ey ae i wf ra an . 5 Sh i: n go SR SW EV ad BT ot Te ar wr = bE - (aa wil] F. 3B 3 € LA AW a EE RERS TRAE VROZ9MDOVE =~ Te SPDALLASCPosT A Publication of Pennaprint, Inc. DAVID F. CONNER General Manager DEBBY HIGGINS Editor Off the top BY DEBBY HIGGINS Post Editor There are few places left in these United States where a traveler can experience the noticeably absent presence of humans. Even the seemingly remote, inhospitable Grand Canyon feels the thrust of civilization by becoming visually obscured by airborne pollu- tants for 100 days out of every 365. The delicate ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay has deteriorated through pollution, overuse, and unconcern. The Arizona desert, gila monsters not withstanding, is being stripped of cacti and other native vegetation by landscape contractors who covet the unusual flora for the lawns of new homes. The Allegheny National Forest, in northwestern Pennsylvania, has ten percent of the forest covered with an oil well every 500 feet. Uncapped, played-out wells seep oil and gas into the subterranean water supply. In our own backyards, the lady slipper, a beautiful, springtime flower of the deciduous woodlands, has become extinct in many areas of the state. So what?, many undoubtedly will say. These situations are not life-threatening to humans. No one is going to miss the lady slipper or the barrel cactus or the magnificence of the Grand Canyon. ‘These things are unimportant compared to the threat of nuclear war, world hunger, or a stock market crash. Besides, what can we do about it, anyway? For years, Americans have used the ostrich approach in dealing with ecological and environmental issues. If something was ‘happening somewhere with our air, water, land, and wildlife, and it didn’t affect a large enough number of people, or it wasn’t happening in our own area, no one seemed to care. Yes, we felt sorry for those living near Love Canal or in Centralia, but that was their problem. The ironic part of the picture is that complacency and apathy have a way of breeding more problems. If we keep our heads buried long enough, a Love Canal or a West Side Landfill will eventually bury the rest of us. By then, the problem will big and | complicated enough to affect us all but it will be too late to do anything about it. The wanton disregard for life and the world arcund us has cost more than we realize. We complain about high water, sewer, and | garbage rates. We complain because acid rain is ruining the finishes on our cars. We're afraid to drink our water and we’re | concerned’ about asbestos in our school buildings. Aren’t these | reasons enough to start doing something about the problems | Americans are facing in contemporary society? | No one said the issues were clearly defined or the solutions would | be easily found. What is certain is that more of us have taken.our | heads out of the sand to realize we can do something about this | country’s environmental problems. We can unify our voices and | support in an all-out effort to protect the planet we all share. We | can rally and together we can change much of the damage that has | been done and we can stop more damage from being done. | | grandeur of the Grand Canyon. They need to marvel at the delicate | beauty of the lady slipper and the prickly pear cactus. They have a | right to drink clear, pure water and to breathe clean air. We owe it | to them, and we owe it to ourselves. Creativity is a learned skill 3 The widespread belief that ‘We're, too eager to follow Misericordia holds fair ~Editorial/opinion College Misericordia will participate in a guidance fair to be held on February 5 and 6 at the Wyoming Valley Mall. The fair is sponsored by the Luzerne County Guidance Counse- lors in celebration of National Guidance Counselors’ Week. School and agency representatives from throughout Luzerne County will participate to emphasize the importance of counseling to the lives of students. Shown above, from left, is Mary Siegel, assistant dean of admissions for College Misericordia, counseling student Lisa Suchajda on ‘college choices. Fiegelman says...thanks to an anonymous friend BY RICHARD FIEGELMAN Special to The Post Our children and our children’s children deserve to wonder in the | creativity is something ‘‘some | people have, some people | don’t,” is a myth, claims Fred | Pryor, author of The Energetic | Manager (Prentice-Hall, November 1987). | “Creativity is more a skill ‘than an inborn gift,”’ says | Pryor. ‘‘It can be defined | simply as doing ordinary things | in extraordinary ways.” Pryor, whose company, Fred | Pryor Seminars, conducts 2,500 business seminars per year, |says that most people he has | talked with say that they are | “not creative.” To develop creativity, Pryor | suggests examining how you ‘develop solutions and take action. ecameser: other people’s leads without asking ourselves if there is a better way,” says Pryor. “The true opposite of creativity is conformity. By handling a matter in a way different from the norm, we’re exercising creativity.” Pryor urges a change in per- sonal habits to open up the mind to creativity. ‘“Think of how often we get ready by rote,” he says. “We have our