Author Archives: Sam Ross Jr.

Long time, no write.

This being the week of my birthday, I gave myself the gift of detachment from the ugly realities of what is happening internationally, nationally, locally. That meant no paying attention to unfolding life and, by virtue of that, writing no blog entries.

I recommend these breaks, the pauses that refresh, to anyone. While the world churned away, feeding the wants and desires of the tinpot dictators, attention whores and spinmeisters, I watched a lot of TV reruns. I will continue that by ignoring the opening tonight of yet another virtue-signalling NFL season.

Call it cheap escapism, much less expensive than jetting off to some tropical island for a respite.

There was an abundance of the old Perry Mason series episodes to be viewed, available many times each day on my satellite TV provider’s channel 82.

There also was a smattering of old movies on channel 132, some Magnum, PI, episodes and various other dated television and film opportunities.

In one Magnum episode tonight, Frank Sinatra’s character dispatched two thugs who had raped his granddaughter. It was raw and fitting.

I marvel at those simpler times as recorded on film, when Mason’s private investigator buddy Paul Drake could say “Hi, beautiful,” to Mason’s secretary, Della Street, and the world didn’t brand him a sexual harasser.

A lot of people smoked in those shows, drank alcohol and generally lived their lives free from a more modern form of addiction, that being to social media and political correctness.

There was a stark contrast in shows of that era between good and bad, something accentuated by them being filmed in black and white.

No room, back then, for hucksters, navel gazers, poverty pimps or race baiters to be glorified in the story lines. The public recognized wrong from right and the people putting out the shows were very aware of that, so they didn’t try to turn every show into a propaganda piece to appease the far left causes of the moment.

Entertainment was just that, entertainment, not political indoctrination. Similarly, I recall the actual news broadcasts of the time were direct, to-the-point recitations of facts, not opinion, narratives and propaganda passed off as the truth.

For those of you too young to recall such a time, I invite you to revisit it indirectly by viewing some of the great TV and films of the past.

Do this with a mix of inquisitiveness, close study and open-mindedness.

Compare then to now, and shed a tear for what we have become.

What an amazing transformation of Johnstown’s Central Park. And so quickly!

It seems like just earlier this week the elites who run everything were proudly displaying how they were going to dump $17 million, give or take, into the downtown gem in the interest of improving it and attracting visitors.

Then Saturday, I discovered the plan already had come to fruition, with so many classic cars and trucks rimming Central Park. I noticed this as I visited downtown.

Fantastic, although I’m not sure there was $17 million worth of vehicles. But it’s a government project, so there is slippage — wink, nod.

But those sparkling vehicles around the park and along Main Street sure did brighten the picture.

Of course, this begs the question of how a city short on funding is going to keep all those vehicles clean and shiny when they can’t even trim brush or patch holes in streets. Protecting the vehicles from vandals, or theft, also would seem to be a major consideration.

It also makes me worry about snow removal when winter arrives. Then again, downtown snow removal plans of late are to wait for it all to melt in the spring.

But this is progress and what sort of person would stand up against what the uncrowned leaders have determined is best for us?

Our area, you might have heard, is supposed to be hitching its economic wagon to tourism. And I will admit there were more people downtown than on a usual Saturday afternoon. I saw people in businesses. I am fairly certain they were spending money.

Will the economic bean counters run their models and estimate the customary $20 million was pumped into the local economy based on Saturday?

Speaking of that, have they ever gotten around to putting a number on what was the raging success of Thunder in the Valley 2023? If so, I missed it and so, apparently, did the area media.

But I’m sure those economic numbers were/are huge, both from the motorcycle event and going forward on the Central Park Car Display.

What? That display of cars and trucks was just for a few hours this weekend? They managed to get people into town simply by holding an event in the old, not updated Central Park?

I’m shocked, I tell you.

Fittingly for a Labor Day weekend, the soon-to-be-6-year-old granddaughter was talking about her career plans Friday.

She is, after all, in kindergarten and had just helped drop off her four-year-old sister for the start of the year’s preschool. Our “older” granddaughter, apparently having become aware of the fleeting nature of time, was contemplating her life’s work – DoorDash.

There were audible groans from the wife and I. Not that I’m impugning DoorDash delivery people. I read on smallbiztrends.com these people make, on average, $15-$25 an hour.

Of course, they are independent contractors, with all the positives and negatives that come with that, things on the downside such as no healthcare benefits, pensions and the like. We stressed to the child this was more of a second job than a main profession.

