Free Press –
Mike Soska, Don Neuman, Compulsory Service
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Did you see the obituary for Michael Soska who died on February 7? Betsy and I were visiting our daughter Anne in California and didn’t hear the bad news until we returned. He was only 49 when a long bout with cancer finally sent him to the next world.
Mike and
his father, Joseph, ran the shoe repair shop next to the Quakertown news
agency. I remember Joe Soska from the 1940’s. He rented space in the basement
of the Hinkle and Biehn Shoe store in the building where you find Miss
Ralph Moyer, Sr. worked for Hinkle and Biehn before he established Moyer’s Shoes, now in its third generation. As a kid, my mother took me to Hinkle and Biehn’s to visit with Ralph Sr. My mother and Ralph, Sr. were fellow musicians who often collaborated with each other. Ralph, Sr. conducted the Quakertown Band and mother directed choruses.
I particularly liked Ralph, Sr. because he’d let me see my toes wiggle in the foot X-ray machine. The device proved that the new shoes were not too large or too small. I’ve often wondered about whether the X-rays were healthy? Maybe that explains why I have such gigantic feet…size 12! Fortunately, my feet haven’t fallen off.
Anyway, Joe’s business outgrew the Hinkle and Biehn basement and he set up shop in full view at Second and Broad Streets. Joe could repair anything. I still have my Boy Scout knapsack, which he patched every year. “Why don’t you throw that old thing out,” he’d ask?
Joe also sold used golf balls, which he fished out of the Saucon Creek just downstream from the Saucon Valley Country Club. He had a huge bowl filled with hundreds of balls, which customers purchased for 25 cents each.
Joe was good-natured but gruff.
Mike was not gruff.
Sunny and optimistic, you always felt better when you were in Mike’s presence. And he was so earnest. You could trust Mike when he told you that a product was worth buying.
I was impressed when he decided to earn a college degree in pedorthics. I think he went into New York City each week to complete his dream. It wasn’t long after that he opened a specialty shoe store in Allentown, the Foot Support Center on Emaus Avenue.
Mike was an excellent bicyclist. He thought nothing of taking 100-mile bike trips. And he was a competitive rider. Most of all, Mike was a devoted family man. You couldn’t find a kinder, more pleasant, more earnest man. We’ll miss him.
(By the way Emaus Avenue is not a typo. The Pennsylvania Germans spelled their town with one “M” because they pronounced it "Eeemaus." When the borough of Emaus celebrated its centennial in the late 1950’s, they changed the spelling to Emmaus…with two “M’s,” just as you find it in the Bible. Alas, the Pennsylvania highway department didn’t get the news and so the road remains misspelled. Thought you’d want to know.)
Item.
I enjoyed Don Neumann’s critical letter to the editor last week. He writes very well although we often disagree. He questioned whether my compulsory service column made sense? I favor every high school graduate (or teen who reaches the age of 18) serving two years of service to America. I’d give each person the option to serve in a non-military or military capacity…her or his choice. But it would be compulsory.
Don Neumann wonders if giving young people the option of non-military or military service would weaken the military? He believes that most would choose non-military service, thus depleting its ranks. Further, he thinks that two years of military service is insufficient training to keep the military functioning.
I have no evidence to support my view. I don’t think he does either. But I don’t believe that there’d be a diminishing number volunteering for the military. The government could influence the ratio through compensation. (For example, pay more for those volunteering for the military.) And for those who chose military service, the vast majority of them would be high school graduates…not the 70 percent high school graduates, which the army is attracting today.
Unfortunately, to achieve military service quotas, the army no longer excludes people with criminal records. My proposal would eliminate those people for either the military or non-military service option.
Most of all, compulsory service would prepare teenagers for life’s road ahead. I’d bet that kids with two years of service to America would be more inclined to volunteer for community service later on in life. And for those young people who live in neighborhoods with no role models or adequate parenting, two years of compulsory service would reduce the risk of incarceration.
I don’t suppose that Don Neumann likes my idea of having public schools running 365 days yearly to make education, food, leadership, and even housing available to kids who need it, either. For you mathematicians out there, what’s the cost of housing three million prisoners at the rate of $40,000 per year in America?
Yes, it would be expensive…but only for the length of one generation.
Friends, am I barking up the wrong tree?
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith