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Show Review - Wednesday, February 18, 1998 - Page 4 Opinion I fcgcaggggtfl Saturday was a special Valentine's Day Kidmg commuter rail Commuter rail certainly isn't a new idea for the Wasatch Front. North Utah County was served by regular rail service to Salt Lake City and beyond for decades before the popularity of the automobile made it obsolete. But this is one old idea that could be resurrected to solve some new problems. If the time hasn't quite arrived for commuter rail, then it could be just around the corner. I i t week's demonstration for Utah a elected officials showed just how effective commuter rail could be, as the rail cars whisked their riders from American Fork to downtown Salt Lake City in 35 minutes. The ride included no unnecessary stops, no road rage and no construction. For those who live in Utah or Weber Counties, but who work in Salt Lake City, commuter rail could prove to be an invaluable public transit system. sys-tem. Similar systems have gained popularity throughout the country. This isn't light rail, which is designed for shorter distances and more suited to urban areas. Commuter rail uses existing rail lines with specially designed cars that can hold up to 140 people. The proposal calls for four three-car three-car locomotive-powered trains riding each way in morning and evening peak periods, carrying 1,680 commuters com-muters from Provo to Salt Lake City in less time than an automobile could drive the same distance and with a lot less aggravation. A corresponding number of commuters would be rid ing from Ogden and other cities north of Salt Lake City. Special trains could be scheduled for events such as HYU football games, which now tax the highway system to its limits. The advantages are numerous. These commuters would benefit fiuin a fast, safe and reliable transit system. sys-tem. At the same time 'neir automobiles automo-biles are removed from the roan system, sys-tem, reducing highway congestion, air pollution and wear and tear on the roadways. There are several problems. The start up and operation costs are extensive, about the same as adding a new lane to 1-15. The advantage advan-tage is the c istruction is basically done and t' rights of way exist Once in place, it will cost about $12 million a year in subsidies to keep the system running. Only about 25 percent of the costs will be covered by fares. Also, scheduling the use of existing tracks is not a simple matter. The DRGW line from Provo to Salt Lake, which is proposed for commuter rail service, is often busy with freight traffic, and commuter rail would interfere with that. But even with the improvements on 1-15, Utah's highways will be unable to match future growth along the Wasatch Front. Other solutions will be needed. And commuter rail looks like one of the most reasonable and readily available options to keep Utah on the move well into the next century. Valentine's Day being on Saturday this year mad it extra special. People were at home and available to deliver ail receive valentines better than when it is on a weekday It was a special day Children who are i;i school had a double Valentine's Day because they celebrated at their schools on Friday with parties and distribution dis-tribution of valentines and then they celebrated again on Saturday. One of my little granddaughters was bouncing off the walls Saturday afternoon because, as she saici, "Tonight we will get lots and lots of valentines on our front porch from all kinds of jieople." This set my memory off about when I was a young girl. I can remember what an exciting day Valentine's was. All children anticipated it with great hope. First of all, the teacher always sent home a list of all the children's names in the class so that no one would be forgotten. for-gotten. After all, it is difficult to try and remember all the kids in your class when you are at home. Then, our moms would either help us purchase valentines or we would make them. White paper doilies and red construction paper can make gorgeous gor-geous valentines. But, my mom usually bought our valentines for us and then we got to write the names on all of them. Back at school the teacher would have us bring a shoe box or something similar from home and we would spend quite a bit of time decorating that box up with paints, crepe paper, red hearts, and lots of white paste. We always had a bunch of boys in our class who ate the white paste. It zamLmmJa came in huge gallon containers with a screw-on lid. I can still see those big bottles of paste. My brothers liked to eat raw bread dough, too. I never did like that, either. They even liked to nibble raw yeast. Boys were strange sometimes. On the happy day, the kids in the class would drop valentines in the slot in the top of the valentine box we had each made. A room mother or two would come with heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting and little red hot hearts on top. Umm, they were good. That would top off our day. Then night time would come and off we would go with valentines for the neighbor kids. We would put them on their porch, rin the doorbell and run and hide until the valentines had been discovered and people had gone back into the house. When we were older we would tie a string to the valentine, put it on the porch and hide, and then yank the string just as someone reached down to pick it up. We thought that was a hilarious hilar-ious prank. Everyone did it, so it was not really a surprise. As I began to grow up and really understand what Valentine's Day was all about, I inspected the valentines closely that were from boys to see if they could possibly actually mean what is written on those cards. Boys in elementary and junior high schools are not very apt to indicate in any way that they even know girls are alive, let alone ex"pose their heart's true feelings in a valentine. I didn't know that then and kept hoping that there was a hidden meaning mean-ing there. You know, when you get older, like over 20, you read thiough greeting cards before you purchase them to make sure that they say what you would say if you were poetic enough. With valentines in childhood, it is just a matter of putting the classmate's name and your name on the card and calling it good. Kids don't pay attention to what the card says, just getting it ready is all that they care about. Girls begin to look at valentines with a great hope when they are about 12 and it continues on every year thereafter until they pass on to the great beyond. Not so with boys. Boys may want to give and receive valentines deep down inside but they don't want to be obvious obvi-ous about it so they do nothing. If some of their pals actually give a valentine to a girl they like, the othr guys wish they had had enough courage to do so but couldn't quite muster it up. Valentine's is a wonderful day. But I liked the way one of the Utah Jazz players said it when asked on Saturday night, "Valentine's Day should be every day 6f the year. You shouldn't have to wait for Valentine's Day to roll around to tell people you love them." I agree. The Internet: It's getting easier to get to it When we upgraded our home computer recently, one big question was whether or not we would make it Internet-accessible. There are so many stories about the dangers lurki.'g on the World Wide Web, we weren't sure we wanted to expose the kids to the chat rooms and adult sites out there. But a couple of experiences have demonstrated that there's a lot of good stuff out there, too. Our upgrade was carried out by our son-in-law, who upgrades computers for a living. Basically, we took out everything except our old floppy disk drive and our hard drive, and put in all new stuf.", including includ-ing another hard drive. Among the items we replaced was our old modem, a dinosaur that was adequate for Sharon's work needs to transmit her stories to the Deseret News, but which made Internet access impractical because it was so slow. We also got Windows 95, another unavoidable modern convenience. What we learned was that with a faster computer comput-er and a very fast modem, Internet access is almost unavoidable. The first time we turned the computer on, we logged on to the Internet provider I use at work, and we were off and running. We keep the kids off the 'Net except for homework home-work and the like, because we only have one phone line and don't want to be cut off from the world. The addition of voice messaging to our phone line has helped there a little. But we have found ways to make good use of the Internet. For example, when we found out we would be attending a family wedding in Boise, we logged on and found several Boise-related home pages. We picked out some likely hotels and noted their addresses. Then we looked up the address of the Boise LDS Temple, where the wedding will take place, by referring to a couple of LDS-related sites. We also found a handy map which let us zoom in and zoom out of specific addresses, and by typing in the addresses of the hotels and the temple, we were able to pick out the best place to spend the night. We sent an e-mail to the hotel requesting a reservation, reser-vation, and then moved on to rental cars. Most auto rental agencies have home pages, and we were able to shop around for appropriate cars in the Boise area. After about three tries we found a reasonable price and sent in a request. We were given a confirmation confir-mation number at the same time. The next day we got an e-mail confirmation on the rental car and another e-mail from the hotel asking for more information, which we e-mailed in return. Our confirmation for the room came back in about two hours, complete with a number. In all it took about 45 minutes, was lun and cost us nothing. Another Internet benefit came up last week when I was helping one of our kids do her taxes and we came upon a discrepancy between the state and federal form. I logged on and typed in ;.he web site for the Utah State Tax Commission, which is printed print-ed in the tax instructions. It was pretty simple from there to e-mail a request for a clarification. The next day, the answer arrived in my e-mail, and I was able to help her complete her filing with confidence confi-dence that I was doing things correctly. One of the greatest benefits we have seen at work for Internet use comes from local mortuaries, who all use e-mail to send obituaries and photographs. pho-tographs. The Internet has-been a tremendous boon for mortuaries, whose representatives used to drive from newspaper to newspaper with one photograph of the deceased. They would come into the office, wait until the photo could be reproduced for publication, publi-cation, and then take the photo on to the next newspaper. news-paper. Sometimes the process required hours of time and lots of travel. Now the mortuaries simply scan the photograph and make a digital image they can attach to an e-mail e-mail with the obituary information. They send the file and photo via e-mail to as many newspapers as is needed. The investment in a computer and scanning equipment is well worth the cost in time and travel saved. Despite the fact that many folks still don't have access to the Internet, and many of them don't want it. the World Wide Web is changing the way we con-d con-d "t our lives, both private and business. 1 remain constantly amazed at the information that's out there, and how much easier it is getting to get to it. The price is high By Zig Ziglar 1997 Creators Syndicate, Inc. In the days of yesteryear, a Chinese rice farmer was working high atop his hilltop farm. He saw the ocean swiftly withdraw from the shore, much like a huge animal crouching just before it pounces on its prey. He instinctively knew that a huge tidal wave would quickly follow. Seeing his neighbors working in their fields by the seashore and knowing know-ing their only means of escape was to run to the hills, to warn them he set fire to his rice field and then furiously rang the temple bell. From the seashore, his neighbors saw the fire and rushed to help him. From the safety of his hilltop, they watched the water as it swirled over the fields they had just left. They knew their safety had been bought at a price. Do we ever reflect on what has been bought for us at a price? The list is endless, but the question is if we ever take time to write a note, make a phone call or otherwise express appreciation to those who bought our pleasures and