And the granddaughter audibled to then wanting to become a kindergarten teacher. After all, her father is a high school math teacher. I held my tongue to avoid telling her to keep picking careers.

Despite the magnificent weather we are enjoying locally, this is not a particularly happy labor day weekend for the economy writ large.

The government statistical distorters were out today with a job report for August, showing a major loss of full-time jobs and a big increase in part-time employment. All those jobs you hear about going unfilled, most of them are not the kind of jobs that can support a household or family.

Oh, they might be grabbed up in other lands. But here in the USA, where the government transfer payment system is alive and well, they are not a viable alternative to life on the dole.

And an increasingly large number of Americans who do work find they need to toil at multiple jobs just to keep up with the inflation brought to you by Brandonomics.

An insightful story on zerohedge.com broke down that these government jobs reports, and we use that term in the most generous way, are long on adjustments such as the birth-death model. It’s not that actual jobs are counted, or births and deaths of jobholders. Instead birth-death is a term for the estimating creation and disappearance of businesses.

A certain amount of this is assumed and then, when the facts actually come in later, the reports are adjusted, usually in a negative way.

According to that story, every single month this year to date jobs have been adjusted lower later in the year, after the purported gains have been reported, headlines have been written, stocks have jumped and media types have sung the praises of the Brandon Regime.

It’s the same phenomenon I’ve written about before, with newspapers sometimes sporting glaring headlines on Page 1 and, if the stories need corrected later, a small one-paragraph item appears on an inside page with a tiny headline and in the text beneath the usual “we regret the error” wording. It just doesn’t seem to balance out the error that commanded the front page earlier.

The point is, this economy is in the vapor stage. The government COVID-19 stimulus handouts have gone through the system like a small animal through a snake, boosting inflation and creating a mirage of demand that is waning now as the excess savings have disappeared.

The low-buck retail outlets such as DollarTree and Dollar General are seeing their earnings hit and, by extension, their stock prices.

Retailers in general are coming in light on earnings, with many using the convenient excuse of the moment, “shrinkage.” That’s the polite euphemism for shoplifting, AKA stealing by the masses who have come to find it’s almost a given there will be no punishment for it even if one is caught.

That the job reporting would be suspect under Brandon’s crew should come as no surprise. His head press flack was out proclaiming our borders have never been more secure, a blatant falsehood that even the lapdog media types couldn’t pass along without noting it isn’t exactly true.

You get the feeling this mountain of deception, not to mention HunterGate, is going to crash in around Brandon, and even his former backers will be quick to feed him to the dogs if only to get this bumbling, stumbling, feeble guy out of the picture for the 2024 presidential election.

By the time that election is held, one can only wonder what sort of statistical legerdemain it is going to require to paint the economy in a positive light.

If the national economy goes sour to the Great Recession level some are predicting, it will come as quite a shock for those people of lesser economic circumstances who now are big on DoorDash to deliver ready made food. Imagine if they find themselves having to cut back and – horrors – prepare food at home to save money.

There goes that segment of the gig economy, along with countless Uber or Lyft drivers, YouTube influencers, and other non-essential service providers.

The warmongers seem to be trying to get this country into yet another direct confrontation, moving on from using Ukraine in a proxy war with Russia. An embattled Brandon Regime would welcome the diversion from domestic failures. Can you say wag the dog?

Stay tuned. This should get very interesting within the next year or so.

Why the long face, John? I ask because you say on Facebook that you are sad regarding me.

And how do I know this, not being a Facebook member or a person addicted to checking for posts?

I got a call at 9:12 p.m. Monday night from someone alerting me to your commentary on Facebook regarding me and posting my latest blog contribution, although being unhappy about doing so. This amazed me since I’d just finished writing it and posting at maybe 8:20 or so and had sent my son an email at 8:52 p.m. noting that there had been curious activity on my blog stats page earlier. I’d noticed it while making my post. That strange activity was a heavy preponderance of visits to the home page and archives without actually opening a story. That was pushing a 2-1 ratio. Usually there many more views than visitors because each person tends to stick around and read several entries.

I noted in that email it was as if somebody, or somebodies, had been eagerly checking for something new. Unaware of that before sitting down to write, I apparently responded to some sort of cosmic influence.

John, unlike some of your Facebook pals and their too often exaggerated assertions, I can document this timing with email and phone logs.

As an aside, let me tell you my caller took advantage of our conversation to express for the second time his voter’s remorse that he was feeling since I had talked him into voting for you and Joe Taranto. He does frequent Facebook and is appalled by some of what you two have posted on many issues since that ill-fated election.

