OPINION Bremerton
Page A4
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Friday, November 22, 2013 | Bremerton Patriot
A week for memories I was 6 years old when President Kennedy was shot. I was at home with my mother, father and older sister. We all had the flu. My biggest concern was that I was missing being a pilgrim in my elementary school’s production of the “First Thanksgiving” which traditionally was done each year by the first-graders. We’d painstakingly made the perfect square hats like the pilgrims wore from black construction paper and somehow, it seemed so sad that my hat was just sitting in the classroom while all the other hats were on top of their maker’s heads on stage. I was way too young to understand what had just happened to the nation. The death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marked a loss of innocence for the U.S. With the assassination playing out on live television before the country, Americans knew that we were no longer a country protected from violence from within. Fifty years later, we know that even more. The incidents of violence have continued. We think about 9/11 and shootings at movie theaters, schools and shopping centers. On the 50th anniversary of the shooting of President Kennedy, Americans recall where they were when they heard the news. They watch television and see the replay of the Zapruder film showing President Kennedy and Jackie in the 1961 open-air Lincoln Continental waving to spectators standing along the crowded streets in Dallas. There was an excitement in the air. A stormy, rainy day had just cleared and blue skies greeted the Kennedys and others in the official motorcade. Life was good. There were political concerns about Cuba and Russia. But everything seemed to be in control. With the Kennedys and their two young children in the White House, Camelot was ours and it looked as if it would remain ours for another term. And then, the unthinkable happened. We will never know what this country would have been, had President Kennedy lived. We will never know what future contributions he may have made to this nation. Instead, we are left to wonder. And we are left with our memories of that day. My family spent most of that weekend at home, watching people pass by the President’s casket in the rotunda of the nation’s Capitol. We saw the horse-drawn carriage carry the casket from the White House to the Capitol Building and to the President’s final resting place. And we saw that special little boy in his powder blue coat salute his father’s casket as it passed. President Kennedy would be 91 years old if he were still with us. Instead, he remains in our minds just as he looked that day in Dallas. But the hope and love that he had for this nation, lives on in all of us.
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Protecting your packages Shop.org, the digital retail arm of the National Retail Federation, has released its sales forecast projections for the 2013 online holiday season with an expected growth in sales for this coming November and December between 13 to 15 percent. The vast majority of these online purchases will pass through the top tiered package and delivery organizations which include UPS, FedEx and the United States Postal Service. As the number of packages being shipped during the holidays increases so does the number of package thefts. The national and local news agencies have been full of stories where thieves have been targeting package delivery routes by following behind the delivery trucks as they travel from residence to residence. Thieves then steal the delivered packages from the homes porches, carports or garages as soon as the truck is out of sight. Thanks in part to the affordability of home security systems and easily placed webcams, more and more of these thefts are being caught digitally and passed along to law enforcement but many of the packages are never retrieved. Before you begin your online purchasing in the coming days, make sure that the locations where
Everything Bremerton
Colleen Smidt you are sending the packages to others and receiving your own packages are as secure as possible. Many of the delivery drivers have limitations, through their company policies, on where and how they can leave packages. Don’t rely on them to make security decisions for you. The best decisions you can make are the ones you do for yourself. Here are a few precautions or preventative measures you can take to ensure your packages arrive in time for the holidays: Have packages shipped to your work if possible. You have a better chance of being there yourself or of someone in your office or build-
ing being able to secure the package for you. Make an arrangement with a neighbor to be on the lookout for the delivery if you are not going to be home. Let the individuals you are shipping to know that they have a package coming so that they can make their own arrangements. Provide them with the tracking number if at all possible. Have the package delivered to your local UPS Store, Kinko’s or center hub location. Make sure you know the hours they are open to retrieve your package ahead of time. These often change during the holidays. Sign up for additional tracking services that package carriers provide. For example UPS has My Choice. With UPS My Choice you can control package deliveries and sign up for delivery alerts on your mobile devices. FedEx has a Delivery Manager that provides many of these same services when you sign up. Remember that deliveries that include alcohol must be signed for by an adult 21 years or older. Drivers cannot legally leave these packages with minors. Insure all of your packages for SEE PACKAGES, A5
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