May 3, 2013 - Southingtonlibrary.org

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Friday, May 3, 2013
•Second Look Column.......page 8
•Neighbors............page 9
•Good Times........page 16
Our Views
Stop for stopped school buses
ED HARRIS editor
Established in 1975
Published weekly by The Step Saver, Inc.
213 Spring St., Southington, CT 06489
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www.SouthingtonObserver.com
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Knowing your state legislators
Often many do not know who the members of their
state delegation in Hartford are, never mind the various
committees that these individuals sit on. Because of this, we
thank Southington’s legislative delegation for taking time out
of their schedules to enjoy a breakfast with the Southington
Chamber of Commerce and their attempts to flush out what
they are doing in Hartford.
This will help people understand what their elected representatives
are doing while serving and also allow them to
know which delegation member to get a hold of for any specific
issues that they may be facing.
Most of Southington’s legislative delegation flushed out
their roles in Hartford during a recent legislative breakfast
event, hosted by the Southington Chamber of Commerce.
Only Republican state Rep. Al Adinolfi, who oversees a
sliver of Southington ever since the redistricting in
December 2011, was not in attendance.
Republican Rob Sampson, now in his second term,
serves on the Appropriations, Real Estate and Insurance and
Environmental Committees.
Southington state Senator Joe Markley, a Republican
serving in his third, non consecutive term, serves on the
Appropriations, Program Review, Human Services and Labor
Committees.
Democratic state Rep. Dave Zoni is a little more than
three months into his first term. Zoni serves on the Aging,
Public Health and Finance Committees.
Fellow Southington state Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, who has
served for close to a decade, is the House Minority Leader
and therefore does not sit on any committees.
Al Adinolfi, a Republican, serves on the Judiciary,
Veterans’ Affairs, Appropriations and Aging Committees.
Giving veterans a helping hand
Our military veterans have sacrificed a lot of our country,
so we were glad to see two of them get a helping hand this past
weekend.
Members of House of Heroes Connecticut came to
Southington on Saturday to aid with needed repairs and renovations
at the homes of Walter and Karen Grover and Maria
Perreault.
Walter Grover is a U.S. Army veteran who worked in
nuclear warhead maintenance and security in West Germany
during the Vietnam era. Maria is the widow of Dennis
Perreault, a U.S. Navy and Vietnam veteran who passed away
in 2009.
The Community Foundation of Greater New Britain and
the Rotary Club of Southington are supporting the projects.
The Community Foundation awarded a Catalyst Fund grant to
the House of Heroes in December. This grant will help the
House of Heroes repair and renovate a select number of veteran’s
homes in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington.
House of Heroes is also utilizing money donated to it from
the Southington Rotary’s Blues, Brews and Barbeque event
held at Hawk’s Landing in September.
House of Heroes, founded in 2000, is a nonprofit organization
that serves the nation’s military and public safety veterans,
as well as their spouses, who are disabled, living on a fixed
income, or facing other physical/financial challenges.
Volunteers make minor repairs and improvements to the
homes, at no cost to the veteran. The costs of the repairs are
funded through various charitable donations.
Since its inception, House of Heroes has helped provide
repair services to more than 600 veterans and their families.
Back in high school, my friend
Dimitri was the first in my group of
friends to go for his driver’s license.
We were all excited. No longer
would we be at the mercy of our
parents. If we wanted to go somewhere
or do something, we would
have Dimitri to drive us around,
provided he could talk his mother
into lending him the car.
It seemed as if freedom was on
the horizon. Or so we thought.
For some reason, still unknown,
Dimitri failed his drivers test in the
most spectacular way. And by spectacular,
I mean boneheaded.
While out on the road portion
of the test, Dimitri decided to pass a
stopped school bus, which had its
lights flashing and stop sign out and
extended. Obviously he should have
stopped and waited for the school
kids to enter or exit the bus.
Instead, he decided to keep
going, past the stopped bus. This
earned him an automatic failure
and endless ribbing from our group
of friends.
A bit later he retook the test and
was able to pass. I do not remember
if he had to stop for a school bus
the second time around.
My friend has learned his lesson
and every time that I have driven
with him, he has always stopped
for busses, when needed. But this is
Battle lines: Kids versus dogs
I was at a party recently, and
among the crowd there were two
young couples sharing their common
experiences of raising toddlers.