I conceded I had misled him, albeit inadvertently. Fortunately, that Republican primary was such a runaway win for our current Democrat-light member that I don’t think I harmed this voter with my blog advocacy of DeBartola and Taranto. If there are others like him, I apologize to them, too.

And I assured my caller I would try to do better in the future.

During our only face-to-face meeting, John, you asked if I minded you posting my blog work on Facebook. I said then and repeat now, you can do whatever you wish, it’s part of the public record when I post it. I never before or since have asked you to do it.

Once again, I make no money by blogging. There is no advertising, no login on the site. It costs me money, but I like to write and share it with anyone, or no one, as is their wish.

Also, I had noted in a blog post explaining our relationship that I have met you face to face exactly once, while you and Taranto were in the neighborhood collecting signatures in order to be put on the ballot.

I find it curious that you chose to send me a message on Facebook about your sadness when I distinctly remember giving you my cell no. at the time we met. I told you then you could call me for assistance or to discuss anything you found to be important. Also, since you know my address, you could stop by to chat.

Please note this is an invitation to you, not to anyone else.

I have neither your cell number, nor your home address, but I could make an educated guess as to your home based on information I’ve been provided such as screenshots about you lamenting neighbors not cutting their grass. Also, I lived both in Oakland  and Walnut Grove during my youth, so know the areas well.

I’ve decided since you are a faithful reader of this blog, you will find this open letter shortly, likely even more directly than me having to be told by a third party about your Facebook sadness.

Bottom line: I’m not on Facebook and do not intend to be. There is a reason I label social media as the megaphone for morons. It’s not that everyone on social media is a moron. But there is much larger percentage of posters who are weak-minded, reactionary and doctrinaire than one would find in the general population. Plus, in the pre-internet days, people who knew these lesser lights personally, discounted almost everything they said. But these same deluded people post on social media and people who don’t know them take it as gospel. I choose not to get into exchanges with people like that. That is my right, like it or not.

That is why my blog has no comment provision. If a critic wants to get his or her opinions out, spend the money to create a blog site and then see how easy it is to compile your own content. I repost zip. If there is something on my blog, I came up with the idea and wrote it.

Or, critics can just fire from the lip on Facebook, X (Twitter) and the like for free.

At the peak of the Tribune-Review Publishing network of papers, for which I wrote for 15 years, the combined Sunday circulation was about 200,000.  Multiply that by the average 3 person household and it was about 600,000 potential readers on that day alone.

I’ve appeared on TV sports talk shows on KDKA in Pittsburgh, WJAC in Johnstown and WTAJ in Altoona. I had my own sports call-in radio show for a time on WJAC and did sports commentary for WKYE.

Hell, I was on half-hour TV shows several times as a teenager. Scholastic Quiz used to be televised weekly by WJAC and the Johnstown High School team of which I was a member won three times before losing in the semifinals.

My point is, I’ve had my share of exposure and a lot of people in this town still know who I am from the 20 years I spent working full-time at the Tribune-Democrat, not to mention my time as a freelance columnist for the TD.

I’m not trying to make a name for myself. I’m just having fun while in retirement and trying to shine the light on obvious wrongs.

John, you told me during our only meeting — and I’m told you have repeated similar things on Facebook — that you admired my writing skills. I thank you. Alas, I’m not always going to write what you, or others, think is the correct take on events. My blog content is researched by me and reflects the facts, with my take on what they indicate. It can be satirical. It can be a parody. It might make offending parties uncomfortable to have their antics exposed to this slice of the public.

But, if you or anyone else agreed with everything I wrote, we’d be the same person and we are not.

Society circa 2023 is a confusing mishmash. It’s enough to make a person take to asking questions out loud.

Anyone else wonder whether, if Adolf Hitler were alive today, he or a surrogate would he be rushing to create a GoFundMe account to help defray his legal expenses having do with facing charges such as genocide and assorted war crimes?

And would ‘Dolf be a regular on social media and YouTube asking plaintively why everyone’s picking on him?

What would Freud have to say about someone who seems to degenerate any discussions, debates, or conversations into sexual namecalling and/or crass sexually oriented comments?

Why are so many people in desperate need of a metaphorical mirror, that they might see exactly how pathetic and ridiculous is the image they present to the world?

Can I kill, rape, rob, or commit any number of lesser offenses and be absolved of punishment by claiming I was kidding, I was misunderstood, or it was all just a social experiment?

