CITY BEAT: OPERATION ENDURING SUPPORT SENDS 151 CHRISTMAS CARE PACKAGES TO DEPLOYED MEN AND WOMEN IN FOREIGN LANDS AND ON SHIPS AT SEA

 

   Operation Enduring Support continues to do so much to make the Christmas holidays cheerful for our service men and women who are serving on foreign soil and at sea.
     Ann Irwin of Decatur is the director of the OES and she sent me the following update:
     “Operation Enduring Support, with our community’s help, sent 151 Christmas Care Packages to our men and women serving on foreign soil and at sea. This has been a very good year for donations which has really made an impact on how many packages were mailed as well as what was sent in these packages. OES wants you to know how much we appreciate your donations of time and money so our deployed men and women can receive nice holiday gift and know that our community thinks of them and appreciates their service.
     “These 9 lb boxes were sent to three ships at sea, military stationed in Jordan, Kuwait, and Djibouti. Again thank you for caring.”
Thanks to Ann, and all of the volunteers for their continuing effort to send a part of home to those far away from home.

          • ANN Irwin also told me when she sent the “thank you” that: “This was my last event as director, due to age and health. I have so enjoyed this volunteer position.”
Ann has served in the position for many years and thanks to her for her commitment to helping make Christmas brighter for our military personnel so far from home.
     Thank you, Ann, and thank you to all of the volunteers of OES who help make such an impact in a positive way.

     • SAD TO read of the passing of Joyce Allen of Decatur at the age of 94 in last week’s obituaries in the Tribune.
I met Joyce in 1979 when she and Jean Schuman opened Plantation Pine in Brettwood Village which they operated for ten years.
     Back then I was out “beating the bushes” for ads to run in the Tribune and I saw Joyce every week at Plantation Pine for her advertising and I was always impressed with how kind she was to people — including me.
     I’ve met a lot of people over the decades I’ve been editor and publisher of the Decatur Tribune and I have fond memories of my relationship/friendship with many of them — and that certainly includes Joyce Allen.
Decatur and Central Illinois communities contain a lot of really kind and giving residents.
     That’s why I love having a business and newspaper here.

     • SMALL BUSINESS has the biggest job growth in Illinois.
     “Small Business Saturday” was observed a couple of weekends ago and the impact of small business on our state’s economy was highlighted.
     According to the Illinois Policy Institute “small businesses are leading the state’s net job growth, with businesses under 20 employees creating 74% of new net jobs for the state in 2023 – or nearly 31,000 total. Small businesses have been the only ones to add to Illinois’ job market since the pandemic.
     “In comparison, Illinois businesses with 500 or more employees have seen jobs decline by over 17,000.”
As a small business owner I am pleased that we are contributing significantly to the state’s economy.

     • NOT CHARGED! My infamous possessed car “Christine” had been slow to start last week, and almost didn’t start one morning, so I drove it to the Firestone store on North Main Street to have the battery checked.
     One of the reasons I use Firestone, in addition to always getting good service, is that I can leave the car there and walk back to the office — about 4 1/2 blocks!
     Anyhooo, in less than 2 hours after leaving the car at Firestone, I received a call that everything had been checked on the car and I needed a new battery.
     What I was told next brought a smile to my face.
         I was told that I would only have to pay an installation fee of $20 to replace the battery because I had one month left on the 2-year warranty!
     If you normally have the experience I have with warranties — they run out a month BEFORE they are needed — you can imagine how pleased I was to have the battery replaced because the warranty was still in effect!
     I felt like running out onto the parking lot and doing a victory dance — but decided I would just do a victory dance in my head instead.

     • AFTER having the battery replaced I couldn’t help but wonder why my infamous possessed all-knowing car “Christine”, who is always sending me messages about one of my tires being two pounds less in pressure or that the roads may be slick when the temperature drops below freezing, didn’t flash me a message that my battery was low?
Maybe “Christine” didn’t get a “charge” out of informing me of a failing battery.

     • I WAS FEELING pretty happy as I was driving back to my assigned parking space in our building’s parking lot — and then I discovered that someone else had parked their car in my space!
     That’s the first time that’s ever happened in all of the years I’ve been parking downtown.
     I told the building’s manager, Phil Romano, about it and I think he put something on the parked car’s windshield stating that the driver had parked in someone else’s space.
     I checked a few hours later and the car was gone. I’m sure it was an honest mistake by someone who is not that familiar with private lots and reserved parking spaces downtown.

     • MORE INFO — Gary Larson, who often contributes items to share on the back page of the Tribune, sent me the following email after last week’s Scrapbook article on the “Day of Infamy’ appeared.
     Gary wrote: “I enjoyed your article on the attack on Pearl Harbor. I was born 10 years to the day after that attack and have always been interested in it.
     “One thing that is always overlooked is that the first shots of that day were fired by the United States.
“The USS Ward, a WWI era four stack destroyer was patrolling the approach to Pearl Harbor and received a report of a submarine in the area. The Ward’s crew later spotted the midget Japanese submarine trying to enter the harbor. The Ward fired on the submarine at 5:45 am., hitting the sub with its second shot, then rammed it and dropped depth charges on it, killing the two man crew and sinking the submarine.
     “Japanese planes dropped the first bombs on Pearl an hour and ten minutes later.
“Your article also mentioned Glen Wolf who had the distinction of being at Pearl Harbor on December 7th and in Tokyo Bay when Japan surrendered. Another person mentioned in your article, Jim Slade, was on a cruiser in Pearl the day the Japanese attacked and also on a cruiser in Tokyo Bay for the surrender. He would say, ‘I was there when it started and I was there when it ended.’
     “Glen and Jim were part of a small group of men that could say that.”

     • MY “VIEWPOINT” column on page 3 of this week’s print and online editions is about remembering the downtown Decatur of another era and how much the core area has changed over the decades.
     Obviously, I’ve always loved being in downtown Decatur, and even though it has been transformed from what it once was in order to cope with the changing retail and service business, I would not want this newspaper located anywhere but in downtown Decatur, Illinois.

     • LOWER VOTE — Despite all of the news, commentary and wild incidents leading up to the 2024 Presidential Election, according to Ballotpedia, the overall turnout of eligible voters in the 2024 general election was 63.7%. This was lower than the 2020 record of 66.6% but higher than every other election year since at least 2004.
     I’ve heard it kicked around that Election Day should be made into a national holiday to encourage more people to vote.
It has never been easier to vote through early voting, etc. for many days ahead of election day, but a third of registered voters in America didn’t even bother to vote this time.
     Making Election Day a national holiday so more people will vote will not improve on the dismal voting percentage we have in this country.
     They’re just not interested.

     • I JOIN Brian Byers on WSOY’s Byers & Co., every Thursday morning at 7:00 as we’ve been doing for the past 22 years.

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