Mark’s Musings – June 25, 2014

Mark Fortune

Sometimes it seems that folks just like to have something to pick about. I heard that a handful of locals were not pleased with the “bicycle traffic” in our community last week with the onslaught of more than 2,000 GOBA riders. Yes, I understand that it may have been a bit more challenging to get around for two days but I think – perhaps – that you are missing the big picture.

These folks came to our community, saw our community, enjoyed our community, and will perhaps tell their friends that, you know, “There’s this little town in east central Ohio that made us feel real welcome,” during our GOBA ride. “We might want to go visit it sometime, it has some really cool shops and this restored canal town called Roscoe Village. We found the place to be warm and friendly, kind of like where we grew up – you know – the type of town where people still wave to each other and say “hi.” Their Main Street reminds me of where mom and dad grew up. They also have a really neat wine tour with some unique local wineries we could go visit.” The back roads wind through some really pretty countryside – away from all that noise that we are used to in the big city. Why, on a quiet summer morning I’ll bet you can hear the corn growing. And I could even hear the wild turkeys as we cycled past this one place.”

It’s funny sometimes that it takes folks from “out of town” to remind us of what we have here. Now that’s not all of the time and certainly not all of the folks but it only takes a few to – you know the rest of it.

I guess this World Cup thing is kind of big, huh? Yeh, I admit it – I watched a bit of the U.S. of A. against Portugal – Portugal? Where is that? Oh yeh, back to my geography days – I think it is next to Spain? These guys were pretty good. Of course, I know next to nothing about Group H or J or D or whatever. Is that based on the cumulative grades of the guys playing maybe? And how does this point system work? It was a tie for gosh sakes so how does the U.S. end up on top? And who do we play next? Please don’t tell me it is Germany or one of the really good teams like . . . Britain? And that is a big field they play on for sure. I take it that these soccer guys are in pretty good shape? They should have been here for the Indian Mud Run if they think playing a few minutes of World Cup soccer is tough. Try swimming in a canal. No red card there.

The situation in Iraq continues to worsen as we get ready to send 300 military advisors to help out. The question is this – whom do we help? Neither the Sunnis nor the Shiites are that friendly to the U.S. I welcome your thoughts on this.

Category: Mark's Musings