The Dallas Post Dallas, PA Wednesday, February 8, 1995 5 eo | John W. Johnson | . a > = .—That enigmatic northeastern Pennsylvania artist, Howard Becker, passed away recently. Never what one would call a great artist, Becker nonetheless admi- | rably captured many area scenes and its people in many hundreds of portraits. And if, in his quiet, almost hermit-like ways, we were not his, he was, most certainly, ours. pis * kk . —Next week brings us Valen- tine’'s Day. History has given us several St. Valentines; most are linked to February 14. There are different versions of how Valen- tine’s Day became a day for lovers. But probably the most reasonable explanation is that the custom grew out of the general belief of the Middle Ages that birds began to mate on February 14. It was, in fact, the custom of many countries for names of boys and girls to be ra. drawn from boxes on the 14th and A gifts then exchanged. Do you remember the first person who asked you to be his or her Valen- tine? Did it provoke nervous laugh- ter, or did the chosen Valentine simply run away? Regardless, most of us will never forget our first true-blue Valentine. Mine's name was Carol. I then proceeded to give her my budding stamp collection More notes from all over as a token of my undying love. She, of course, then proceeded to permit Tom what's-his-name to walk her to school. How simple, and yet how complicated it was. And remains. kkk —Question: Why is it that among the tests for couples apply- ing for a marriage license, a test for the HIV virus is not required? Also lost in the AIDS discussion is that this disease, while deadly, affecta arelatively small number of people, less than 225,000 people in the United States having been diag- nosed with full-blown AIDS. As well, and for the first time in his- tory, we have a communicable and contagious disease which obviously presents a major and national health problem, but whose pro- genitors have not been quaran- tined. Why is that? Because the vast majority of the people with AIDS are among the most talented, creative and brightest people we have, and it's those same people who have access to the publicity machinery. Therefore we've been made to feel guilty about even considering quarantine which at another time and place, and given the deadly nature of this disease, would have been done without even thinking about it. * kk —As the new GOP Congress gears up to give us its vision of America, one of the hot button items will be to do something about illegal aliens. And the quick-fix idea that will get the most atten- tion is a national identity card; this could, in turn, be used as a work card by aliens. The idea sound attractive as a quick fix, but do we really want to give government— even more so that we've already done—the right to require us to carry an ID card? The most benign problem this would cause is that we would have to beg the indul- gence of yet another bureaucracy; the sinister implications of such a card is that it would be yet another excuse for government to, in fact, become Orwell's Big Brother. Besides, it would take billions of dollars to administer such a pro- gram, and it would be fraught with fraud and corruption. Why not take even half of the money neces- sary to implement this quick fix scheme, and apply it to the real problem: lack of border enforce- ment laws already on the books? a* kk —If O.J. cut his finger in the course of butchering his ex-wife and her friend, why isn’t there a cut in the glove he was allegedly wearing while doing so. Having been part of another nationally known case (The Peter Reilly mur- der case) in which the police and district attorney, intent upon quick and certain resolution of a par- ticularly brutal murder, rushed to judgement, I am predisposed to side with the defense here. And while the trial and its attendant publicity make a mockery of fair- ness for either the prosecution or defense, there are a multitude of unanswered questions, and incon- sistencies. Letters Habitat says thanks for fundraising support “Editor: “On behalf of the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, I should like to thank you for helping publicize our recent Dollhouse Raffle. The event proved to be very successful, raising almost $2,000 for our organization. 11" We are particularly grateful for the support of Sallie Mae, Ha- nover Industrial Park and the Bay Window Shop, Shavertown. Many area churches also helped by sell- ing tickets. They were Gate of Heaven, Dallas; First Presbyte- rian, St. Nicholas, St. Therese and St. Boniface, all of Wilkes- Barre and St. Jude's of Mountain- top. The money raised will be used to further the ministry of Habitat, a Christian organization dedicated to eliminating poverty housing. Wyoming Valley Habitat com- pleted its second major project in Ashley last year and has just started work on a house on Hazle Street, Wilkes-Barre. Volunteers will soon be needed to work on site and to prepare lunches. Anyone who would like more in- formation should call 820-8002 and leave a message. Habitat relies on the support of local businesses, churches and indi- vidual volunteers and hopes the many people in Wyoming Valley who have helped out in the past will continue their support. Morag Michael Dollhouse Raffle Chairperson Dallas *® ® ‘Dallas (continued from page 1) Red Rock; one of the largest lakes in Iowa. Dallas, South Dakota is in the south central part of the state far from any large cities but very near the Missouri River. Dallas is just east of an Indian Reservation. Dallas, West Virginia is seven . miles S.E. of Wheeling, West Vir- ginia. If this town had been founded one mile east, there would be two Dallases in Pennsylvania. The West Virginia town is by far the closest to our town. Dallas, Wisconsin is in the N.W. part of the state about 45 miles from the Minnesota border. Thanks to Wayne Harvey for tipping me off to more cities. Guest Writer Bing Wolfe A Kovalchik & Co., P.C. 240 Schuyler Avenue Kingston PA 288-7517 File Early - Call for Appointment today CPA's We offer: ELECTRONIC TAX FILING DANCE | CLASSES I 6 Week Session $3600 Session STARTS WEE Qo 8 w= J (TET AP{ 0) 1g Beginner thru Advanced Balance Beam Bar GYMNASTIC®_ Award-winning / Certified Instructor, Betsy Carey Home of "Tumblin Dice" our 1st place award-winning Acro-Gymnastics Team - Ages 3 and up. 675-7227 As Iwas saying qr | Jack Hilsher ng Do you believe that there are people who believe UFO's (Un- identified Flying Objects, if you object to initials) really do exist, and have not only landed, but crashed on our planet? And more than once? These people further believe our government knows all this but is keeping such knowledge from the American public in the belief that it would panic them. They also claim there are as many as 30 alien bodies being kept frozen at Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and that two major medical centers have done stud- ies on the aliens in secret. Now before I continue and dis- close my startling conclusion, I must remind you that I have admitted to being nuts about sci- ence fiction, not entirely in my misspent youth, for if Isaac Asi- move were alive today and wrote another robot classic, or anything at all about inter-galactic travel, I'd read it in a nanosecond. So given my background, and bent, there is no one more quali- fied to be a true UFO believer. I want to be one. Then why am I not? Well, I'll tell you, but fi. st, some background music. UFO's — unlikely at best UFO sightings have been re- ported for thousands of years. Ancient manuscripts and folk tales alike are full of tantalizing refer- ences to things which sound for all the world like modern-day UFO sightings. But what really kicked off modern interest was what Ken- neth Arnold, a businessman flying his own private plane, said he observed over Mt. Ranier in Wash- ington in 1947. He described nine silver disk-shapes and said they flew in formation - like geese - but did not seem to move as airplanes do. : Arnold further said the disks were “flying like saucers skipping over the water.” That did it. Newspapers immediately hopped on the story and the term “flying saucer” was born. “UFO” came later. The Air Force then recorded 122 similar reports in '47, al- though one investigator said later there were at least 850 that year, and the Air Force ignored most of them. The following year, pilot Capt. Thomas F. Mantel and three other planes chased a silvery cone- shape near Louisville, Kentucky. Three planes turned back but Mantell continued climbing. He told the tower he was closing fast and that the object looked metal- lic. Then a few moments later the tower lost contact. Mantel crashed near a farmhouse and died. According to the Air Force, Mantel got up to 20,000 feet and passed out from lack of oxygen. But the incident prompted the Air Force to open an official investiga- tion into the many UFO reports that continued to pour in. Their findings, and others over the years, all conclude that nine of 10 sight- ings are either natural events - like weather balloons or like the planet Venus - or else they turned out to be hoaxes. Books of the UFO classification have continued to pile sky high in the almost 50 years since Arnold saw the first nine mysterious objects. Panel upon panel of experts have had their say, and sighting after sighting have con- tinued to this day. In the fifties actual contacts with aliens from UFO's began to show up...really incredible cases where other-worldly beings “spoke” to humans, even abducted them! Betty and Barney Hill, later to become famous, said they were kidnapped and taken aboard a UFO in 1961. Both were hypno- tized and stuck to the same story. Between 1970 and 1979 over 160 similar UFO kidnappings were reported! In most, physical ex- aminations were common. Now, comes the dawn. Some questions from a non-believer, albeit a reluctant one...Why all the secrecy? Why would aliens not want to show themselves to us out in the open? Where is the physical evidence, any evidence at all? And with the “leak mental- ity” in our government, how could anything like this be covered up for so long? And finally, why should a su- per-race with unbelievable tech- nology for travel between galax- ies, be so dumb and crude as to examine humans (and cows!) over a48-year period, without any overt contact, in the ways the kidnap- ees said? Do you know? I sure don't! * Strength training » Aerobic conditioning There Is A Difference In Personal Training. 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Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers