While many of us enjoy clinging to the past, we have to realize it’s time that some things change.
I was visiting my brother last week in Philly. I took my daughter and her friends to see a concert. First, it’s pretty awesome to sit with your long time brother and watch teenagers go to their first “big time” concert _ alone!
“I saw you spying on us,” my daughter smirked later. She was right, of course, but I prefer “capturing the moment.”
Anyway, we went down to South Street to bum around for awhile. My brother has lived in Philly for more than two decades and I recalled that we used to do the same thing many years ago. We meandered through comic book stores, clothing boutiques, music emporiums and some stores that sold t-shirts and posters. What I noticed most was some of the old standbys are still big sellers. When did Bob Marley re-emerge as a folk hero? He joins the ranks of James Dean and Marilyn as a larger than life icon, which is weird to me because he didn’t nearly have that status during his life, at least in the U.S. It made me think that people should stop clinging to the past and embrace something new. But, then I thought, “What’s new? The Jonas Brothers?” I really can’t imagine them on a t-shirt in 25 years, but I’ll probably be in a home somewhere where the staff has to cut my pudding for me and I won’t have any idea that they’re still big.
Which brings me to reassessment. I know, you’ve heard enough. Someone sent me an urgent message via their Blackberry today and I detected a true sense of fatigue in the text.
I didn’t attend yesterday’s storied commissioner’s meeting, so I guess I don’t know if I read the audience reaction right. However, the television pictures chosen by reporters portrayed a crowd that could have been extras in the movie “Network.” They were mad as hell and they were not going to take it anymore. As an aside, I have been receiving quiet, polite emails from people who call themselves “the silent majority.” They say they’re satisfied with the results of the reassessment and they can’t wait for it to be certified. So, is it the people crying out in pain and blowing their whistles who are telling the true story, or is it the timid typists who have it right? I would imagine the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Regardless, we can’t spend our lives clinging to our old icons and ideas. It won’t be easy, but Luzerne County needs to put its best possible face on its reassessment.
Or, they could make their new county seal a bawling baby and allow the discontented to representative face of this region.
Oh, and Bob Marley really doesn't have much to do with reassessment, but those darn editors will put wacky headlines on the stories to make you read them, like you just did!
Corbett
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