Lone Voice

Am I an aged lone voice speaking for retired home owners still living in Pottstown ? We wonder where our tax dollars have gone, where has all the money gone, money which we believed was invested in an improving school system ? Some time ago we learned the Pottstown School District had been put on notice that the High School is one of four Montgomery County Schools in Pennsylvania listed as a low-achieving school.
 
We oldsters have over the years made huge investments in our school district by paying property taxes yearly on our homes which continue to lose value. The value lost is caused by the market which reflects a buyer's desire not to purchase a home in Pottstown. If you were a buyer would you come to Pottstown and bid up the price of a house so you could bring your kids to a underachieving school system ? 

Our local school system is broken. Taxing of property for education is broken. Out of every five dollars of a Pottstown resident's annual taxation, four of those dollars go to the school district. The Pottstown District has been singled out by the state as a poor administrator for the money's invested by "we the people".

My wife and I are caught, as many other old couples are caught, in a home lived in for scores of years as the value of our house, once our largest investment, continues to plummet in value. This is like being caught in a "catch 22" : damned if you stay;  damned if you move away. 

Being taxed out of your home is a stark reality for many retirees who can no longer work and must rely on social security and their savings until that runs out to pay ever rising school taxes which seems to be wasted by the administration. Just look at the debacle over renovating our elementary schools : overruns in budgeting, under planning in design, but these seem commonplace to administrators since they can tax us, tax us out of our homes. They seem unable to feel our pain. By far, the majority don't live here so they pay their taxes to other school districts.

My true disgust can not be set in printable words for public display. As a graduate of Pottstown's schools, a school board member for four years, a member of Pottstown's Alumni Honor Roll,  and in Pottstown's inner circle of governance many years, I am ashamed of my inability to change the direction our hometown has taken. We need elected officials much better then I was able to be. We need to get rid of property taxation paying for education above all else.

Ronald C. Downie

Our Favorite Destination - Circa 1947

Too far, it took too long to go thirty four miles east to Philadelphia and still not be in center city. Reading Pa., just named as America's poorest city, was our destination of choice twenty miles west when I was a young teenager. Then, Reading was a prosperous city drawing like a magnet not only the young but adults of all ages. Whether action or entertainment was desired Reading had it all : two or more bars on every corner, seven or eight movie theaters, and the Fire Tower and the Pagoda looking down on center city drawing all visitors to take the winding drive up to get there. Restaurants were galore championed by the Crystal on The Square or, if wanting a lighter fare, the White Towers served hot dogs and burgers by the hundreds. 

A couple of times when I was about twelve or thirteen years of age, I was an unwitting passenger in timed races to Reading. Raymond, son of my family's pastor, drove his 1936 Buick four door sedan in these races against the clock. Those bragging rights were based on honor, verifiable honor, and it needed passengers to take the time back to the gang hanging out at O'Dell's gas station on west High Street in Stowe. 

I was the youngest passenger squeezed in the back seat between two older guys closer to Raymond's age of about eighteen. The clock started as we dug out going west from the light at Hanover and High about ten o'clock in the evening. This timing was planned so we avoided township cops who usually returned to their buildings at that time to write up their reports before eleven o'clock quitting time. There was also little traffic on 422 at that time of night. Raymond spared no horsepower on the double lane highway knowing he had to make up time there because who knew what traffic we'd hit in Reifton, Mount Penn, and Reading. 

The clock stopped when we crossed Fifth Street on Penn street. No, I don't remember the exact time but below a mile a minute has stuck in my mind these many years. Frequently over the intervening years I driven to Reading to take in a movie, eat a good meal, attend a show, or to work at my profession as a landscape nurseryman. No matter when I took the trip, I never forgot those harrowing races against the clock which had often left me with shaking knees and a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

Reading, Pa. once home of Joe's and Stanley's, the Reading Phillies, a brewery, Pomeroy's, the Peanut Bar, The Reading Eagle, and The Outlets is now of some prominence as the poorest city in America. What went wrong ? A bypass does wonders for an urban area, it keeps traffic out of the downtown. But it also concentrates social service agencies downtown bringing to them all the indigent needing help. These clients stay close even though they have little or no disposable income to support stores in the area. Sadly their presence deters former customers from shopping where they once did. The downward spiral builds upon itself setting a low point and only after a short time setting another low until now, the poorest city in the good old USA. Harrisburg, Scranton, Reading, so who's next ? Watch out Pottstown, a college town, beware !

Ronald C. Downie

Ian Jacob -Accumulating Years- Kurtz

"A Bridge Too Far", just how far off, is it ?
When is a tall mountain, too high, to climb ?
Does an equation, need others, solve it ?

When age activates a young Man's wonder, 
Difficulty fades, possibles surface,
Animation awakes in the stoic.

Like money, effort stacks up, gains value;
Years accumulating, lifetime spending,
Banks shrink dollars, effort, pays dividends.

Paying self first, accumulates treasures :
Comfort in words, stressless with raw numbers,
Discovery's doggedness, facts captive.

Into the vast realm of the probable :
You step, a young man poised for destiny,
Personally self groomed, journey begun.

Slim waters need few bridges to traverse,
It's a lovely view atop tall mountains,
Within great minds numbers crunch calculus.

Off you are, soon to challenge a desire
You have prepared for all of your young years.
May effort, remain, your essence of life.

With Love,
Happy Birthday!
Nanny & Pop Pop

Twitter Postings

Full moon or, should I say, a too full moon last night spilled its extra light Earthward so much that I had trouble nodding off to sleep.

It's Spring cause so many plants are breaking through the surface of the ground like they have springs in their roots with sunshine in their hopes.

The once wizardry of - who, what, when, where, why, and how - now cringes behind its cloak of letters in an austere sterilization of live news.

Why do Philadelphia sports announcers become so blatantly apologetic for poor athletic performances from Philly players and coaches ?

Masterful, an impression of my writings when I'm dreaming ; gibberish, when I think of my words compared to Facebook photo posters.

Born on this Planet, exist in this World, live in this Country, breath in this State, eat in this Town, drink in this Street, sleep in this House, sleep,...,die. 

Ronald C. Downie..

Reading's More Than A Pleasure

The pleasure to read, put off way too long, becomes like a drag on a boat, slowing it down while making it less manageable to steer, as it puts in jeopardy a person's desire to better find themselves. The inability to read is more like hitting an iceberg and sinking the boat rather than just putting a drag on it.

Where in the World could America get a better return on her investment then if our country would make education a top priority by pouring investments into it. It's not like a brand new program, we've had an universal education agenda in place for most of a Century here in America which now needs a shot of financing to make education truly a 21st Century accomplishment.

Americans pride ourselves in the excellence of our higher education institutions which serves those whose parents can afford their exorbitant costs or are youths willing to mortgage their future by borrowing to attend. Many slots are taken up by foreign students of financially able parents. 

To more and more, a belief surfaces that a higher education is but a "right of passage" of all young inhabitants of our Earth as they pass from youthful adolescence into adulthood, and, as their aptitude and attitude allows them. This passage is evermore controlled by a young person's ability to be served by money instead of by raw mental ability. 

Why in the World does America eat its seed corn or eat her children or eat the future away? Because, we as a country, are awfully short sighted thinking only for today or, at best, no longer than this week. The rich are really dumb thinking this way. Their own best interest is in having buyers of products their industries produce.

These buyers have to be nurtured, growing into consumers which is the backbone of America's economy. They need disposable income to purchase goods and services. Expanding the poor is the last thing providers of good and services need unless these providers are bent on a short time run. Too often, it seems the well to do need little time to make their vast wealth, so they're only in for the short run, and those younger financiers replace them in a same short amount of time.

It once took a generation to accumulate an old time fortune, but now, ten years is a long time for a fortune to be realized. Get mine now and be gone is the moneyed's song when their interest should be in a rising tides lift all ships. 

A rising tide is needed in education to bring it along in a way that truly raises the pursuit of knowledge to a level our World needs. The ability to read is the golden rule for all living beings. The increased ability to write well boarders on the true pursuit of capturing wisdom. 

Ronald C. Downie

Winter Weary 

In bleakest winter, drably
The latch of my garden gate
Rusts, its hinge stiffens badly 
And creaks as if to break.

Hidden flowers peek 
Out from time to time ;
From underground they seek
The awakening eyes of mine.

All across the World, gardens'
Restless engine trips the switch
Far too early to make amends
For frosted tips of growing's itch.

Waiting in angst, as if a gate
Set for use, though groaning.
Grumbling is an Earth man's fate,
Too early this, too late's his moaning.

Tempered, is a gardener of merit
Honed in roots sprouting greens.
Knowledge trumps his lustful spirit
Driving him beyond his dreams.

Suddenly, snow withdraws its blanket,
Unlocks the frost of white winter's chill.
In apron, muddy handles the bucket
Of garden tools, testing trimming's thrill.

Spring's equinox equals day with night,
Balancing an instant, then lightening up.
Moaning's gone, the garden gate's alright,
The stiffened hinge freed, tea fills the cup.

Ronald C. Downie

The Claussens of Pine Forge

Betty With Images - Bill, Printed Words

Soft strokes flow pigments on a canvas traced :
By eye with brush, stilling time, framing's placed.

When works of art are hung, walls disappear,
Rooms fill with pleasant, familiar warm air.

Beyond walls flows the Manatawny Creek.
Hung on walls are painted scenes which speak

Of a time in Pine Forge, just north upstream,
Where things happened thought only a dream.

This stream thru hills erodes for eons past.
Soft moccasin footprints allowed forests to last

Until Europeans arrived here in America by boat,
Pushed upstream beyond where canoes could float

To mine black iron ore for peace but also for war.
Clear cut Hemlock, Pine making charcoal fires roar.

Where the muscles of water drive wheels of a mill
To grind grain for a Nation with empty bellies to fill.

Betty chose paint pigments, husband Bill, black ink.
Betty created canvas images, Bill words that think.

She drew the 20th Century, he the long past away.
They lived on Creek Road, in Pine Forge, that's in Pa.

Where once ran a railroad, though only at night,
No whistle, no smoke, its passengers in life's flight,

No rails, only hidden trails across river and creek,
North Star showed the way to freedom they seek.

From Titlow to Ives then to Rutter at The Pines,
Its mansion a beacon during these troubled times.

Below on the Manatawny sat Bailey's Roller Mill
Banging away at boiler plate with orders to fill

For locomotives' fire boxes on railroads you all know.
Abolition's in their hearts which men of iron grow :

Thomas, Rutter and Potts ; Samuel, Savage and Nutt 
Forges, the muscle of wars; Revolution and Civil, but,

Are grand paintings like a secret heirloom recipe,
Both needing appreciation for memory's chemistry ?

Or, are paintings, as described by Andrew Wyeth 
Heard to say, "I was merely illustrating my life."

Soft strokes flow pigments on a canvas traced :
By eye with brush, stilling time, framing's placed.


When works of Art are hung, walls disappear,
Rooms fill with familiar, pleasant warm air.

Ronald C. Downie

Written and read on the occasion of a showing of Betty J. Claussen's Art, May 11, 2006. 
Husband, William Edmund Claussen wrote "Pioneers Along The Manatawny".
The Underground Railroad took a path through Pottstown with a layover in Pine Forge.