Opinion

It’s time to be the hero in your own life

Guys aren’t supposed to sit and wait. Guys are supposed to take action, to get things done.

Yet we seldom get the chance. Most weeks, most months — shoot, most decades — we try to be kind and do what we can. Sully Sullenberger had been flying for domestic airlines for 29 years: dragging his flight case through terminals, sitting in a pilot’s seat that was still warm from the last guy, flying all over the country, all day long, just to end up in Cincinnati. Then on a cold January afternoon, about two minutes after he left LaGuardia for two-hour trip to Charlotte, he had a broken airplane over Manhattan.

This virus is our bird-strike. We’ve got a chance to contribute our talents and brains and energy to get through this. We can do it with courage and class, if we will.

Start today getting past the trash that has accumulated in the garage of your life. Find the place in your household or your neighborhood that needs what you’ve got but never been called to use. We need blood donations to make up for the lack of regular blood drives. We need volunteers now or we are going to need them soon — everywhere. Learn the truth about the virus from reliable sources and pass on reliable information.

Organize a shopping team that can minimize the number of folks who have to be exposed by going to the store. Get up on the Zoom with friends you’ve missed lately.

Download books for free on a Kindle from the public library. Then announce a reading hour over Zoom for the kids of a mom who needs a break at her house. Moms who need a break at your house: reach out, go outside, get some sunshine.

Keep supporting the local businesses that you love — figGuest Columnist Frank Queen

ure out something, there’s suggestions everywhere.

Turn loose those nitwits on the Facebook — just blank ‘em out if they are passing on dumb ideas or hateful speech. You’ve got talent and some time and now we all need you.

It may seem like the government is taking the lead right now, organizing resources and positioning people for the coming storm. That’s the way it’s supposed to work because we’ve got our own lives to look after. But this virus is going to last for months. Find a mission and a rhythm that you can sustain for months, working for your family and for people you don’t even know.

When this war is over there won’t be any parades or medals. But, if you have contributed to the goodness in our world during this, then you will be your own hero. Get to it, today and tomorrow. Because some day this war will be over.

(Frank G. Queen lives in Waynesville and is the Haywood County Attorney. frank@queenmountainlaw.com)

Democrats, media want to blame Trump To the Editor:

Congratulations to the politicians and the news media! You have been able to take a serious virus situation and enlarge it to a horrible pandemic situation. These scare tactics have further created other situations which have greatly affected our economy.

The solutions the politicians have enforced by quarantine have led to mass unemployment and failure of many small businesses.

To solve this problem, the government has produced and signed a $2.2 trillion bailout program. The money to cover this will be created by the Treasury printing inflationary currency. This inflationary burden is the largest ever perpetrated on our economy.

Since this situation has occurred during President Trump’s administration, he will be blamed by the liberal Democrat politicians! So, congratulations to Nancy Pelosi. You were unable to impeach President Trump, so instead have inspired the liberal news media to create this pandemic crisis.

Richard Swanson Waynesville

A good time to share hope To the Editor:

While I applaud the federal government for the passage of their Coronavirus Stimulus Packages to ease the economic impact of the current crisis, I cannot help but wonder if we could not be helping each other a bit more. As workers in many industries are forced out of work and will be relying on government support to feed and house their families, I ask is there any sort of “pay it forward” (or perhaps in this case backward) that might help.

What if manufacturers large and small saw this an opportunity to do the morally correct and patriotic thing by manufacturing the medical supplies and equipment needed at minimal profit margins instead of hiking prices?

What if banks were willing to freeze mortgages for those out of work instead of relying on the government to drastically increase unemployment benefits so their profits continue unabated?

What if landlords would forgive rents for businesses forced to close their doors — and banks would freeze mortgages on these commercial properties in the same manner as for unemployed workers so small businesses would not need to rely on government and/or government backed loans (to be turned into grants) to have a physical place of business to reopen when the need for virus mitigation closures has passed?

What if everyone currently in possession of more than one month’s supply of toilet paper would return it to the store so those who need it could purchase it? Or better yet, SHARE it with their neighbors.

