VIEWPOINTS 6A • COMMUNITY JOURNAL • JUNE 1, 2016
COMMUNITY
EDITORIALS | LETTERS | COLUMNS | CH@TROOM
The ole fisherman is going to battle with the deer Howdy folks, Monday, I met at the Poochie’s restaurant for lunch with four other folks. That restaurant has great food and the folks that work there are wonderful. They sure know how to welcome folks and don’t seem to ever see a stranger. Everyone is treated like family, I think the folks at Poochie’s are great. Tuesday, I had the pleasure of going to supper with a couple fellars down to the Chinese restaurant on state Route 125 across from Red Lobster. The feller that invited me was Bill and the other was Richard. The fellars sure like to eat there and I liked it too, the food was great with plenty of it. On Wednesday I attended a meeting of the PERS at the Batavia Civic Center. This is a retirement union. The speaker was the union rep and he told how things were for the union. There was a good group of retired folks there and they had several questions for the speaker. Things are changing, it seems nothing stays the same. On Wednesday morning I had a Senior Service meeting. I enjoy being a member of this group. The Senior Services do such a great job of helping the older folks. The services they have with the buses to take folks to doctors and other medical needs, the meals delivered, home repair, and ways to help keep the folks in their homes. I go one time a month to talk to the seniors. I talk about our younger days and how we lived and worked, the way we entertained ourselves and how our mothers cooked over a wood range in the kitchen. The people over 80 are the fastest-growing folks in the county, us kids sure need to be looking out for them. Keep check on your neighbors. I went last Sunday and got a swarm of honeybees. It was a nice big one. I didn’t have a hive fixed for them so I called the Kinners in Batavia to see if they had a hive
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ready and they did. I used a fivegallon bucket to get the swarm of bees. This bucket came from WalGeorge Rooks Mart, they get icing in OLE FISHERMAN them for the bakery. I put little holes all around the bucket, it is light and easy to get the bees in. If you have any honey bee swarms, give me a call. The honeybees are having a hard time so we need to help them. My telephone number is 513-734-6980. The tomatoes I had blooming, well the deer like them so I needed to replant. After I talked to the seniors yesterday I stopped at the Grants Farm and got some more plants. I called the Ellis Greenhouse on Tollgate Road and the young man said they have plenty of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, sweet potato plants and other items. I was telling him how you can plant sweet potatoes in a five gallon bucket. I do this each year. I put drain holes in the side then put rocks or chunks of wood in the bottom. Then I fill the rest of the bucket with potting soil and put one potato plant in the bucket. When the vine starts growing prune them along the side of the bucket. The energy that goes to the vine then will go to the potato. I have had them to weigh a half pound and one pound. I spent all morning putting fence up to keep the deer from eating my garden. They are so destructive, with all of the grass and other items to eat they don’t need to eat my garden but they don’t know that. The farmers have lots of corn and soy beans planted. The crops look good with all this rain. The farming is done a different way now from when I was at home with my dad, mother and younger brother. We used a team of horses to pull the corn planter that was a two row planter. It would take several teams of horses to pull the corn planter the farmers are using today! The yield back then was around 75 to 90 bushels per acre. Now the yield runs from 150 to 225 bushels per acre. The soybean yield was 30 bushels, now they are close to 100 bushels per acre. Things have changed haven’t they? I was writing this and pulled a letter out from the side of a book. It was a letter from some wonderful folks at Simpsonville, Kentucky, the Neumeyers. I have read this letter several times and enjoy it very much, thanks. Start your week by going to the house of worship of your choice and praising the good Lord. God bless all ... More later ... George Rooks is a retired park ranger. He served for 28 years with the last five as manager of East Fork State Park.
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Rebuttal to ‘Transgender johns, here we go again’ Thank you for allowing me to respond to Leonard Harding’s “Transgender johns, here we go again with this issue” (May 18). I’d like to start by thanking the author for pointing out my unwavering commitment to Second Amendment rights. He also suggested that women be armed and prepared to defend themselves. Gun manufacturers market handguns designed specifically for women. CCW classes train people in gun safety and marksmanship. It is prudent for many citizens to be trained and prepared to shoot back if necessary. The author took exception to my support for public safety. Specifically, he seems to think that it is acceptable to have sexual predators in the bathrooms and locker rooms with women and children provided that they have the ability to use lethal means to defend themselves. I believe that it is common sense to keep would-be predators away so that nobody gets hurt. He also alluded to the North Carolina law that uses the sex on a birth certificate to determine bathroom usage. The legislation that I’m working on doesn’t do that. An outline of my bill can be found in the April edition of The Becker
Report at www.BeckerGOP.com. Like the 1.3 million Target boycotters, I became alarmed when Rep. John I learned that Becker Target pubCOMMUNITY PRESS licized their GUEST COLUMNIST open-door bathroom policy: “… we welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.” Target makes no attempt to define what “gender identity” means. Are transvestites and cross-dressers included? Does it refer to people diagnosed with gender dysphoria? Could it refer to people who have switched their gender identifier (marker) on their birth certificate, driver’s license, passport, or some other document? Or does it mean someone with a sincerely held identity and an on-going trans lifestyle? Could it also mean gender fluid? They might identify as a man one moment and a woman the next. The public safety problem that Target has created is that sexual predators now have ready access to women and
children simply by claiming to be female regardless of physical appearance or vocal tone. My bill aims to put guardrails around these “inclusive” policies by creating an objective standard for defining transgender so that they can continue using the most appropriate bathroom. My legislation would be enforced the same way our voyeurism, trespassing, and public indecency laws are enforced. There are multiple levels and opportunities for common sense to prevail. If police were to field a complaint, they would ask questions and then possibly make an arrest. If charges were filed, then the prosecutor would decide if it’s worth pursuing. If so, a judge or jury would then have the “final” say before any appeals would be considered. In conclusion, I also wish to correct a media report. My bill will not require trans people to use a family or unisex bathroom. And to reiterate, it will be nothing like the North Carolina law. John Becker lives in the Eastgate area and is serving in his second term as Ohio’s 65th District State representative. He can be reached at 614-4668134 or Rep65@OhioHouse.gov.
CH@TROOM May 25 question What is your all-time favorite movie - the one that you will always watch if you come across it while channel-surfing? Why do you like it?
“Really tough call. For spectacular scenery and weak acting, it’s ‘The Eiger Sanction.’ For the most intensity, ‘Argo.’ Best portrayal of Jack Nicholson by Jack Nicholson, ‘As Good As It Gets.’ Reasons are all personal. Wife and I engaged on the Eiger Glacier while skiing. I took many trips to Tehran before the Ayatholla and as the unrest grew to gunfire in the alley where I was staying. Jack Nicholson has played so many ‘Jack Nicholson’ roles, he has become my favorite. Yet, I despised ‘Anger Management’ and ‘Chinatown.’ ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ is even more iconic than ‘Heeere’s Johnnnie.’” D.B.
“My favorite, all-time, No. 1, most awesome, incredibly meaningful, deep and amazing movie is the ‘70s classic ‘Harold and Maude,’ which tells the quirky story of a love affair (but mostly relationship) between an 18-year-old over-privileged young man with a death obsession (not what you may think) and a 79-year-old concentration camp survivor with a spunk for life. If you have never seen this powerful movie you must. If you have seen it over 100 times, as someone I know, it’s past due time to immerse one’s self in it yet again. This movie is quirky, no doubt, but it holds so many deeper philosophical insights and positions on life that have been permanently woven into the fabric of my life. “Although not asked, you must be wondering what other movies round out my all-time Top 5 and they are: ‘Pay It For-
“My Cousin Vinny.” Because it makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it.”
THIS WEEK’S QUESTION Describe your “brush with greatness.” Every week we ask readers a question they can reply to via email. Send your answers to rmaloney@ communitypress.com with Ch@troom in the subject line.
ward,’ ‘Out Of Time,’ ‘My Cousin Vinny’ and ‘The Shawshank Redemption.’ Rush out to Netflix or the library and enjoy all of these gems soon.” M.J.F.
“My all time favorite movie is ‘Step Brothers’ with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. It is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I find myself laughing just thinking about the interactions of the two step brothers in the film.” C.S.
“My favorite movie of all time is ‘Animal House.’ It is a comedic time piece from the 1970s about college life around that time frame from a male perspective. There were many future stars in that movie that got their start including John Belushi and Kevin Bacon to name two. “Every time I see that movie it makes me smile and think about the good old days. Go Figure!” T.D.T.
“Easy A!” “Jaws.”
Dalmesha Sloss Patrick Hijduk
“Apocalypse Now.”
Jim Longano
“The Spitfire Grill.”
Susan-Mkac Gilmore Fultz
“Tombstone,” Saints.”
Boonedock Steven Leicht
“The Italian Job.” love the mini’s.”
Barbara Brown
“Eight Men Out.”
Ryan Sainola
“Steel Magnolias.”
Cassandra Jane
“Twister.”
Molly Miller
“Urban Cowboy.”
Nicole Stewart
“Pleasantville!”
Stephanie Collins
“‘Spencer's Mountain,’ great family movie.”
Pamela Robinson Porter
“Say Anything.”
Shawnda Walker
“Tombstone.”
Cody Painter
“’50 First Dates,’ ‘Gone in 60 Seconds.’”
Shannon Kessel
“Dirty Dancing.”
Sherry Johnson
“Saturday Night Fever.”
Connie Gille Painter
“’The Notebook’ because it is a beautiful love story.”
Jennifer Jackson House
“Forrest Gump” – Life is like a box of chocolates!”
Debra Higgins Robertson
7700 Service Center Drive, West Chester, Ohio, 45069 phone: 248-8600 email: clermont@communitypress.com web site: Cincinnati.com/communities
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Terry Smith
Community Journal Editor Richard Maloney rmaloney@communitypress.com, 248-7134 Office hours: 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday See page A2 for additional contact information.