It was very cute listening to them
express amazement at every new
event in their children’s development,
as if their offspring were the
first ones in the history of the planet
to do things such as crawl up stairs,
flush a hair brush down the toilet, or
point to Barney on TV and exclaim,
“Mama!”
When the two young couples
started talking about the high cost
of car seats and baby shoes, I had to
force myself to keep quiet when I
wanted to blurt out, “Car seats? Just
wait till they want their own car!
And baby shoes? Have you priced
orthodontia lately? How about prom
dresses? How about college
tuition?!”
Luckily I was able to refrain
from sharing my “wisdom” with the
naïve young couples — which, from
their perspective, would have been
simply a grumpy old man performing
an uninvited “grump dump.”
Instead I just stood there and
smiled. This is yet another good reason
(I’m now up to reason number
4,278) why it was a fabulous thing
that I quit drinking many years ago.
I’m pretty sure if I had been drinking,
my speech filter would’ve been
disabled after the third beer and I
not only would’ve “grump dumped”
about the high cost of raising kids,
but every other inappropriate
thought that popped into my head
Ed Harris
Thoughts around town
not always the case, we still have
people that drive around buses,
with no regard for the safety of the
school children.
Because of this, I am thankful
to see that the school system taking
steps to ensure bus safety, but I will
take a wait and see approach to see
just how big of a problem there is in
town of cars passing stopped school
buses.
Recently the Southington
School district joined a program
that will place cameras on buses to
monitor drivers who ignore bus
safety rules. The program is a collaborative
effort between the
schools, the police, New Britain
Transportation and the company
RedFlex Traffic Systems.
Bill Dunn
Laugh or Death
would have blasted right out of my
mouth. Which probably explains
why I was not invited to very many
parties back in the bad ol’ days.
Anyway, this little conversation
at the party was proceeding nicely,
with the young couples regaling us
with tales of their precocious youngsters,
when suddenly another young
lady joined the discussion and said,
“Oh, the same thing happened to us
the other day when Fluffy was playing
with a ball in kitchen!”
The room suddenly went silent.
Everybody, even people who were
not a part of our conversation,
turned and stared at the young
woman. She was oblivious to the
sudden hush, since visions of her
precious Fluffy were still dancing in
her head.
After a few awkward seconds,
which seemed like ten minutes,
someone, whose speech filter had
been disabled many beers ago (it
wasn’t me!), broke the silence by
The town piloted the program
in February 2012. State legislation
has made it possible to implement
the program at no cost to taxpayers.
RedFlex will receive a portion of any
ticket that is handed out thanks to
the cameras.
The camera turns on when the
bus driver extends the vehicle’s stop
sign and turns off when the sign is
retracted.
Last year, school officials said
that they periodically receive complaints
about drivers who ignored
the stop signs on the buses, but
noted that it is difficult for them to
actually track how often this was
happening. The still video provided
by the cameras could provide the
opportunity.
RedFlex will review the tapes
and send footage of potential violations
to the police for examination.
There is likely not an epidemic
of cars passing a stopped bus in
town, though an instance or two
every so often can still pose potential
dangers to the students on the
bus.
Hopefully, with word getting
out that the drivers will be on candid
camera these instances will
stop.
Comments? Email
eharris@southingtonobserver.com.
yelling, “Hey lady! A freakin’ dog
ain’t the same thing as a kid!!”
Ooh. Now it was out in the
open. The atmosphere of the party
turned cold. Battle lines were drawn
as other dog-loving couples came to
the young woman’s defense. At the
same time parents with small children
gathered around the original
two young couples to assure them
that raising a child is indeed much
more difficult than owning a mere
dog.
That’s when I realized there are
a lot of people who consider their
pets to be their children. Of course,
there are common experiences in
both situations. Whether you have a
baby or you own a pet, you spend
more money than you ever expected,
you can no longer go away for
the weekend without first lining up
someone trustworthy to take care of
your bundle of joy and you quickly
become an expert at cleaning up
poop.
Now, I have a few strong opinions
on this subject, but I also have
a number of friends with young children
and/or pets. Fortunately I am
sober right now and the filter is
operational, so I think I’ll just stay
out of this heated debate and
change the subject to something
less passionate and volatile. So,
what do you think of Obamacare?
How about gun control?
Bill Dunn is a freelance writer
who resides in Torrington. He can be
reached via his website at:
www.boomertrek.com.