luxuries with their own sacrifice? You would be amazed at the response you will get if you do. The recipient of your compliment will be delighted, and you will feel even better than the recipient. Reader's Forum Seeking burglars Editor: 1 am seeking for any help or nformation that local residents might be able to offer in regards to a burglary that recently took place. Our daughter and son-in-law, Rick and Melissa Mockbee, and their young family recently recent-ly moved back to Utah from Texas. Until they could find a home to purchase, all of their belongings belong-ings were stored in one of the storage units behind Grease Lightning in Lindon. Sometime between Sunday, Feb. 8, and Thursday, Feb. 12, someone broke into their unit and stole everything every-thing furniture, appliances, tools, equipment, photo albums. Everything that they had acquired in seven years of marriage, all of their earthly possessions, were taken from them. Some of the items, like the photo albums and video tapes, are irreplaceable. If there is anyone out there who saw anything the least bit suspicious at this location during the specified dates, would you please contact the Pleasant Grove Police Department? Since whomever is responsible stole an entire house-hold-ful of goods, maybe you know of someone who unloaded a truck full of furniture, yet you know they weren't in the process of moving. Whomever did this had to have used a large truck, or truck and tailer, to haul everything away. Our children are distrau ht over this mishap in their young lives. They had no insurance to cover this loss. If anyone has any information, it will be greatly appreciated. Rita Swenson What does Cedar Hills want? Editor: I am a resident of the Rural Manila Township and I want to speak out about some of the confusion confu-sion regarding the annexation problems in my area. I read the article in the Pleasant Grove Review on Wednesday, Feb. 11, entitled "Cedar Hills officially vows 'no forced annexations.'" It spoke about the Proclamation issued by Cedar Hills to the residents of the Rural Manila Township. It wasn't what they said in the Proclamation that concerned me, it was what they didn't say. What they said was they will not force anyone to annex into Cedar Hills. What they didn't say was they will continue to try to take away our choice of annexing into Pleasant Grove. If Cedar Hills is so eemingly benevolent, then we need to ask ourselves a few questions. Why is it that Cedar Hills is attempting to stop the southern end of Manila from annexing into Pleasant Grove'7 Why is Cedar Hills trying to stop the Township from annexing into Pleasant Grove? Why isn't Cedar Hills allowing Robert Schow to de-annex? Why is it that Cedar Hills has promised residents of the Township on several occasions that they would not encircle us, yet that is exactly what they are doing? Why is it that Cedar Hills pursues illegal annexations, and when the Boundary Commission won't allow them to do so, they sue? Why is it that council members from Cedar Hills go door to door in the Township and try to strong arm people into annexing into Cedar Hills, and when that doesn't work they offer them free or reduced rate sewer and water hookups as an enticement? Why is it that Cedar Hills council members Ken Cromar and Brad Sears initiated a petition to get Township residents resi-dents to remain county? Why is Randy Robinson, a renter, not a property prop-erty owner, now spearheading the petition? Why are they so vigilantly pursuing Township residents resi-dents to sign the petition? What does Cedar Hills have to gain by convincing Township residents to stay in the county? And why is it that the present pre-sent Cedar Hills Town Council keeps using its Founders as a scapegoat? It isn't the Cedar Hills Founders that are currently cur-rently breaking their promises, pursuing illegal annexations, or trying to seize from the people of the Township the right of choice to annex into Pleasant Grove. The residents of the Rural Manila Township need to seriously evaluate the current situation. Talk to the Township Planning and Zoning Board whom you elected to represent you. They are anxious to hear your opinions and want to do what th' residents of the Township desire. They have been involved in this from the beginning and have a good understanding of the current situation. Talk to Pleasant Grove and find out where they stand. Find out what's really going on and what your options truly are by going straight to the source. Get all sides of the story before making mak-ing a decision. The consequences of this decision will have an impact on each of you for years to come. The choice to remain in the county still exists, however, the choice to go into Pleasant Grove may not exist much longer. If you ever want to annex into Pleasant Grove, the time to do so is now. It has been stated on several occasions, by Pleasant Grove and the Township Board, that those desiring to be in Cedar Hills, who are legally legal-ly situated, will be allowed that choice. If you are one of the people who signed the petition to remain in the county, be forewarned that Cedar Hills is planning to use your name to stop our annexation into Pleasant Grove. If you don't want your name to be used in this manner, you must come to the March 18 hearing in Pleasant Grove and state your desires. It is important that you are aware that every person who takes the option to stay in the county will count against the annexation into Pleasant Grove. Please ponder these things very carefully when making your decision. Jeanette L. Ross Plrasant (Srout Stutetu (ISSN No. 8755-9072' (U.S.P.S. No. 435-780i A member of ASSOCIATION Published weekly by The AewtaliAews 59 West Main American Fork, Uh 84003 Telephone Numbers Advertsrtg & Circulator "56-"669 News 56-52"? Publisher Brett Bezzant Managing Ednor Man: Haddoa Oty Editor Marcete Wake' Subscnpton pnee S2A ' per veaf Periodicals Postage Paid at American Fork. Utah POSTMASTER tend mUna ctwigt to S9WMS Main Amnc Fork. U1 MOOT Deadlines Classified Advertsng. - Tuesday, noon Display Adverting News Missionaries Weddngs Letters to the Editor Community Calendar Obituaries Monday 5pm Monday 2 pm. 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