|
Letters to the Editor
A Citizen's Notebook
Walter Brandt, Cedar Grove. Twenty years, eighty-four letters, and counting.
About this notebook ·
Five letters ·
My batting average ·
How to write one that gets printed ·
What I'm working on
My name is Walter Brandt. I am sixty-six years old, I ran the parts counter at the tractor dealership on the county road
for thirty-four years, and since 1979 I have been writing letters to the Cedar Grove Courier, our twice-weekly
paper, about the things a town is actually made of: parking meters, potholes, crosswalks, the library, the leaf pickup
schedule, and once, memorably, the color the town chose to paint the water tower. (Beige. I lost that one.)
I do not write about national politics. Not because I have no opinions (my wife will tell you I have plenty) but because
the Courier has a wire service for that and no wire service for Bridge Street. If a man wants to change something,
he ought to start with something he can walk to.
My granddaughter set me up with this page in August. I type with two fingers, so it took a while. She says a web page
is just a letter to the editor with no editor, which I think is about right, and a little frightening.
Below are five of my letters, copied out of the notebook where I keep the drafts and the clippings. I've noted what
happened after each one. Then some advice, since people ask, and my batting average, since I keep one.
Five Letters
1. The Parking Meters (printed May 1987)
To the Editor:
The Village Board has voted to install parking meters on the four blocks of Main Street between the bank and the
feed store, at a cost of $31,000, in order to raise an estimated $9,000 a year. I have done the arithmetic and I do not
see how a business that takes three and a half years to pay for itself is a business the village should be in.
But the arithmetic is not the real trouble. The real trouble is this: nobody in Cedar Grove has ever had to think about
whether to stop downtown. You pull in, you run into the hardware store or the pharmacy, you say hello to two people you
know, and you go on. A parking meter makes a person think about it. Some of them will think their way right out to the
plaza on the highway, which has a lot the size of a wheat field and no meters at all.
If the Board wants to pay for the new sidewalks, and I agree the sidewalks are a disgrace, I would sooner see a small
addition to the downtown business assessment, which the merchants have said they would accept. Downtown is the one thing
Cedar Grove has that the highway doesn't. Let's not charge admission to it.
Walter Brandt
Cedar Grove
What happened: The meters went in anyway, in the fall of 1987. They came out in the spring of 1993 after
the merchants' association petitioned the Board, citing exactly the argument above, which I mention only because my wife
says I mention it too often. The posts are still there. The village puts flower baskets on them now.
|
2. The Crosswalk at Elm and Route 9 (printed October 1991, the third of four letters)
To the Editor:
This is the third time I have written about the corner of Elm Street and Route 9, and I intend to keep writing until
somebody paints a crosswalk on it or I run out of stamps.
Every school morning between 7:40 and 8:05, between thirty and forty children cross Route 9 at Elm to reach Lincoln
Elementary. I know the number because I stood on the corner and counted them for five mornings in September, in the rain
on two of them. There is no crosswalk, no sign, and no crossing guard. There is a 35-mile-an-hour speed limit that the
morning traffic treats as a suggestion.
The state highway department tells the village it is a state road. The village tells parents it is a state road. The
children, meanwhile, cross a state road. I would like to suggest that whoever's road it is, it is our children, and that
a can of paint and a sign cost less than the letter of condolence somebody will otherwise have to write.
The Village Board meets Tuesday the 15th. I will be there. I hope a few parents will be too.
Walter Brandt
Cedar Grove
What happened: Eleven parents came to that meeting, which for Cedar Grove is a mob. The Board wrote to the
state. The state took eighteen months. The crosswalk was painted in May 1993, with a flashing school-zone sign, and there
has been a crossing guard, Mrs. Petrakis, every school morning since. My fourth letter, which was a thank-you, was also printed.
That corner is the thing I am proudest of in twenty years of this, and I didn't do it; the parents did. I just counted.
|
3. The Library Levy (printed February 1994)
To the Editor:
On March 8 the village will vote on a library levy that would cost the owner of an average home about $28 a year. I am
writing to say that I will vote yes, and to say why, because I know a good many people my age intend to vote no.
The argument against is that we managed fine with the old library. We did not. The roof leaks over the children's
section, the building is not reachable by anyone in a wheelchair, and the library has not been able to afford a new
encyclopedia since 1986, which means a child doing a report in Cedar Grove is doing it from a book that says the Soviet
Union still exists.
Twenty-eight dollars is a tank of gas and a sandwich. For that we get a roof, a ramp, an encyclopedia, Saturday hours,
and, I am told, a computer with the Internet on it, whatever that turns out to be. I have never once regretted a dollar
spent on a library, and I do not expect to start.
Walter Brandt
Cedar Grove
What happened: The levy passed, 611 to 534. The roof was fixed that summer and the ramp went in the next
spring. The Internet computer arrived in 1996. It is where I learned to do this. So the joke is on me.
|
4. The Potholes on Bridge Street (printed April 1998)
To the Editor:
I have named the potholes on Bridge Street. The one by the Legion hall is Harold. The one in front of the Lutheran church
is Gladys; she is the deep one. The two by the bridge approach are the Twins, and there is a new small one this week by the
mailbox that I am calling Junior. I name them because the village has had two years to fill them and I have concluded
they are permanent residents, and residents ought to have names.
The village's position, as stated at the March meeting, is that Bridge Street is scheduled for resurfacing "in the
next capital plan," which is a phrase that means "not this year" in the same way that "we'll see" means
no. In the meantime, cold patch costs about $8 a bag at the hardware store, and Gladys would take three.
