Dear Editor:
When I was little, my father was sent to Australia as Agricultural Attache. He liked Foss’s poem: “Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.” I took that to mean I should defend the little Dutch and Greek girls who were ridiculed and hold Johnny’s warty hand.
In 1950, not long after World War II ended, Daddy converted our garage into a cottage for a string of Dutch couples who were in the Dutch Underground.
We listened to their stories of lying under floorboards in 18″ of space and witnessing the killing of a boy by the Gestapo when he broke curfew. They needed a new start, helped each other build homes, and found a good life in a new world.
When my husband and I bought an old house outside rural Marengo, we befriended a hog judge who had grown up in our house and his wife, Ruth; a brilliant and funny truck driver; and two retired couples Our annual Christmas party drew us closer. Ruth wore her red dress.
In the blizzard of ’78, my husband snowshoed into Marengo for our neighbor’s medicine and helped another thaw his pipes. When we lost heat, we and our two children were tucked under Ruth’s quilts in the farmhouse across the street.
We loved our cozy neighborhood. Something changed. Our neighbors died and new people moved in. One rejected my offered cookies. Another neighbor, whose lawn I mowed until he moved in, said he “didn’t neighbor.”
What made people change, to reject civility and neighborliness? I can’t say for sure, but their behavior reminds me of nothing so much as hate-filled attitudes of MAGA people now pushing lies about Haitians eating pets or Democrats being pedophiles.
Why would anyone believe that garbage riddled with untruths and rudeness?
Sherrod Brown has helped bring down costs of insulin and supported unions so workers are paid fairly and protected. Jarred Christian, running for Congress from Ohio’s 12th district, wants to help small farmers and small businesses.
Chuck Rogers, Knox County Commissioner candidate, has been a medic and works with Habitat for Humanity to expand affordable housing for working people. All are interested in tax breaks for struggling families and reproductive rights for women.
Politicians who push hate are losing ground. We can vote. Let’s be better neighbors.
Jill Grubb
Gambier, Ohio