By Barbara Morris
The people who live there have served us and our country well. They would not have to be there at all if that was not the case. To them it is home and has been home for a long time. Although the Christmas holidays usually attract outside visitors, the rest of the year family and friends of the patients are generally just other patients and the staff serving them.The really lucky ones may also have one or more loved ones who live nearby visit them. Many of these patients are in their “golden” years, and this haven has been fulfilling for them the meagre promises we all hear about aging as we grow up.Some of them could have found bowling to be therapeutic, but a properly functioning, safe bowling alley remains an unfulfilled dream. Now, when surely there could be wounded additions to or replacements of the present patients, the facility is to be torn down and the residents and staff displaced.We are told that the community wants part of the property for a school. Years ago, the community wanted part of the property for a park, which was accomplished and includes a very a nice theater, sports area, including a running track and a man-made pond stocked with fish so that the children can enjoy relaxing fun, tempting fish to get caught.One wonders if by the time a new school might be built, the staff will have been trained “to speak every language spoken in the city,” as has recently been proposed and which was similarly demanded of the Police Department by City Councilwoman Annette Robinson some years ago.Ah, politics! There was more to come. Just before Memorial Day, when some members of the community were celebrating Caribbean Week, the Democratic Party chose to announce that former U.S. Marine and soon to be bridegroom City Councilman James Sanders Jr. would not have party support when he runs for re-election to the 31st Council District. David Hooks Jr., who ran against Sanders before and lost, is to receive party support.As I recall, Sanders did not receive party support at that time either. Since his election as chairman of the Economic Development Committee he has held public seminars teaching the ABCs of the business world; has helped volunteers apply for funding; has himself funded programs for health and for public schools; settled an outstanding financial promise made by Pathmark to our communities; addressed predatory lending problems; has sponsored events for seniors; is presently working on establishing a community center in Laurelton so that youths will have a positive place to go; has given the Rosedale Soccer Team $1 million, and has also given another million toward the improvement of Brookville Park… (and don't we wish all of our legislators would be that supportive of our parks and Police Department as well.)Later that week the Newsweek debacle was all but forgotten when 90-year-old Mark Felt announced that he was the “Deep Throat” who helped bring down the administration of former President Nixon. Some people had suspected him, some had not. Some thought his motives were totally pure and some felt his involvement was motivated solely because he hated then President Nixon because he had not made him top officer of the FBI.By some strange coincidence, just before Felt's announcement, former President Nixon's son-in-law Ed Cox announced his run for the New York Senate seat held presently by Sen. Hillary Clinton. As I said, the political arena is sometimes very strange. God bless America. May the best candidate win on his or her own merit.
