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Show hursday,March6,2()03-le2 kw, i.h Peasant Grove RevicwLindon edition New Utah -1 11VV 1"" .w Opinion How to be a neighbor A week ago today, the entire country lost its best neighbor when Mr- Rogers died. Diagnosed with cancer only recently, we can all be grateful that this gentlest of men did not have long to suffer, but his passing leaves a gaping hole that will probably never be filled. For 35 years, Fred Rogers invited children into his Neighborhood Neigh-borhood to feel welcome, be educated, and learn to face their fears. An ordained minister, he felt it was his calling to reach out to the most vulnerable human beings and help them to cope with a world that is often confusing con-fusing and scary. He didn't only help children, though; his counsel also was directed at parents and other adults important in the lives of children, and he always invited his young listeners to seek out such people to discuss their concerns. He tackled even the most painful and difficult subjects -death, divorce, abuse, drugs, violence, war - the same way he approached everything else: with honesty, compassion, and a profound understanding of how children view a world too complex for them to easily understand. The basic messages of his program never changed. They included that each person is unique, has intrinsic worth, and can make contributions to society, no matter what circumstances circum-stances surround him or her. He also taught that it was 4 okay to be afraid, and that we can survive our fears and still feel secure in an uncertain world. He became an anchor for untold hosts of individuals whose lives otherwise lacked the protection and acceptance he championed. His landmark programs dealing with the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the previous Persian Gulf War had a huge impact and became the pattern for issue-oriented programs pro-grams aimed at children that have been produced since then. He even came out of retirement retire-ment to film public service announcements aimed at helping help-ing assist American families to cope with the 911 tragedy. Through it all, he never preached, never raised his voice, and never showed anger, though he did acknowledge it as a genuine human emotion along with all the rest, whether negative or positive. During an interview conducted con-ducted last year, he was asked about the visibility and (modest) (mod-est) prosperity that his longest-running show ever on PBS had brought him. He answered that the thing in life was not to seek fame and fortune, for-tune, but to seek to be helpful. Few have ever lived their personal creed more completely. complete-ly. In so doing, he left all of us a worthy example to follow, and aiding each of us in becoming better neighbors is the only legacy he ever would have wanted. Our population is going to double Every year I assign my US History His-tory students an interview project. proj-ect. This year, some of my students were discussing the assignment prior to doing it. One young man said, "I don't want to interview some old person because they're going to tell me they walked uphill both ways to school. It's impossible to walk uphill both ways!" I politely informed him that though I wasn't "old," I did walk uphill both ways to school. I lived north of the overpass and since the high school and junior high were both south of the overpass, I crossed it every day. That's up one side and down the other both going to school and coming home. In my memory, I walked every day for all six years. My parents remember me walking only occasionally, but I'm sure they're confusing me with my younger, more spoiled siblings who got rides to school all the time. Times were different then. Just a few weeks ago, the National Geodetic Survey Association Associ-ation placed a plaque at Thanksgiving Thanks-giving Point to show the geographic geo-graphic center of population in Utah. In response to that ceremony, Neil Ashdown, who works with the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget said that Lehi was growing at 125 percent. He also said that Lehi would probably double in population in the next 20 years. On one hand, I can see that . - USfflD,. . - - . doubling happening. I want my children and my nieces and nephews to be able to remain in Lehi when they grow up. Their numbers alone would be enough to fill a subdivision in 20 years. However, on the other hand, a doubled population concerns me. I don't sit on any planning boards or any decision-making committees, commit-tees, but that many more people living here is a little alarming. Are we going to have enough water? What about the capacity of our sewer system? Do we have enough roads to maintain our traffic flow with that many more people? What about our schools? In essence, is our infrastructure infrastruc-ture large enough, or adaptable enough to meet the demands of a doubled population or even a continued con-tinued 125 percent growth rate? I don't know the answers to any of these questions - maybe no one does. For now, my children, who would have to walk uphill to the junior high both ways if we didn't drive them, are coping with a vastly different Lehi than the one we lived in 20 years ago. Hopefully, We can continue to remain a strong, stable community communi-ty by taking care of the challenges of growth without being overwhelmed over-whelmed by it. Detour ahead, stop and smell thefl, ! i-iirie all mv romines and goings XIX around town, occasionally 1 come across one of those large orange diamond-shaped signs, "Road closed." Often it is accompanied accom-panied by a smaller orange sign, "Detour." Grumbling, I take the alternate, alter-nate, longer route. Eventually I'm back on track, and aside from arriving. a few minutes later at my destination, I'm none the worse for wear. I remember taking a longer detour a few years back. It was near Yellowstone Park. The detour took us off the main highway and put us on a road that was truly less traveled. It was a wet gravel road and as we crept along, we were able to take a closer look at our surroundings. sur-roundings. Eventually the road became a one lane path and cars were flagged to stop and await the pilot vehicle to guide us through. We stopped, exited our car, stretched our legs and wandered wan-dered around. We examined some grasses thai a . 1 . 