particular chair at the table, our ‘side’ of the bed. When we forego the habit and try new things, we’re being creative.” Creativity can improve your personal life and job, Pryor states, making its development worth the extra effort. Some observations: In October, my wife and I moved to Dallas to escape the traffic, noise, and general dis- ruption of city life. This week we enjoyed another benefit of country life: neighborliness. We were on our way to our respec- tive jobs early in the morning, when our car decided to stall at the corner of Huntsville Rd. and Pioneer Ave. After several attempts at restarting, I got out of the car in disgust, pondering my next move. My knowledge of cars extends to knowing how to pump gas and change a tire. Within two minutes of getting out of the car, a fellow came out of one of the nearby stores to determine whether or not he could be of assistance. After explaining the problem to him, he grinned at me, opened the hood, found that the choke was frozen, and within another two minutes my wife and I were on our way to work again. I would like to take this opportunity to thank" him publicly (though anonymously). Selfless acts \ such s this one in sub-zero weather certainly reaffirm faith in mankind, and compliment country living. Hopefully no one took my Super Bowl suggestion seriously and “put the house on it”. In college, I did weekly football predictions with some success, but this Super Bowl wiped that out. Washington’s second quarter comeback was the greatest offensive quarter I have seen in twenty years of watching and playing football. Williams and Co. deserve all of the respect and accolades which will be heaped on them. By the way, in next year’s Super Bowl XXIII: New York Giants 30, Cleveland Browns 21. I’m glad to see that the Joseph Castellino cocaine case has been resolved. Mr. Castel- lino was sentenced to one year -in prison and assessed a $10,000 fine. Some in the local media were on the verge of hysteria due to this case. It was a shame to see Mr. Castellino’s father, Frank, dragged through the mud along with him. He has been a straight-shooter for many years in the Pittston area. Some writers will go to great lengths to muckrake. The Middle East powderkeg shows a distinct lack of reason on both sides. Barbarism is the norm, and violence the form in what is an exercise in futility. Israel, though at times having no choice, seems to have forgot- ten the reasons for its establish- ment forty years ago. After centuries of being on the receiv- ing end of oppression, the powers that be have turned the tables. The Palestinians should also realize that rocks and fire- bombs will serve no purpose other than murder. : Media-bashing is a popular pastime in the U.S. these days. This country should not forget that in many cases the media is the buffer zone between it and rampant abuse by politicians on all levels. Most of us ar serious guardians of the First Amend- ment. Without free speech and - free thought, democracy would become a fleeting dogma of history. ABC looks like it may have a winner in “The Wonder Years” which previewed after the Super : = Bowl on Sunday night. It is the \story of a group of adolescents who spend their innocent years in suburbia during the turmoil of the Sixties. I grew up in a small town during that era and found myself transported: back in time. In the opening pro- gram, the twelve-year-old main character and a girl with whom he grew up, share their first ' kiss at a secret tree after find- ing out that her older brother had been killed in Vietnam. This bittersweet irony was a party of growing up in those times, but the show is done in such a way that all age groups will find something from their own child- hoods. In breaking away from the traditional adolescent pap, hopefully ‘“The Wonder Years” will last more than a few weeks. It is pleasing to see that a survey is being done to deter- mine the number of homeless people out there suffering on the streets. The homeless are an embarrassment to a country which prides itself on morality and great wealth. If nothing is is done, this problem will spiral into one of the worst tragedies of our time. With action and compassion, maybe more of us will be able to rest easy ih next winter. See you next week... Regionalism is good BY HOWARD J. GROSSMAN Special to the Post I heard a speech the other day and guess what, the topic was regionalism. The speech went something like this. “In 1854 the structure of our government was established and it has not changed basically since then. Qur problems today are not the problems of 1854. Think of what it would mean to our children and grandchildren if our region were to be coalesced in a fashion which would allow counties and cities to be unified to carry out services which truly are regional in scope and should be planned, developed and managed accordingly. By one stroke-of action, this region could be placed on a map and be positively recognized and not ignored as a major center of growth, action and economic activity.” These paraphrases of a major speech surprisingly are not about § Northeastern Pennsylvania. They represent our sister region of greater Philadelphia, better known as the Delaware Valley. And the speech was not given by a political scientist nor was it given by a great governmental leader. Instead, it was given by one of the most active private developers in the Delaware Valley. Bill Rouse is a man whose vision has meant much to greater Philadelphia, both within the inner city, the central city, the waterfront, and the suburbs. Much of his vision is attached to the Route 202 Technology corridor in Montgomery County which has sprung up in a surprisingly rapid fashion within the last three years. 