Pleased with Needham renovation

Editor: I’m pleased to see how the new Needham School is coming along. It’s been a long time coming, and I think the lucky students who will “inaugurate” the new building will be delighted with their brand-new school.

When I was a student at Needham (many years ago!), there were rose bushes planted all along the Needham School fence on Church Street, all the way down to Tokay Street. Especially in the spring, when those roses were in bloom, it was a beautiful sight to see. People would drive down Church Street just to see the roses.

Has anyone considered planting rose bushes again along the Needham School part of Church Street? It would be a beautiful addition to the neighborhood. WILMA HECKENLAIBLE SPICE Lodi

We’re not taking advantage of our scientific blessings

Editor: The current state of our country is appalling. We have one of the most educated nations in the world with some of the smartest people helping to speed us into the next century, yet we have non-vaxxers, conspiracies, and a whole group that wants to overthrow our government. What is the matter with us?

I was fortunate enough to be born at the end of the polio epidemic and to benefit from the polio vaccine. Sadly, I did have a couple of friends succumb to and others who suffered from disabilities that never went away. Most of those suffering from it for the rest of their lives were anti-vaxxers, and many of the children that I knew in those circumstances became informed of the vaccines that they were deprived of and were angry about the situation that they were left to live with.

To have worked up a COVID vaccine in the short length of time that it took should tell us how fortunate we are to live in such a country. It took more than 30 years to get the polio vaccine and here we are with about a third of our population shrugging the COVID-19 vaccine off as a form of government interference or control. To have a vaccine as effective as the ones we have available in the short time it took to get one should impress us all. We should be capable of a more thoughtful approach to the blessings we have in science and medicine.

Science and medicine are not perfect nor do they always go in a straight line from problem to cure, but if we all would just look at accomplishments of the past 75 to 100 years and give some though to where we were and to where we are now, it might change our perspective and our attitudes.

We are really blessed and could’ve had this pandemic we’re behind us, yet here we are still grappling with it and we should not have to be doing it this way.

It’s time to use our thought processes in ways that are beneficial in a positive rather than a negative way.

DARYL PAYNE Woodbridge