AN OPEN LETTER TO THOSE WHO ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM:
Remember that Jeff Foxworthy guy and his, “You might be a redneck” one-liners? Pretty funny stuff, especially the one that goes, “If you’ve ever cut your grass and found a car, you might be a redneck.”
Foxworthy and his humorous insights sort of hit home here in the Valley, too, because we have both urban and rural residential areas, and some folks shop at Cabela’s while others shop at Macy’s. And let’s face it, around here? Someone just might have found that car.
Well, for this week please allow me to evoke Foxworthy and his famous lines with a Top Ten version of my own so a message can be sufficiently delivered to those who need to hear it. The major difference between Foxworthy’s musing and the following list is that they ain’t no “mights” about it.
In no particular order:
- If you refuse to use your turn signal, you are part of the problem.
- If you purposely spread misinformation, you are part of the problem.
- If you own a dilapidated building and you are doing absolutely nothing with it, you are part of the problem.
- If you are an individual who goes to an establishment that has hired someone to play live music and you complain about the volume level, you are part of the problem.
- If you refuse to zipper merge with others in construction zones, you are part of the problem.
- If you have ever used the, “Well, they did it first” excuse after following bad examples, you are part of the problem.
- If you have ever attempted to tell a Little League coach how to coach, then you coach and quit being a part of the problem.
- If, as a pedestrian, you fail to check the traffic signals at an intersection and just leisurely walk across, and if you then flip off a honking motorist that has chosen not to run you down, you are part of the problem.
- If you renewed your season tickets for the Pirates’ 2020 season, you are part of the problem.
- If you eat, apply make-up, watch a movie, turn up your car stereo volume to a level that doesn’t allow you to hear even sirens, and/or, hold your cell phone while driving, that makes you a dangerously distracted driver and, yes, part of the problem.
There are so many more, like using the passing lane on an interstate for something other than passing and failing to tip a restaurant server at least 15 percent, but the real problem, you see, is that you already know you are a part of one of the problems we’re experiencing these days in the Upper Ohio Valley.
And you don’t care.
Sincerely,
People Who Do Care
