Free Press –
Merge Quakertown & Richland Police,
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Last week, I received a tip from a Richland Township resident who didn’t want me to identify him. Most anonymous tips end up in the circular file. But this one fascinated me because his subject struck a nerve. As a matter of fact, I gave a talk about merging municipal services to a retirement home just five days ago.
But it will have to wait until I pass along this funny item.
Mighty Betsy and I just returned from a week of singing in the Berkshire Mountains. I wrote about it in my Bucks County Herald column today. It was a wonderful week although the weather in the Berkshires was just as terrible as it was in Quakertown…day after day of 100 degree, high humidity heat.
For 18 years we’ve been singing at the Berkshire Choral Festival. Wouldn’t you think that I would know which side of the dormitories gets the least sun by now? Poor MB! I forgot to request a room on the east side, so we suffered on the west side and the assault of the afternoon sun.
MB “suggested” that I buy a window fan. Alas, it came in a box with “easy instructions.” As you’d anticipate, I quickly ran out of intellectual curiosity and patience. Fortunately, our neighbor who lived across the hall on the cool side of the dorm is a surgeon. Dr. George Longstreth graciously offered to put the fan together. I knew we were in competent hands because he was a Yale man and had graduated from the Columbia University Medical School.
Within 20 minutes, the fan was ready to go. Soaked in perspiration and breathless anticipation, we turned it on.
No breeze!
The fan was spinning at high speed but there was nothing but noise. George thought that bending the blades of the fan might help but after much grunting and groaning with elbow grease, nothing improved.
MB had some very choice words for the fan and recommended that we leave it in the dorm for some unsuspecting singer who’d occupy the room after we’d left. But I had an ace in the hole.
Benner’s Hardware in Quakertown.
Last week, I took the fan to Stanley Stelmach who’s been at Benner’s Hardware for decades. Stanley knows how to fix things which I’ve broken or need repair and quickly understood what was wrong. The fan had been assembled backwards. He unscrewed the fan from the motor; reversed it and…Voila!…the fan worked perfectly.
Almost.
Stanley noticed that one of the blades was wobbling. How he saw that with the fan revolving at one million revolutions per minute is mind-boggling. But Stanley is, after all, Stanley.
A day later, the fan was repaired…the offending blade firmly affixed…and the cost for the repairs? Just five bucks. If MB had been with me, she would have given Stanley a big hug. Stanley had a few amusing words about our surgeon friend. Stanley wondered whether George ever forgot to put organs back in his patients after making repairs?
Stanley also gave me excellent advice about air conditioning. “Charlie,” he offered, with a serious Stanley look, “You can create cheap air conditioning by attaching a bag of ice to your fan. It will blow cold air and your countenance will improve!”
Good man, Stanley.
And now to
business.
Last Saturday, I bored the Medford Leas (N.J.) retirement community to tears. Dr. John Mikuta heads its program committee. He was MB’s physician for 50 years and delivered our daughters. Dr. John asked me to give a talk about the connection of Benjamin Franklin and Hugh Meredith, my ancestor. Franklin and Meredith had a printing partnership in Philadelphia in 1726.
This year is Franklin’s 300th birthday and Dr. John thought it would be fun for me to shed some light on the family tree. That “light” didn’t shine very long. Franklin grew weary of Hugh Meredith and terminated the partnership after a few years. It seemed that Hugh was fonder of drinking booze and pinching women than going to work.
Worse, the
Meredith clan thought that American independence was not a good bet so we
remained loyal to King George
My listeners were unimpressed.
But they did pay attention to these three items. If Franklin had had his way in 1787, what would have been different, I asked?
First, he would have abolished slavery. The Quaker abolitionists appealed to Franklin to make that argument at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It was one of the few arguments that Franklin lost.
Second, Franklin thought that a one-house legislature would be better for Pennsylvania. Alas, he lost that recommendation as well. As you know, we have an inefficient, unwieldy, over sized, two-house system that accomplishes little but bickering.
And third, Franklin believed that legislators at the federal and state level shouldn’t stay in office forever. Franklin was a man dedicated to fresh ideas presented by legislative bodies, which were constantly changing and evolving. Franklin would have encouraged the Congress and state legislatures to adopt term limits.
In
addition, I’m certain that he would have argued against his beloved
Pennsylvania and New Jersey permitting a myriad of municipalities. Our
neighbors across the Delaware River have over 1,400 municipalities and school
boards.
And now for my
In 2001,
Wouldn’t it be better to have one police force instead of two? Wouldn’t it make more sense to merge Quakertown and Richland Township…and add Richlandtown Borough as well?
Guess again. More next week.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith
You can access my past columns by visiting my website: www.charlesmeredith.com