had thought that we might have a little extra money this year, and we didn’t know exactly what we wanted to use it for. Now you have solved that problem for us by giving us the old double whammy with a tax increase on top of a revaluation of our property.
I do want to make a few people aware of how this will be affecting us during this coming year, so please pay attention.
United Way, I’m sorry, but we will not be able to increase our giving to you this year. I hope the Boy Scout organization will be able to tighten its belt a little more. I still support you, but I don’t have the extra money to support you very much.
Salvation Army, I really do appreciate your work of trying to turn people’s lives around, and I’ll be praying for you. However, I’m afraid that I will not be able to put as much in the ol’ buckets at Christmas time as I had planned. I usually plan to have a couple special bills in my pocket just for you. Now, it looks like you’ll have to get by with my spare change. I will be doing more shopping at your thrift store, however.
Red Cross, I usually plan to donate some money to your needs, but it looks as though the amount of my gift will be a lot less than normal.
I do hope all of you will be able to get by on less financially because Rowan County seems to be the “charity” with the biggest need.
One more item: Red Cross, I’ll still try to keep giving my regular blood donations. You need to use the blood sparingly because I have a feeling that the county commissioners will want their share of blood next.
ó Bob Houck
Mount Ulla
Drivers pose dangers
For a long time now, I have been reading about unsafe roads. Where are they?
Roads ó especially major roads, streets and highways ó are clearly marked with lines, warnings, stop signs and speed limits.
A road becomes unsafe when the drivers on them ignore these signs. It’s like they don’t exist.
The greatest majority of accidents are caused by stupid carelessness, not by an unsafe road.
I know firsthand about this. My son is fighting for his life in the intensive care unit of Baptist Hospital, not because of an unsafe road but because a driver did not wait at a stop sign for a few seconds until it was safe to pull out. Because of a stupid act, his life may never be the same.
I say “stupid act” because a matter of waiting 30 seconds would have eliminated all this suffering.
Before you jump to conclusions, this accident was caused by a supposedly responsible adult, not a teen. Neither is my son a teen. He’s a 41-year-old man who was just doing his job but had the misfortune of being the victim of someone in too much of a hurry.
Don’t blame the roads. It’s the drivers who don’t stop to think what their carelessness can cause. The roads have signs to warn what’s ahead and what safe speeds are on that road. A responsible driver will heed those warnings and obey the law.
The only way we’ll have safe roads is for drivers to obey the signs. They are there for a reason.
ó Juanita Guessford
Salisbury
Editor’s note: The other driver in the accident that injured Laurance Derwood Guessford was charged with making an unsafe movement.