1 ... u. ""Hi; if) and early spring flowers that were growing at the side of the road. We were amazed at the variety of shades of green in the trees. Just a few other cars were stopped; it was in early spring and tourist season hadn't quite begun. We chatted with some folks whose dented and pockmarked car looked like it had been through some sort of war zone. It was a hailstorm, the man said, and with a sigh he explained how his vehicle had lost the battle bat-tle with nature. The pilot car finally arrived and we chugged and churned our way through the wet and muddy road until the detour reconnected with the highway. Then, once again and back to speed, we were on our way. Although it took a bit more 1 inves Place that atd k,.,v.. " -f Hi,. W(-' meet . ,1,.4... "f Jrs as orm of fv " 4 ,. . nun. 1 : r . uie. Uet, ft irb) nn mc s , and me folk S. I M. leee gradual .'ld n marriage.0t'8' irrr away from gos IX c . . " bride-tc &0med,;rofMi, 0Verc(jrne.Sne anc our own n-if Amei thrust upoDa." gradua Whatever m detours forcf, ttendin (& around -')yed at ' Hir,.;.. "-in Fork " --uun i i ourj; her if: im . -ve. wnethe : nrncnor1 ang the rr,: on ofAj our lives, taliu comes forwhj." tunity to av, might bearf If Linda But' at lindasbutlf-: Sorry officer, I forgot to clean out( I generally like to observe potentially dangerous situations from a distance. Things like the occasional tornado, floods that wipe out whole cities, or looking down the barrel of a police handgun. hand-gun. Actually, several police handguns. hand-guns. A few days ago, as I was driving home from work, I looked in my rearview mirror to see blinking lights directly behind me. That's never a good sign. When the officer offi-cer pulled me over, I happened to be within a block of my own home, so I pulled around the corner and parked in front of my house. "Well, at least I have my seat-belt seat-belt on." I thought, as I pulled out my wallet to give the officer my driver's license. But instead of the officer coming to the car, I heard him yell sharply, "Get your hands up! Get out of the vehicle and keep your hands up!" Bewildered, I looked around to see if this was a joke. But instead of one police vehicle, there were now at least four police cars right behind me, each with an officer pointing a gun directly at the driver's dri-ver's seat of mv car. Unfortunato- i" ' " 1 " ll.l. III . Ill- I HI I II H 1.1! 14 ly, I was still in the driver's seat. As I got out of the car, the officer offi-cer sternly told me to keep my hands up and to backup slowly. He quickly pulled my hands down and put me in handcuffs. Immediately, two other officers approached my car and started thoroughly searching the vehicle. Unfortunately, I hadn't cleaned out my car in a very long time. It wasn't just the old stale French fries, the car also had stuff on the seats and floor that I couldn't could-n't even recognize. Having the officers search the car was almost as embarrassing as standing handcuffc-d in front of my own home with neighbors watching, being surrounded by police cars. About this time, my wife stepped out of the front door to a scene that would rival any police drama. Flashing lights, four or five police cars, a suspect vehicle, and her husband standing hand- in Sci dam has NASA as a C cuffed along;j itical I cers with Turns out. a:1 was ho of mistaken:;;- Saies anything .'ted wrong tin r He par personal dts-e school the descrpri:: 31 part t: who had juit.r- igh and law. his mon Some fcl- cher, 1! thing like :hy1:3inthe t-ii j ssed the and 1 11 airr.': similar thcc, T -n 'en J. P itsgoodtok::rm plan Grove police :: d major whatever ;:v: ment o not, that they iiring. H .Although I ri and C suspect. thev:w up in nea 14 ut none ;YU. He throuf somewhat ez:-"n(j been know the p i.; Ml. He what they a.t imager a ed to do. loset Co Hat's oil tou the pre; Police P r - I they do to p:' " ,&mJi respect, ar.d ts' mv wife to a:;-: Although community. Reader's Forum id the itly too' Snow G ition foi Beware of traffic tickets in Lehi City Editor: Friday evening about a week ago, I got my first traffic ticket in almost 14 years of driving. driv-ing. I was goine a little taster than I have been on those infamous that is 25 mph changes to 35 about halfway through Although I am unhappy unhap-py about the ticket and the fact that police have been hitting this particular partic-ular street very hard lately, I am more unhap- should one of roads and mph py about the seeming difference between Lehi and every other city in this county, when handling han-dling traffic school fees. I inquired about my ticket and was told that it would be $50 and that if I wanted to attend traffic school 1 would have to qualify first, then appear before the judge to request to go to traffic school and then, pay another $50 fee on top of my ticket. After hearing from more than one person that they only had to pay traffic school in lieu of their ticket, I decided to check around a little. I called AlpineHigh-,anJ. AlpineHigh-,anJ. Pleasant Grove. Li ndon. American Fork, Orem, Trove. Springville, Spanish Fork and Payson. With the exception of Springville, which does not offer traffic school. Lehi is the only city to charge for both the ticket and traffic school. This often doubles dou-bles the fine for a citation cita-tion if the person is wanting to go to traffic school. When I asked someone some-one at the Lehi court office why they charged for both, they said it was Utah state law and that they bad been told they bad to do it that way. I can't imagine that every other city I named is r."-law r."-law :: km' oiTtrr- sch.v' en; i citat-' If"", sup?-1 ting' notn; attw; k in " andl-toU andl-toU ticket New Utah American Fork Citizen, Pleasant Grove Review, lA-hi Free Press, I indon New Utah, Lone Peak New Utah 59 W. Main American Fork, UT 84003 An edition of The Daily Herald, a Pulitzer, Inc. newspaper USPS 018-580 (ISSN: 1521-6845) NEWSSTAND PRICE: 50 cents SUBSCRIPTION RATE: 1 year - $26 (iji county) $35 (out of county) ( I liuisdiy and Sunday plus Holiday deliveries) NEWS: Wc welcome news tips. Call 756-7669 to report a news tip or if you have a comment or a question. We welcome letters to the editor. All letters must include the author's name (printed AND signed) and a telephone number. Wc reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, punctuation, taste and length. Letters are welcome on any topic. nfiADUNRS Classified Advertising !7 . IWsdav, noon Display Advertising Monday." S p ,n News , , " ... . 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