This sweet lady from China Grove told me she enjoyed my letters about banning smoking from the parks, but she didn’t like me using the logo RoCo for Rowan County. She said it sounded stupid and looked stupid. I explained I used it to save words, “’cause we don’t get but 300 of them.”

So from now on I will write out Rowan County. If I do use RoCo, it will mean “Reeking Offends — Ciga-butts Out.”

Also, did you hear about this “feller” that tried to enter his mule in the Kentucky Derby? That was pretty stupid, too.

So here goes something much more stupid than the RoCo logo and the Derby mule.

In Rowan County’s largest park, Dan Nicholas, there are all kinds and sizes of really, stupid signs. Most of them state different and confusing “rules.” They don’t make any sense.

One sign reads, “Young Lungs at Play, No Smoking Zone.” In front of each “Young Lungs” sign is a dadgum stinking, repulsive, disgusting, unnecessary butt can.

The last time I visited Rowan County’s largest park, there stood a grown man and woman with three children gathered around one of those butt-can signs, sucking out the last drags of their cancer sticks before entering what they figured was the no-smoking zone.

The very next butt-can sign had two more grown-ups, but this time with four little children, pulling on their sticks to suck and blow out all they could before entering the “zone.”

If anyone can top that for stupid, I would love to hear about it.

How about it — Greg, Don, Bob, Judy, Carlene, Amy, Alyssa, Jim, Craig, Mike and Aaron? You are the ones that can and should do something about RoCo (Reeking Offends — Ciga-butts Out). It’s way past time to MOVE (Make Our Visits Enjoyable).

— Whitey Harwood

RoCo