Opinion

I am, typically, a patient person. I don’t easily lose my temper, nor do I get frustrated quickly.

But last week, my patience was tested.

Ten years ago, I started making baklava. For the uninitiated, baklava is a glorious combination of phyllo dough, honey, nuts and spices. It is rich, sweet, crunchy, and unbelievably delicious.

I was introduced to this heavenly concoction as a kiddo when my mother toted me to an Helenic festival in Evansville. There, we found gobs of the stuff, and it was love at first munch.

A woman and her pocketbook share a unique bond. A pocketbook serves not only as a carrying case for any number of “necessary” items, it is also a fashion statement, and in some ways a reflection of her personality. A woman is apt to fuss about her purse now and then while a man will tend to carry around the same old wallet until it is so worn that bills start falling out. Most women need a frequent change in purses. 

When I was a child, cars were not equipped with shoulder harnesses, only lap belts, and child safety seats had yet to be invented.

I remember clambering over back seats to take a nap in the rear compartment of the station wagon. I remember sitting literally on the edge of the front seat gazing out the windshield at stars and the roadside scenery whizzing by seemingly inches from my face.

It was fun, and luckily we were never in a wreck.

As Governor Beshear and the General Assembly prepare for the upcoming legislative session, it is becoming increasingly clear that the state’s two-year budget will be the most challenging Kentucky has faced since the Great Depression.

Federal stimulus dollars have helped significantly, but unless Congress provides additional funds, the stimulus dollars will run out by the budget’s second year.  Barring an economic miracle, there will be considerable budget gaps and no painless way to fill them.

One of my gurus, a psychiatrist famous in the 1940s and 1950s for his self-help program, wrote that one could take stress in stride by accepting frustration as an expected occurrence in everyday life. “Life is a business of frustrations,” he taught his patients to recite whenever the inevitable occurred. His was not a negative approach to life but rather a realistic one.

It’s hard to believe that in a county presumably named after Patrick Henry — that great man who declared, “Give me Liberty or give me death!” — that anybody would face the property rights issues the Cooks of New Castle are facing. Patrick Henry, by the way, was the first governor of Virginia in 1776, was also the first governor of what is now Kentucky.

Maybe your county officials could do some reading of a good biography of Henry. Public officials these days are in need of some learning about what Liberty really means.

I know many of you in Henry and surrounding counties have seen or signed a petition to remove Greg Derossett from his current position, or any other position that he may hold in this county. I am concerned that many of you do not know the whole story as to why this petition is being passed around by Mr. Bob Cook who resides on Scobie Lane in New Castle.

For months, members of Congress and the American public have hotly debated the right way to reform our health care system.  We all agree that there are steps that can be taken to improve health care to make it more affordable and accessible, but the devil is in the details.  It is critical that we find the right prescription for reform without adding to our climbing debt and deficit. One of the essential elements to successful reform that will reduce cost within our current health care system is comprehensive medical liability reform “tort reform.”

I would like to invite and encourage everyone to attend the third annual Eminence Halloween Festival. This year it will be taking place on Friday, Oct. 30 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Highland Renaissance Park. The admission is free but I encourage everyone to bring one canned good to be donated to the local food pantry.