If I rob a bank and, when caught, offer to return the money, does the charge go away?

Why do some people think they can insult, threaten and otherwise go out of their way to antagonize virtually anyone they interact with, yet expect these same people (victims?) to treat them with the utmost in courtesy and respect?

Did you ever notice how often people with personal axes to grind lurk in the background, relying on useful idiots to do their bidding?

Why do selfish attention seekers, when their tiny worlds begin to collapse, fall back on claiming to be doing it all to help others?

Is there a greater pop culture icon of trying to have it both ways than the late songstress Helen Reddy. In 1971 she sang what became the theme song of the women’s liberation movement with “I Am Woman (Hear Me Roar)” It was a brassy, bold, statement with lyrics such as “I am strong (strong), I am invincible (invincible) I am woman.” Women were the equal of men and needed no special accommodations due to being the so-called weaker sex. A few years later, Reddy had changed her tune, both literally and figuratively. She was back with a hit song playing the victim as the weaker sex with “Ain’t No Way To Treat A Lady.” That cover of a previously released song by another artist included lyrics such as “No way to treat your baby. Your woman, your friend.” Huh? Aren’t you an equal? Roar?

Would you be surprised if some of our current high-profile types who flipflop between bully and victim are closet Reddy fans?

Quick hits on recent events:

• Love him or hate him, you’ve got to marvel at the mental toughness of Donald Trump. While critics emphasized him “frowning” in his mugshot, I saw it as defiant resolve. It was interesting to see mugshots of his other so-called co-conspirators in the Georgia case and only two smiled like it was a yearbook photo.
• Still on the subject of Trump, I side with those characterizing this as banana-republic behavior by a supposedly neutral justice department, acting in close coordination with the Biden Regime. Aside from not bringing down Trump’s plan with a bomb, missile, or whatever the current theory, there is little to separate the way Putin deals with political enemies and the way our good Democrats go about eliminating competition.
• I understand membership in the Charlie Brown fan club is diminishing rapidly. Will the last person to leave turn out the lights?
• The good news is apparently I need not fear being run down anytime soon by his uninspected truck.
• More good news, we may soon find out if the Corvette actually does run under its own power.
• Demonstrating the upside-down nature of law enforcement in this country, a New York City police officer is in trouble for throwing a cooler at an alleged drug deal participant fleeing on a moped. The cooler hit the guy and he ended up dead after crashing. The New York Post reports the dead man has at least two prior arrests, one a drug charge and the other – irony of ironies – an open assault case involving throwing a two-liter bottle of soda through a car window. The police officer is on unpaid leave.
• The elites of our Federal Reserve and their cast of sycophants are wrapping up their meeting in the resort of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, having assured us they remain vigilant on inflation. Anyone else ever wonder why these sessions have to be held in exclusive digs and never in, say, the south side of Chicago, or even Moxham?
• The cost of new cars in the United States averages just under $49,000 as of June, which may seem cheap compared to what will happen if the autoworkers get their contract wishes fulfilled. A whopping 97 percent of UAW workers voted to authorize a strike if demands are not met. Those demands include wage increases of 46 percent or so over five years and a reduction of the work week to 32 hours.
• Elon Musk, onetime hero to the far left with his electric vehicles, and now a prime target of them after coming out in favor of such radical concepts as free speech and no censorship on his social media platform, is being persecuted by the Department of Justice for, wait for it, not hiring refugees or asylum seekers to work at his SpaceX concern. Meanwhile, a quick check of the NASA web site shows the following for that governmental agency: “Other than extremely rare exceptions, you must be a U.S. citizen in order to work for NASA as a civil service employee.”

At about 3:15 p.m. today (Thursday), I was about to reward myself for cutting my son’s grass and my grass (so my place looks nice in the next series of Facebook image posting by everyone’s favorite martyr) by breaking out the convertible and using it to go get a frozen drink at Burger King.

But I screwed up, committed the unpardonable sin of driving on Dahlia Street. Ironically, there came Charlie Brown in the opposite direction, driving the truck that was uninspected as of Monday this week. Charlie acknowledged me with a one-finger salute, but while holding his hand arm beneath the window opening, in a manner one might use if they were trying to shield a passenger from seeing the act.

I replied in kind and continued. But Charlie didn’t stop at his house and ventured onward. Thinking Charlie might be on another photo-taking session, I turned around and followed. Sure enough, he turned into the alley behind my home, slowed near my garage but kept going. He did stop several houses up the alley and I stopped about four car lengths behind out of necessity. It is too narrow to pass — at least to pass safely.

This must have enraged Charlie Brown, because he threw his truck into reverse and backed up at a high rate of speed. I sat there and braced for impact, feeling sad that my Mustang might have to pay the price for my indiscretion, that being driving on a public street Charlie apparently has claimed for his own, much like a paper alley.

But Charlie, showing reason has not totally escaped him, stopped before crunching my car. He drove to the end of the alley and turned right, but stopped again on Queen, short of his street. I came to the end of the alley, stopped, waved and went on my way in the other direction.

Along the way, I’d gotten a call on my cell phone, so I was relaying play-by-play should it prove helpful somewhere down the line.

I then continued to Burger King and ordered a frozen cherry drink. Not my day, I guess. I was told cherry was “on defrost,” but I could have a Coke. I ordered the Coke, paid the guy his $1.06; even made sure the change had not dropped from his hand since I had heard a clink. No, he had the six cents just fine.

Next, I continued on my planned drive, out to Fender Lane, then to Somerset Pike, Goucher Street and back home.

Now, I sit before the computer getting on the record in the anticipation that Charlie Brown will rush to his social media outlet to pillory me for violating his street.

Oh, and by the way, Charlie, good to hear you apologized to the postal people.

I made time Wednesday to stop by the Southmont Borough building to pick up a copy of ordinance 545, which did get reworded in executive session after Monday’s regular meeting.

It will be advertised for public consumption and the process will continue.

Meanwhile, I received various communications today, either by cell phone or email, that Charlie Brown continues to wallow in a pool of self pity. Hope he doesn’t drown.

Charlie was driving very slowly through the alley behind my house yesterday in a truck that as of Monday seemed to lack valid inspection or emissions stickers. I saw him as I was in the process of getting together my wife and granddaughter No. 3 to go out for dinner, since we’d treated Granddaughter No. 2 the night before.

We made it a point to drive by Charlie’s house on our way out to eat, just to pay respects. I was at the wheel of my Mustang convertible, which is duly licensed, insured, inspected and obviously able to be driven.

It turns out, as I learned via screen captures emailed to me Wednesday, Charlie was taking pictures of my house and garage, then posting them on social media, seemingly implying I am violating some current or proposed ordinances.

Of course he doesn’t say that. He’s Mr. Innuendo when he isn’t Mr. Self Pity. He’s also Mr. I’m Not Very Good In Face-To-Face Conversations. Twice with me he’s either declined the opportunity to berate me in person, or in the latter instance stated two falsehoods in a few minutes, indicating he’d been cutting grass since birth and then that he hadn’t known who I was at a prior Southmont Borough Council meeting, yet he’d advised his father not to sit next to me, Sam Ross Jr., before that very same meeting began.

I am particularly amused that he refers to my blog as self-published, like that’s a crime. It is, indeed, self-published, put out by me and I make zero money for it as it has no advertising, membership fees, etc. I did, however, write professionally for others and made a few bucks doing that full-time for 35 years give or take.

I also did some freelance work through the years, for publications ranging from Steelers Game Day programs, various football bowl game programs, MSNBC (the Jerome Bettis Thanksgiving Day head-tails coin flip flap in Detroit) and, most recently, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat.

No less a person than Charlie Brown has told me I’m a good writer. High praise, indeed.

Speaking of professions, Charlie states often that he’s a truck driver, as in that is his job. He did it again at the Monday meeting. Since he’s all for disclosure, what was the last day, month, or year that Charlie worked as a paid truck driver for a company? What is the name of his current company of employment?

Kindly post that on social media that someone might enlighten me.

I only ask because a prominent plank in Charlie’s pity-me platform is him being poor and picked on because of that. According to talent.com, the median truck driving salary in the U.S. is $62,400 a year. It’s a little higher in Pennsylvania, at $66,431.

If you are a working truck driver and still poor, where’s all the money going, Charlie?

It is the triumph of hope over experience, making the effort to attend monthly meetings of Southmont Borough Council and expecting progress to be any better than glacial regarding issues such as the Dahlia Street doings.

And yet I made it a point to attend Monday’s meeting, which had hidden deep on its agenda a proposed ordinance to discourage me-against-the-world protesters from clogging a street with out-of-state registered trailers, some replete with piles of junk, a car whose best days were decades back, and any other manner of unsightly things that might be expected to punish the neighbors for refusing to acknowledge and affirm any claims of the protester.

Said victim – know him as Charlie Brown since he’s fond of lamenting ad nauseam about being picked on – keeps losing in court on the matter of his family’s right to claim a so-called paper alley, one on the plans, but not improved to date. These paper alleys must be treated as regular alleys in terms of not blocking them.

It’s a simple legal point, which has been upheld in courts multiple times in this particular case, but Charlie Brown cannot/will not accept this.

Just Monday – before, during and presumably after the meeting – he was almost begging to be sent to jail on the matter.

Also, before the meeting, I made it a point to sit just two seats from Charlie Brown. He wanted to chat beforehand. We did.

Charlie’s major problem is only a passing acquaintance with facts. Example 1: He constantly claims he’s been mowing grass on that paper alley for 46 years and so has a right to it. He did it again in talking with me. I asked him his age (according to online documents on the Pennsylvania unified judicial web portal his birth date– or that of a man with the same name – is 6/3/77). Charlie did admit to being not old enough to have been cutting grass for 46 years after I told him he must have come out of the womb with a lawnmower. He said he exaggerated, but has been cutting the grass since age 10.

Example 2: I told Charlie we could discuss this matter of clogging Dahlia Street and punishing a neighbor who had not even been involved in the whole paper alley deal, but he was not going to change my mind and I likely could not change his. And I noted that Charlie had questioned my bravery on social media; me supposedly being afraid to face him man-to-man. I noted I had come to a previous meeting for just that purpose and had given him his chance to say what he had to say then. I had a witness to all this. He had deferred then. When I brought it up again Monday, Charlie said he hadn’t known who I was back then. But he’d steered his father away from sitting near me before that meeting began, noting I was the Sam Ross Jr., the enemy. When I raised this factual contradiction Monday, Charlie had to concede that he had known me at that time.

Two gross liberties taken with the facts in just a few minutes. You be the judge.

Now, let us move on to the council meeting. The Southmont meeting format is to allow upfront five minutes of commentary from residents who sign up on a sheet. Charlie made sure he was the last to sign so that he might have the final word.

During his time – he was the only speaker to have the buzzer sound denoting his time had expired – Charlie Brown lamented decades of his family being persecuted in Southmont. He did make it a point to praise one West Hills police officer in attendance for being nice and just issuing warnings to him, not citations.

But the rest of us, from council members, to neighbors, to innocent spectators, are bad people. One, a pastor, was called an “f-ing Christian” by Charlie Brown as she left the building. This should have been overheard by a newspaper reporter, by the way. I breathlessly await his report on the meeting.

One of the neighbors who has had to put up with Charlie’s street protest for 18 months or so, made it a point in her address to council to alert the police on hand that Charlie drives a truck that lacks a state inspection, which according to all I know is decidedly illegal. In fact, Charlie, or a person with his name, has been cited in Westmoreland County for just that and there is a trial scheduled for September, again according to the justice portal.

Did the police check Charlie Brown’s truck, which was driven by him to the meeting and parked behind my vehicle? I saw him drive up, leave, circle the area repeatedly and finally park again. They don’t seem to have been interested in this.

When I spoke to council, I emphasized my respect for the First Amendment and right to protest, but there are limits when it adversely affects others. On that front, Charlie Brown inexplicably seems to get kid gloves treatment despite being well over such limits.

An ordinance supposedly had been drawn up to deal with Charlie Brown and those like him, who would put rules of good citizenship in the closet, but it never got to a vote.

I’d encourage people everywhere to go to council meetings, township supervisors meetings, any of the organizations that govern their areas. You will be surprised to see how messy the sausage making is.

Southmont decided the ordinance, perhaps weeks in the making, had too many holes and would need to be redrawn before being voted upon and advertised to the public. There was hope a quick redraft could be done by the end of an excecutive session that was held in private after the public meeting was adjourned.

Perhaps we will learn more Tuesday. Maybe — even likely – we will not. But there’s always next month’s meeting.

Southmont Borough Council did what it does best Monday – dither and pass the buck on the Dahlia Street dilemma.

But maybe things will get done in the executive session that was held after the public was shown the door.

We may even have a report on it all in the local newspaper, eventually. Charlie Brown was giving a reporter an earful after the meeting. Charlie hadn’t done so well debating things with me before the meeting.

My detailed take on things must wait on a trip out to dine. Granddaughter No. 2 is spending the night and wants to go out to eat. Grandma agrees.

Priorities.