Letters

What’s wrong

For more than 25 years my sister and I have returned to Colfax and Moscow in the late summer to decorate the graves of our loved ones.

Never, however, have we found the Colfax Cemetery in worse shape than this past August. The grass was bone dry, weeds engulfed the tombstones, and shade trees were half cut down and not replaced.

Contrast this with the Moscow Cemetery, lush green grass, not a weed in sight, all neatly trimmed, with trees beautifully pruned. Of course the question arises: Why? Why, when a cemetery is in a taxed district and perpetual care fees assessed with each burial, is the Colfax Cemetery such a shameful mess?

If someone in authority could answer my question, I’d be grateful.

Rev. Russell D. Clark,

Newport, WA

Less interest

I was talking to a senior lady and we were focusing on how sad it was that as each generation passes they seem to be less interested in politics and voting. Ida has great grandchildren who are of voting age and she is sad to think of how the younger people take too much for granted.

Ida and her husband, who served in World War II, were children of immigrants who always voted after they became citizens. They were homesteaders who had to work very hard to support their families during the depression and the rationing caused by the big war.

We were lamenting about our fears for our families and our republic if we don’t wake up and take an interest in this decline we are experiencing. These fallacies that one vote doesn’t count, and the government owes us a living are two of the ideas that are causing this down turn of our once proud nation. We are facing a very important midterm election!

Don’t you think that it is time that each one of us speaks up and hopes that we can cause some attitudes to change?

Gerald Ray,

Spokane