Can’t judge resilience until after recovery
The Dominion Post had an article on Jan. 26 titled “They’re resilient — more so than us.”
Yes, children are resilient. If you look at the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of resilient is “able to become strong, healthy or successful again after something bad happens,” “capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture” or “tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”
While I believe that children are a wonderful embodiment of resilience, can someone please let me know when our children have had time to recover or bounce back? Yes, adjust they have — every single day. The only thing our children can adjust to is that adjustments need to be made constantly.
The only way we will be able to, in my opinion, measure a child’s true resilience is to wait until a time when they can actually recover from the circus they have been a part of for the past two years.
I don’t want to diminish the strength and endurance our children have displayed during this time — I just ask that we remember that our kids have not had a chance to “recover” or “bounce back.”
Give them some grace to let out their feelings and be respectful that our children have done more adjusting than a lot of adults. It’s not as pretty as the word resilient would lead you to believe.
Amanda Powell
Morgantown
Mon Health thanks firefighters for good work
On behalf of the Mon Health Medical Center staff, we want to thank the county and city firefighters for their recent response to an issue in an office building on our campus.
On a snowy day, we had multiple officials swiftly respond to and manage an alarm on-site, mitigating any negative impacts to life, limb, facilities and operations. Their professionalism, timeliness, attentiveness and expertise was so appreciated, and we are blessed to have superb first responders in our community.
Many thanks to our awesome first responders!
#WVPROUD
David Goldberg
Morgantown
Traffic laws must be enforced more often
Mary Wade Burnside’s column on Oct. 9, 2021, regarding pedestrian crossings and the lack of acknowledgement from just so many drivers, points out many steps to take to ensure pedestrian safety. One that was missing was enforcement of traffic laws.
We live in town and walk a lot and all over. It is common to see cars squeezing through “pink” traffic lights. Apparently, a yellow light means speed up, not get ready to stop for the impending red. And some just barrel through the red.
We often walk through the intersection of Grand Street and Wilson Avenue, a four-way stop. Almost no one stops. Some never slow down. You know there’s a school nearby, right? Luckey Lane by Mountainview Elementary School has a different set of issues.
Signs saying “Do Not Enter” are ignored, just like today on Clay Street. One-way streets are frequently two-ways, like Maryland Street near one city councilor’s home. Turn signals are rarely used. Speeding is routine.
“Mountaineers are always free” does not mean freedom to ignore traffic laws and general safety common sense.
Why does this happen? Lack of enforcement. There is minimal risk of consequences. This is not an indictment of the Morgantown Police Department, as the three other cities here, the Monongalia County Sheriff and the State Police all share the blame.
On I-79 South last week, I slowed down as much as I could for the bridge construction at Halleck Road (the site of too many accidents recently, with at least one fatality). The driver behind me was practically pushing my car through; 55 MPH wasn’t part of his vocabulary. Most days, I-79 is a race track — until an accident happens, and then it’s a parking lot.
Law enforcement everywhere is understaffed and underpaid (my hat’s off to them). But it’s about time the authoritative entities do what they are supposed to do to ensure the safety of the citizenry and start enforcing the laws.
John Sofranko
Morgantown
One big concern about nuclear power
Nuclear power plants create radioactive waste.
How to dispose of it?
Daryl L. Gray
Morgantown
Who’s supposed to clear orphan roads after snow?
I know the DOH is busy taking care of main highways and secondary roads when it snows. What about people who live on what the DOH classifies as orphan roads? Are they supposed to be treated as well?
There was a DOH truck out on our orphan road, but it didn’t make it up our road because it’s steep and the truck had no chains on, so it slid back down into the ditch.
The DOH was called and asked if they were going to send out a truck to treat our road. The person said that they would tell their supervisor that our road had not been treated.
The people who live on orphan roads pay our share of state taxes like everybody else, so our road should be treated as well as all the other roads, but that seems to never happen. All the main roads are clear, but, at the time of this writing, our road is still snow covered and slick. You can’t get up our hill unless you have four-wheel drive, and sometimes that doesn’t help.
What I would like to know is what is it going to take to have our orphan road treated when it snows? I don’t know about other orphan roads — whether they are taken care of or not — but I know our road has not been treated.
Ralph Correll
Morgantown
