Back in March, I wrote a couple of columns about Plummer Lake, and who actually owned it. I suppose it could be argued that nobody owns the water, only the land on which the lake sits (or sets, if you want to sound erudite).
As I wrote then, the title to the land itself had been passed down through the years since the area was a working gravel pit. That is until the owners became — as the revered and esteemed late columnist Gordon Aadland would have described — “four ladies in sensible shoes.”
They’d been paying taxes on that land all these years, but suddenly got jolted with an increase of over 1,000 percent! Action was called for. You may remember that I suggested nearly a dozen solutions to the problem, but those were only tongue-in-cheek efforts to fill column space with, hopefully, humorous clap trap.
The ladies knew all along what they wanted to do, which was to donate the land to the city of Centralia. I was asked to suggest a good local attorney who could look into the matter, and I recommended an old friend, Laurel Tiller. He checked all the legal aspects of the situation and saw no reason why it couldn’t be done, and so it was.
I waited for some announcement from the city about the donation, but was told that there was no need to make a formal acceptance since it was “a gift.” I hope those four women making the donation — Sara Calvert, Carol Kellog Pitts, Louise Vogel and Paula Vogel Voos — at least got a thank you card.
Turning to other topics of a less interesting nature, I see where there’s a debate on whether pilotless airplanes might be in the future of aviation. I don’t expect to see that become a reality, at least not in what’s left of my lifetime. We already have a similar system in place — and being used — once a plane has ascended to cruising altitude but I sure wouldn’t want to be aboard any plane if such a system was used for landing.
Speaking of flying, there was a piece in the news not too long ago about an airline announcing that it was reducing the distance between seats. The company’s rationalization was that such an action would not reduce leg space because the seat backs would be made “thinner” as well. (translation: less padded). It’s almost a late enough straw to make a person want to take a train next time if it weren’t for the fact that train service is slowly being reduced as well.
Here’s a thought that often bugs me. Why do we have the impression that police officers seem to shoot to kill instead of incapacitate, maim or injure? I know they’re supposed to use other means such as a taser first, but, if we can believe news stories, that doesn’t seem to be happening often enough.
It’s been over 35 years since I fired a weapon on a local police target range but, even then, the target wasn’t a small black circle surrounded by larger circles. It was the silhouette of a human being with the bull’s-eye consisting of a black blob where the heart would be.
Through the courtesy of Uncle Sam, I’m acquainted with the sound of a bullet when it passes closer than one would be comfortable with, and I feel that if I heard or felt one passing, say, between my legs, I’d be tempted to yell, “All right, already! That’s enough.”
That’s also enough for this column today.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