1854, by the way, was a time when the city of Philadelphia was formed from a fragmented system of towns, villages, and neighborhoods. What Rouse was saying was that no longer is 1854 applicable, and we should not use today the boundary lines which were drawn 130 years ago in a quite different era with different problems and different conditions. - Does this have applicability to Northeastern Pennsylvania? The answer is a resounding yes. The region has a metropolitan area in name, but not in fact. Waste disposal, water management, economic development, comprehensive planning and many other functions are no respector of boundary lines. These and many other issues need a regional setting by which logical decisions can be reached to have the most positive impact possible on a given area or region of a state or the nation. As belt tightening occurs through federal cutbacks and elimination or abolishment of programs, it is more likely that regionalism will become more critical to local governments. In point of fact, regionalism has been successfully concluded even in the most controversial terms such as tax collection. In the twin cities Minneapolis, St. Paul metropolitan area, a unique system of regional taxation has been implemented and ‘in effect close to 10 years. In places such as Indianapolis, Dade County, Florida, Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee, Portland, Oregon, and other places in the United States, regionalism has not only been heard, but implemented through regional planning, regional development, regional service delivery, and a variety of regional goverpmental forms either at the county level or multi-county evel. Will regionalism strike Northeastern Pennsylvania to help mobilize economic and service delivery needs as the 21st century rapidly approaches? No clear and present answer is available, however, regionalism has occurred in such diverse services as aviation through the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton International Airport, which is managed by the Luzerne-Lackawanna County Commis- sioners, the Philharmonic Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania, one of ‘the truly fine regional symphony orchestrasfin the United States, the Economic Development Council of Northeastern Penn- sylvania, which serves to promote economic growth at a regional level, Emergency Medical Services of Northeastern Pennsylvania, which provides the framework for one of the best emergency medical systems in the State, the Health Systems Planning Agency of Northeastern Pennsylvania, which serves to promote health planning at a regional level, Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsyl- vania, which serves a wide variety of counties throughout the Northeastern part of the State, and much more. Thus, the lessons and evidence seem to reflect a growing commitment to consider, if not act upon, regional processes to help create and improve a framework for growth and development. The future should hold a great promise if regionalism is carried steps forward to increase the likelihood of economic development and a quality of life which our citizens need, both present and future. C.T. Co. offers new options Commonwealth Telphone Company has begun prepara- tions for a $1.2 million capital investment project affecting customers in the Trucksville area whose telephone numbers begin with 696. In May, Commonwealth plans to replace the existing electro- mechanical equipment in the Trucksville central office with a new computerized switching system. Once the new technology is installed, customers in the Trucksville area will have the option to choose custom calling features such as call waiting, call forwarding, remote call for- warding, 3-way calling, and speed calling. After the May cutover, busi- ness customers in the Trucks- ville exchange will also have the option of selecting Common- wealth’s PASSKEY Services. This means that PASSKEY cus- tomers need only the phones on their desks to benefit from enhanced business calling fea- tures. The Post asks: “What's your favorite wintertime sport?”’ EI A. i a EE ———— ANTHONY J. HANDO | Anthony J. Hando, 42 Brewery worker | Wilkes-Barre | “Ice fishing - on all the Ee oe Eel ll lB I nS ——— 1 | akes. if | ANN JENKINS Ann Jennings, 30 Homemaker Shavertown “Reading.” DOUGLAS JENNINGS Douglas Jennings, 3 Shavertown “Watching Ghostbusters.” CARYN GRAMLEY Caryn Gramley, 13 Student Harveys Lake “Sleigh riding.” KEITH HILLARD Keith Hillard, 20 Laborer for PG&W Dallas “Skiing.” LARISA HILLARD Larisa Hillard, 19 Housewife Dallas ‘Skiing and ice skating.” »
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers