Out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom
As is the case with any job, some weeks are tougher than others around here. You see valuable employees slip away, or particularly offensive crimes happen in your area, or — as I’ve mentioned a time or 50 — the level of public discourse somehow continues to sink. It’s hard on all of us, even the human beings who put together your newspaper seven days a week.
But sometimes, out of the blue in that wild and wonderful mystical yonder, you get a message or two of hope when you least expect it. In my case, it meant two incredibly uplifting letters to the editor that found their way to my desk this week.
I say “found their way” in the truest sense of the term. As we’ve mentioned, the Enterprise Record office has been closed for the past year because of the pandemic. That means the staff is working from home. It also means there’s nobody there most days to do things like pick up our mail — which is why we’ve strongly encouraged people to email letters to letters@chicoer. com instead of using snail mail.
We check as often as possible, and boy, am I glad I checked this week.
I got not one, but two letters to the editor that not only restored my faith in the ability of people to hold adult-level conversations, they practically restored my faith in humanity, period.
That’s probably because they were written by children — children who, in my opinion, should immediately be placed on a county-wide commission called “How to Interact Like Adults,” because an awful lot of people around here need an awful lot of help in this regard.
(For example, letters to the editor recently written by adults tried to make their points by using clever, uplifting terms like “geriatric nutbag” to describe a local public servant, and “assassin in waiting” to describe anyone who had the unmitigated gall to buy a hunting rifle and, well, the “r” word to describe someone’s lack of intelligence. No, you’ll never see the “r” word in a letter to the editor as long as I’m here.)
But back to the kids. Their names are Claire Powers and Hope Manes. I thought their letters stood out so much, they didn’t deserve to be lumped in on the Opinion page; instead, I’m using them here.
We’ll start with Claire. “My name is Claire Powers. I think you guys should stop telling the homeless to go somewhere else, because where are they supposed to go? I’m asking you.”
(Boy, there’s a question I’ve yet to get an intelligent answer to from a good portion of this town.)
Then, Claire drew a nice little picture of a house, with the words “This is where they’re supposed to be.”
A picture really can be worth a thousand or more words, so we’ve included it here for you to enjoy.
Claire, you have just received our endorsement to be official Homeless Solutions Czar for Chico and the entire western region. And thank you very much for taking the time to communicate with us; such cooperation is rare these days from officials in these kinds of positions.
The other letter came from Hope Manes.
“It makes me sad to know that so many people in the world don’t have clean water, but I hope they will get fresh water with help from things like the Walk4Water. Bridging the Gap 4 Water is the organization that puts on the Walk4Water. They also have Bridging the
Gap Market and they raise money for water projects in Africa, like wells and water filters,” Hope wrote, with grammar skills belying her young age.
“Lots of people in the world don’t have clean water. Kids miss school because they have to get water or because they get sick from drinking bad water. Bridging the Gap thinks everyone should have clean water.
“I’m going to carry a bucket for the Walk4Water this year so other people can be healthy like I am. The walk is from March 22-28 and you can do it on your own like me. If you want to help people get clean water, you can go to the website btg4water.org.”
And there you have it. Points made, without sinking to the embarrassingly low level of name-calling or stereotypical terms about those who hold opposing views. I see that stuff every day from some people, many of whom — to put it bluntly — are in serious need of finding a new hobby. The hate-filled recesses in some of these minds, where people they don’t agree with seemingly reside rent-free 365/7, is a scary, scary place, one I’m determined to do a much better job of avoiding in the future.
But then … out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom. Thank you, young ladies, for writing and reminding me that no matter how big of a mess adults might make of things, “Hope” really can spring eternal for our future generations.