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Show Pleasant Grove ReviewLindon New Utah! - Wednesday, April 26, 2000 - Page 2 Opinion i Transit for the masses? The Utah Transit Authority's plan to reduce local bus routes in the north Utah County area to a bare-minimum bare-minimum State Street run does not bode well for the future of mass transit tran-sit for county communities outside of Provo-Orem. After a series of public hearings, UTA has basically announced that in August, local routes in our towns will be discontinued, due to lack of interest. inter-est. What will remain is a bare bones system that includes five runs a day to the Utah State Developmental Center. No plans have been announced, however, to eliminate or reduce the quarter cent per dollar sales tax north county residents accepted when the UTA pitched mass transit to the local communities. In other words, we will be paying the same at the grocery store till, but getting less service from our government-owned bus service. The new plan, which has been widely circulated and the subject of several public hearings, is an attempt to take advantage of the money end of the mass transit system, the early morning business commuter. That's not necessarily bad. Business Busi-ness commuters who use mass transit tran-sit help reduce automobile pollution and freeway traffic. Those are both admirable goals in today's society. But the change comes at the expense of another group of society that relies on mass transit for basic, day-to-day transportation the elderly and the poor, who can't drive anymore or who can't afford to own and operate private vehicles, and persons per-sons with disabilities. This is the portion por-tion of our society that benefits the most from a convenient, well-run mass transit system. The five-times-a-day trip to the Utah State Developmental Center is a concession to this latter group. In fact, 1100 East in American Fork has become one of the major routes for mass transit because the route will also include the Dan Peterson School, American Fork Hospital and the Mount Timpanogos Temple. But that is a poor substitute for the kind of service mass transit is supposed to deliver, and the kind of service we were promised when we okayed a property tax increase so UTA could start operating in our communities. We agreed to the subsidy sub-sidy precisely because we wanted to supply an option for those who otherwise other-wise have none. In fact, UTA's proposal cuts the very heart out of local mass transit for the masses in favor of the business busi-ness commuter. It amounts to a slap in the face to area residents who voted for the sales tax increase for mass transit with the understanding that they would be assuring local mass transit service for their communities, commu-nities, especially the disadvantaged in our midst. The fact is, if UTA carries out its plan this August, local bus service will be gone, but the tax will remain. And public confidence in UTA will have been shattered. The move is curious given the fact that sometime in the next year or two, we will be approached again to approve another minor sales tax increase to help fund commuter rail. Proposals for this service may be on the ballot for Davis and Salt Lake Counties this year, with Utah County to follow soon. If the new proposal is approved, UTA will find itself in the awkward position of asking us for more money shortly after they take away a major part of the service they told us we would be paying for with our last tax increase. Taking away our local routes is a betrayal of the public trust local voters vot-ers extended to UTA when we approved funding for bus service in north Utah County in the first place. The question is, how will this affect local voters when the UTA comes calling in the future for more tax dollars to pay for service we may or may not receive? if rMtfjof Eyes that never look up His tears revealed the depth of his concern. I was taken back a bit to see a strong, young man cry. I knew him quite well. He had been a student of mine for about a year while I taught in San Diego, Calif., and we had visited often. But I had never seen his tenderness. He told me how he had gotten up that morning full of delight and joy and wanted to touch others with them. As he walked across campus, however, how-ever, no one even raised their eyes to look at him. He said he had never noticed that the students never looked up. He had not realized it before, but did so now. Now, he said, he felt like they were shutting him out, that they wanted none of what he so desperately wanted to give. "Why?" he asked? "Was it fear? Was it a desire to be left alone? Were they concerned they would be bothered?" One thing I