From Star Trek to leaf blowers: Our readers weigh in

What follows are some Letters to the Editor that The Paper may have received during the past couple of years.

TO THE EDITORS:

I am tired of reading about city councils, zoning boards, tax rates, parking meters, economic development, county budgets, and the school board. I demand The Paper restore balance to local journalism by devoting at least one full page per week to Star Trek.

This would include, but not be limited to, Klingon proverbs, suspiciously relevant moral dilemmas, and a weekly comparison of Burke County boards to Federation committees that almost certainly violated the Prime Directive.

Frankly, Captain Kirk could settle most rezoning disputes by leaning on one elbow and flirting with the applicant.

Live long and subscribe,

Randy “Warp Factor” Causby

Icard, N.C.

SIRS:

I have lived through wars, recessions, disco, and the invention of low-fat cheese, but nothing has tested my will to live like the modern leaf blower.

Every Saturday morning, a neighbor spends three hours moving seven leaves from his driveway to mine at a sound level normally associated with jet engines and biblical judgment.

In my day, we used rakes. They were quiet, effective, and did not make a man look like he was vacuuming the atmosphere.

Ban them or issue combat pay.

Sincerely,

Col. Bixby R. Nance, Ret.

Glen Alpine

TO THE EDITOR:

I am canceling my subscription to The Paper because last week you printed something I disagreed with, along with something I agreed with but not strongly enough, and a photo of someone I once had words with at a church covered-dish supper in 1989.

Furthermore, your crossword contained a clue that forced me to admit I do not know as much about European rivers as I have implied for years.

This is unacceptable.

Please cancel my subscription immediately, but continue delivering the paper so I can monitor your decline.

Indignantly,

Beatrice Setzer

Valdese

PLEASE PUBLISH IN LETTER TO EDITOR:

I rise today in defense of the grilled ham and cheese sandwich, that noble brick of civilization too often overlooked by people who think lunch should include sprouts, Watercress leaves, or moral improvement.

Give me Waldensian Bakery bread, honest ham, American cheese, and a skillet slicked with real butter, not that soybean impostor spread invented by committees and sadness.

Grill it until the bread crackles, the cheese surrenders, and the whole kitchen smells like somebody’s grandmother just won the county fair.

Wash it down with an A&W root beer in a frosted mug and you have achieved what zoning boards, wellness plans, and public comment periods never will: peace on earth.

Respectfully buttered,

Buford Hildebran

Valdese

EDITOR:

I write today in praise of the backyard birdfeeder, that humble little buffet where God’s tiny miracles gather each morning to eat $42 worth of seed, fling half of it on the ground, and personally bankrupt a retired man by Easter.

Still, there is no finer entertainment in Burke County than watching cardinals, chickadees, finches, wrens, and suspicious squirrels with the upper-body strength of prison escapees conduct their daily business.

The birds arrive dressed better than church deacons, argue like town council members, and leave the deck looking like a granola factory exploded.

Some folks have television, cable packages, and streaming subscriptions. I have a birdfeeder, a kitchen window, and a deep emotional investment in whether a tufted titmouse can whip a blue jay.

Respectfully feathered,

Garnett Duckworth, president, Burke Birdwatchers Association

Jonas Ridge

TO EDITORS:

Could someone please explain why in the hell it takes so long to build anything these days? A fellow can get a refrigerator delivered, install a pacemaker, and watch three seasons of a murder show before a single apartment gets permitted, approved, reviewed, blessed, sprinkled with zoning water, and allowed to become shelter for actual human beings.

We need housing. Not a 14-month conversation about housing. Not a task force studying the emotional journey of housing. Housing. Roofs, doors, plumbing, mailboxes, and a place where working people can live without selling plasma and a bass boat.

Somebody please hand the builders a hammer and get out of the way.

Respectfully impatient (and still waiting),

Otis Lailman

Morganton.

EDIT PERSON:

I would like to know who is in charge of the pollen this year, because I intend to write them a strongly worded letter.

Every porch, car, dog, mailbox, and livermush biscuit in Burke County is now covered in yellow dust. I don’t know whether to blame El Niño, La Niña, La Bamba or whatever Spanish weather witchcraft is currently running the atmosphere, but I have had enough.

Also, since we are apparently getting a new chicken plant air cleaner, could someone point it toward my driveway for about 20 minutes? If it can remove chicken stink, surely it can suck up enough pollen for me to find my Buick.

Respectfully sneezing,

Virgil “Claritin” Poteat

Glen Alpine

PICTURE EDITOR:

I want to know why The Paper keeps hiding the pictures behind all the words. Page after page of sentences, paragraphs, commas, facts, names, dates and other obstacles before a person finally gets to a decent photograph of a ribbon cutting, a wreck, a dog, a biscuit, or somebody standing beside a giant check.

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Fine. Then print the picture and save me the 1,000 words, because I do not read them anyway. I like pictures. Big pictures. Color pictures. Pictures with arrows. Pictures of people pointing at things. If something important happened, show me the face somebody made when it happened.

Respectfully not reading this either,

Myrtle Carswell

Rutherford College

DEAR EDITICKORS,

I wish to congrazulate Morganton on its Social Dishtict, which I understand is a highly sofistercated city planning thingy where a grown man can now walk down the street with a legal beverage instead of hiding it in a Cheerwine bottle like a Methodist at Myrtle Beach.

I fully suppork this progress. For years, I have been responsibly imbibbin’ in public, quietly, patriotically, and with only minor weaving. Now that the city has finally caught up with me, I ask that the districk be expanded to include porches, parking lots, alleyways, the good end of the courthouse square, the bad end of the courthouse square, and anywhere a citizen may need to stare at his property tax bill and say, “Well hell, I better sit down.”

Respectfully refleshed,

Big Dewiski Mull,

Morganton.