I am not asking for a new road. I am asking for a truck, two men and a Tuesday morning. If the village would like a
volunteer, I own a shovel and I am retired.
Walter Brandt
Cedar Grove
What happened: The village filled them the following Wednesday, which I take as a compromise on the
Tuesday. Gladys came back in November. She was filled again in April 1999 and Bridge Street is in the 2000 capital plan,
which I will believe when I see the truck. Several people now refer to that pothole as Gladys, including, I am reliably
told, the public works foreman.
|
5. Leaf Pickup (printed September 17, 1999) 
To the Editor:
The village has announced that leaf pickup this fall will be on a single day per neighborhood, the week of November 8,
instead of the three passes we have had for as long as I can remember. The reason given is the cost of the loader. The
reason not given is that the maple trees on the north side of town, which the village planted in the 1950s, do not
consult the village calendar and generally finish dropping around Thanksgiving.
One pass on November 8 means that everything that comes down after that gets bagged by homeowners, most of whom on the
north side are older than the trees. It also means that everything that comes down before it sits in the gutters for
three weeks, blocks the storm drains and ends up in the basements on Bridge Street, and I already write enough letters
about Bridge Street.
Two passes, one early November and one the week after Thanksgiving, would cost one extra day of the loader. I would
rather the village spent that day than I spent November on my knees with a rake at sixty-six. I suspect I am not alone.
Walter Brandt
Cedar Grove
What happened: Pending. The Board meets October 5. I'll report back here.
|
My Batting Average
Kept honestly, from the notebook, 1979 through today.
| Letters written | 84 |
| Letters printed | 61 |
| Letters printed with the point I was making still in them | 57 |
| Letters that were answered by another letter (a good sign) | 22 |
| Letters that were answered by a letter calling me a crank | 4 |
| Times the thing I asked for actually happened | 9 |
| ...within a year | 3 |
| Times the opposite happened | 6 |
| Water tower still beige | Yes |
Nine for eighty-four is .107, which in baseball would get a man sent down to the minors, and which in citizenship is,
I am told by a fellow at the historical society who keeps track of such things, considerably better than the Village
Board itself. The crosswalk alone is worth the other seventy-five.
How to Write a Letter the Paper Will Print
People ask. Here is everything I know, which took me about ten years to learn and takes about two minutes to read.
- Two hundred fifty words. The Courier says 300 is the limit and prints the ones under 250 first because
they fit. Count them. Every letter above is under 250 except the crosswalk one, and I made up the difference by counting
children.
- One point. Not two. Not "and another thing." If you have two points, that's two letters, a month apart.
A letter with two points gets cut to one by the editor, and it will be the wrong one.
- Say what you want in the first sentence or the last. Preferably both. Editors cut from the middle.
- Sign your name and your town. The paper won't print an unsigned letter and shouldn't. If you're not willing to be
seen at the hardware store afterward, you're not ready to send it. Being seen at the hardware store afterward is most of
the point.
- Refer to the article, meeting or date you're responding to. "At the March 2 Board meeting..." It tells the
editor your letter is timely, and timely letters get printed.
- Bring a number. A cost, a count, a date. I counted children on a corner for a week. It was the only thing in
that letter anyone quoted back to me.
- No names, no name-calling. Argue with the decision, not the man who made it. The Board members shop at the
same pharmacy you do. Also, you will want them on your side for the next letter.
- No capital letters for emphasis, no exclamation points, no "wake up, people." The angrier a letter looks,
the less anyone reads it. Say it plainly and let them get angry on their own.
- Type it, or write it plainly, and mail it or bring it in. The Courier takes letters by mail and at the
front desk. Include a phone number for them to check it's really you; they won't print the number.
- Offer something. A dollar figure, an alternative, a shovel. A letter that only complains is a complaint. A
letter with a suggestion in it is a proposal, and proposals get discussed at meetings.
- Go to the meeting. The letter is the invitation. The meeting is the party. Eleven people at a Board meeting
got a crosswalk built. Eleven letters would not have.
- Write the thank-you letter. When they do the thing, say so in print. They'll remember it the next time, and so
will the editor.
What I'm Working On
Leaf pickup, as above; the Board meets October 5. The stop sign at Maple and Third that nobody stops at (letter drafted,
110 words, waiting for a good reason to send it, such as somebody nearly getting hit, which I'd rather not wait for).
And a thank-you to the library for the new large-print section, which I did not ask for and which somebody else must have,
so my hat's off to them.
My granddaughter says I should put the other seventy-nine letters on here too. We'll see. That's a phrase that means no.
Neighbors worth reading:
Vote 2000: A Citizen's Guide, a retired couple explaining how to register and vote, which is the other half of this;
Millbrook Township Historical Society, the next township over;
Model UN at Jefferson High, where a teacher is training young people to argue about the whole world (they'll get to potholes eventually);
and Hartley Hardware & Garden, because a man ought to support a hardware store, and theirs is a good one.
Back to the Capitol Hill neighborhood
You are reader number
    
since August 1999, which is more people than have ever read one of my letters on purpose.
Letters to this editor: [email protected]. Two hundred fifty words, one point, sign your name.
Last updated September 20, 1999. © 1999 Walter Brandt. The letters are mine. Quote them all you like, but say where you got them.
| |
GeoCities.us
» CapitolHill » Lobby