felt was sure, they were wrapped up in themselves, and, therefore, missed being brushed by joy. That he could not touch them with his joy hurt him. "What can I do to help," he asked me, "if they won't even look up?" I mused on my young friends discomfort. dis-comfort. The Latins had a word for it, "compati," meaning to bear or suffer with or for another. Our word "compassion" has its roots there. Originally it suggested suffering between equals. The word "equal" is important. Compassion did not suggest sug-gest a sympathetic condescension, no matter how genuine, for those of a lower class. It meant hurting with, not for, one who was a peer. Out of this grew another aspect of compassion, an urgent desire to spare another from hurt or to aid one who is in pain. My young friend had a unique kind of compassion, he was suffering suffer-ing with his peers before they even knew of their lack. He knew he had something, a strong bond to the Spirit, which they did not, and he wanted to share it. I could see in him compassion's fruit: understanding, under-standing, tenderness, caring. He expressed that emotional or imaginary imagi-nary sharing of the distress or mis fortune of another, that causes one to reach out, to try to help, to try to heal. This month our school teachers are helping our children learn to care for one another and their family fam-ily and friends. The teachers are stressing the need to let that caring reach out and touch others. In other words, they are teaching our children chil-dren how to transform care into compassion. In doing so, they are laying a foundation that will greatly great-ly strengthen our homes and our communities. You see, when we are busy trying to heal, we have no time or energy to hurt. At home we can reinforce what our teachers are doing for us. Most parents already do the most important impor-tant thing that they can do and that is to show care and compassion for the children. But it might be a good idea to draw their attention to the example we set. This is because most children take for granted what their parents do for them. Few realize that parents get up day after day to go to work in part because they care for their children. chil-dren. They do not know how much time mothers spend in giving of themselves for their children. If we avoid being preachy or giving the feeling that we feel like martyrs to our cause, we can successfully convey con-vey to our children how much they benefit from our care and how much others can benefit from theirs. In this way, though the eyes of others may not look up, at least our children can, and they will be touched by joy. Cities put on eggsellent Easter hunts If I see another Easter Egg, I think 1,11 crack. We participated in a total of five Easter Egg hunts in only two days. The kids had a lot of fun though and now we have a big bowl full of candy on the shelf and a bowl full of colored hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. We started Saturday morning at the Lindon Easter Egg hunt at the Lindon City Park. It was overcast and a little bit of rain was falling. Dallin was the only one I took to that hunt. The park was divided up into lots of different sections for different age groups. We could see lots of eggs out there for the 4-5 group. Dallin found five eggs all by himself. him-self. I couldn.t help because I had to take pictures for the newspaper. The neat thing about the Lindon egg hunt was that all the eggs hidden were plastic eggs. There weren,t any real eggs. And the plastic eggs were filled with about three pieces of candy each. There were Hershey,s miniature candy bars and Hersheys kisses and little chocolate eggs. I guess there were even some eggs with paper in them that kids could redeem for prizes. It's amazing how fast the hunt was over, it started at 9 a.m. and we were in our car heading home when the car clock said 9:08. In the afternoon I took all the kids, Dallin, 5, Katelyn, 3, and baby Krissy and headed to the Pleasant Grove Easter Egg hunt which was held at the rodeo grounds. This hunt was put on by Pleasant Grove City and the Eagles. Here there were only two groups, seven and under and eight and HI over. The gates were closed until it was time for the hunt to begin. We were assured by the sponsors that there were plenty of eggs for everyone. They had hidden 3,600 eggs, they said. We were also told that each child could only get one plastic and one gold or silver sil-ver egg, and then as many hard-boiled eggs as they could find. The weather had turned nice by the afternoon and there was a really good crowd gathered for this hunt. When they finally opened the gate and said go, it was a mad dash. Unfortunately, the eggs were placed quite a ways from the gate so we had to walk a bit to even get to them. I was pushing a stroller and trying to get my three year old to walk faster, and trying to take pictures. I told Dallin to just run ahead, but he got confused and couldn't could-n't find any eggs, so he started crying. By the time Katelyn and I got to where the eggs were supposed to be, they had all been found. We kept looking, look-ing, but didn't find much. When it was all over, Dallin had one plastic egg and Katelyn had one hard-boiled hard-boiled egg and one gold egg. Dallin got a hat for his plastic egg and Kate got a gold silver dollar for her gold egg. She was definitely excited about the money. That was pretty generous of the ee? hunt mnnpv Si vor orr l0 ; dollar bm. Alsothrie nr. witl! Wo , "dSa-- muie Doiled wprp crivpn nut t 1.-i . 0-. tU wh - any eggs. However, I think it woulHi better if t.hP liHlQ l- j ' 7 mk ed up. Ihree vear n rl. as six year olds. Also the fc have been lnrnorl . "user to era roc warn of r "siiortheijt. uv,u-icuijr, iWdS DrettVr Dotn city s egg mints. A lot o I'"1"" "J wi mi Leers L0 Co0 put candy in the eggs, hy and provide prizes for findii cial eggs. T nfn QotllKn.. l egg hunt in our backyard. neignnors. 1 hat was really L kids because they each fo eggs, ounuay morning the ouiiny leu canay and Pok in our living room tor the kid mi -xx i.T i inen aiter mat we went to and uncle's house in Paysonl brunch. After brunch we ha, num. Aunt renny hid canri,- and eggs for the kids to fit Penny loves to buy candy, so. really cleaned up there. We usually put all the candv er and then let the kids choos two pieces a day. Of course t dad can sneak candv HkQ,nu. j "wam.t the words of my husband 'Tii T ler man. nanoween: Luckily he also love hat-eggs. hat-eggs. He's about the only onf house. I think he'll be eating p for weeks. ' Some folks are positively too negative This past week I went through a lot of training. It was a good week. On Monday of last week I attended a management seminar which was very informative. We learned some very good principles and a great deal of stress was put on being positive. I feel that I am generally a very positive person and so this reinforced some of my feelings. It is difficult for some people to be positive. pos-itive. In fact, I know three or four people who are not ever positive, at least not in what they talk to me about when I see -.them., Yet, they are very fine people. They are just too negative and after- a while O you want to avoid them because you don't want to hear all the negativism. I can't see any sense in dwelling on the doom and gloom. There is a bright side to everything. In fact, I hear other positive people tell me they feel the same way I do. I wonder if the negative people realize they are negative. Maybe they do not know. Maybe someone needs to tell them, but I am not going to offer to do it. Sometimes I wonder how people stay married to a negative person. It would be difficult I think. In another seminar I attended last week they talked about Mind Mapping. I guess this is a new kind of theory which is supposed to help you do more than you are already doing. Each side of our brain is responsible for different things. Sometimes Some-times we need to train our brain, or fool it, as it may be, into doing things it didn't know it was supposed to do. In my line of work, where I have to take copious amounts of notes, I could visualize a subject, draw it on paper, and then put down a couple of key words to I ""itfrw&r" fI I '" ; ' jU ill cover every facet of that subject. These facet9would branch out from the origi-., nal visual ' drawing via ' color coding which would remind the brain that a cer- tain color means a certain thing. In a glance you could tell from the key word(s) and the color what you were supposed sup-posed to say on that subject. You could get a whole talk on one sheet of paper. My big problem with the concept was that the paper, with the weird drawing (since all my drawing is weird) and the multi-colored branches going out from it looked like a mess. I couldn't tell where to start and where to stop. It looked kind of like a huge spider with more than eight legs in all the colors of the rainbow. After I was thoroughly confused, and, as I looked around at the others in the class, I figured they were utterly confused, con-fused, also, the facilitator said something about it that I understood. She said we could use this system to make a grocery list. In the center of the sheet of paper she drew a grocery cart. She is a good drawer and I could tell easily eas-ily that it was a grocery cart. Mine would not have looked at all like a grocery cart. She divided the grocery cart up by using different colors. She had colored branches coming from the carti: way that all the dairy items were: er, all the cereals were together meat was together, and so forth; tion, she had the branches such a way that the walk thrri grocery store was organized t side of the store to the other sol would not have to retrace your any point. She sent her husband to I with this list and he came ki every item and even reported hov. was for him to get what she Later she sent him to the store normal written list and he car without several items. Obvioc; system might work for things 11 For note taking I would not mend it. Trying to write minutes J drawing with colored arms from it and key words just w work out Im afraid. Transcnb; mess would take an eternity still would not remember wh: what motion or what the moot said, or any direct quote. In news writing, we use lots We ask lots of Questions. Myedi think I had really gone over thf he saw my notes with a weird rk the center and all kinds oi branches cornine out from it. However, I might try it on to list. On the other hand, 1 mignt the fun of going to the store is re vour stens back and forth aisle to get the things you for?' you were on that aisle alreaaj how I get most of my wauang two or three times a week. t Reader's Forum a' Memories ofVelma Wood Editor: I just saw the death notice on Velma Wood. She and I were Visiting Teachers a lot of years back. I would like her family fam-ily in PL Grove to read this so I can say how very much I loved and cherished our friendship together and what a wonderful sweet spirit she always carried. car-ried. At that time I was Bonnie Jo Green-wait Green-wait and we lived behind the woods in Mohican Circle. My husband then was Jeff Greenwalt who is dead. I am now living in New Mexico and have been for six years now, remarried and nirming a small farm of Jack Russell Rus-sell terriers (dogs) and mini pygmy goats. One sweet memory I have of Velma right now is she never forgot me on any occasion. At Christmas time she would always bring me a plate full of chocolate, choco-late, covered walnuts because she knew how much I loved chocolate. Even though I live out of state I have thought of her often, and I loved her and will keep her memory always close to my heart. May the Lord Bless you, John, and yours and keep you safe and well. Bonnie Jo (Greenwalt) Clark received via e-mail Egg hunt helpers Editor: Thanks to all of the businesses who participated in the Easter Egg Hunt held on Saturday, April 22, at the Pleasant Pleas-ant Grove rodeo grounds. The Fraternal Order of Eagles and the Pleasant Grove City Recreation Center colored over 3,600 eggs and also had over 300 prize eggs which were scattered over two acres at the rodeo grounds. There were also 150 gold and silver eggs which were turned in for a cash prize. Approximately 500 children and their parents showed up and participated. Businesses who donated were Western West-ern Community Bank, Family First Credit Union, Zions First National Rank Rnnk nf American Fori Griwo Rrtmfh Christensen At- lan'c Antr, FaVW Tires, All Herri Tiro Tn Piaacanf (Trove LP- Smiths Food King, K-Mart, Smith's Market, Arctic tuw Tarn Amicrn Allen's Food bff Eagles Cafe, and Custom Hate There were 20 dozen - wprp cfif Qci rip fin that HO v, -u aa Thanks nume emuLV iicujucu. ... with the, RoctIps and PleasaB1 Rprrpntinn Dpnartment Resides business donate. r.l,,ntpprS WW j-i, j.; x l, onr! color hide the eggs, and distrw-prizes. distrw-prizes. , t p This is thp first time thai Grove City and the Eagles K ' enorts to nave an r,as would like to continue to w-involvement w-involvement and business p could make this into a day-' : celebration. ..SheUieu Pleasant Grove Review Kewlltah! (ISSN No. 1521-6861) (U.S.P.S. No. 435-780) A member of NATIONAL NEWSPAPEH ASSOCIATION Published weekly by iVewtaliXews i-Jroup PLEA.-i.VST Wilt UVTEW 59 West Main American Fork, Utah 84003 Telephone Numbers Advertising & Circulation 756-7669 News 756-5273 Publisher Brett Bezzant Managing Editor Marc Haddock City Editor Karli Poyfair Subscription price $24 per year Periodicals Postage Paid at American Fork, Utah POSTMASTER: send address change to 59 West Main, American Fork, Utah 84O03 Deadlines Classified Advertising . . Tuesday, noon Display Advertising Monday, 5 p.m. News Monday, 2 p.m. Missionaries Monday, 2 p.m. Weddings Monday, 2 p.m. Letters to the Editor . . .Monday, 10 a.m. Sports Monday, 10 a.m. Community Calendar . .Monday, 10 a.m. Obituaries Tuesday, 11 a.m. We welcome letters to the editor. All letters must include the author's nameflj. AND signed) and a telephone number. We reserve the right to edit letters W punctuation, taste and length. 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