What if everyone with a yard put in a victory garden — sharing seeds with their neighbors as a pack of seeds for most vegetables is enough to supply several families?

What if everyone who is not thrown out of LETTERS

work by this crisis would donate a portion of their earnings to local food banks, shelters and or their local hospital’s “coronavirus supplies fund”?

I am sure each of you reading this can think of other small and large ideas of ways we can all help each other and share the burdens of this epidemic. Resolve to put into play those within your power to do so.

I know some of my suggestions would require much communication between individuals, businesses and government. One hundred years ago this might have been

impossible, but with today’s technology I believe it would be relatively easy.

We need to recognize that this epidemic is going to cause hardships and temporarily if not permanently change the way we do some things in America. It is time for the American people to learn share not only thoughts and prayers but also resources and hardships but most importantly to share a resolve to get thru hard times by working together and to share hope.

Kaysea Crowe Franklin

The days just drone by, listlessly I am thinking of a scene in the movie “Fargo” that captures exactly how I am feeling a couple of weeks into quarantine. The bad guy needs to bury a suitcase full of money somewhere on a long stretch of highway, so he pulls the car over, grabs the suitcase, and walks over to a barbedwire fence that runs along the road as far as the eye can see.

There’s at least a foot of snow on the ground. The bad guy digs a hole, drops the suitcase in it, and then packs it back with dirt and more snow. He looks to his right, fence and snow. Then he looks to his left and sees an identical picture — fence and snow. All that seems to exist in the entire world is the highway, the fence, and the snow.

So, the awful question becomes clear: how will he ever find it again, his suitcase full of money? Finally, he sticks the ice scraper he used to dig the hole in the first place in the ground. Out here in the vast, bewildering sameness, one eight-inch ice scraper is all there is to find one’s way.

And so it is with these days, one after the next after the next after the next, all the very same, at home, nowhere to be, nowhere much to go, no way to see the end of it, and no way to go back. Is it Tuesday, or is it Sunday? Who knows? All of the days look and feel exactly the same.

Back in our old lives, the days had their own personalities, each one as distinct as people we know and love. Monday, that dude is a drag, so slow, so negative, almost toxic, the kind of guy you avoid at parties. Wednesday, solid, but a little boring, never misses a day of work, always brings a covered dish when a neighbor is ill. Friday, fun to be around, eager as a colt, but maybe a little loud, a little much, if you know what I mean, the kind of person whose expectations are usually too high, but you find yourself going along with it, because, you know, it’s Friday, so you make allowances. We know our days like we know our friends — which ones are our favorites, which ones we tolerate, which ones we trust. But not anymore. The days have been robbed of their personalities, their functions. They are no longer useful markers of anything. They are now undifferentiated blocks of time, as generic, bland, and implacable as a shelf of store-brand beans, each can a replica of the one next to it.

Of course, this can be liberating in a way. Once you get over being freaked out by this sense of perpetual floating and face the Columnist Chris Cox

existential crisis of what to do about it, you must bear the burden of responsibility to make your life meaningful after bingewatching “The Office” or “West Wing” for the seventh time and eating nothing but barbecue potato chips, ham sandwiches, and three-layer cake for three consecutive days.

All but the craziest among us have already learned to limit time on the Internet. Every single day, the President of the United States says something that is utterly insane, at least one thing, and 45 percent of the population nods with approval. On Feb. 26, he said there were about 15 cases of the Coronavirus and all of them were getting better and that people should treat the virus like they would treat the flu. He downplayed the serious of COVID-19 for weeks.

A week ago, just as the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. was beginning to accelerate, he said he wanted the country back open for business by Easter. Now, he says that if 100,000 Americans die from the Coronavirus, it would be a clear sign of what a great job we’ve done to contain the virus. Mainly, he is very, very pleased with the ratings of his press conferences, which he took to Twitter to express with his characteristic coherence and maturity:

“Because the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY.”

Elsewhere, Americans are divided on whether too much is being made of the Coronavirus, or not enough. Should we get back to work and rev up the economy, or should we stay at home until we’ve eaten everything in the house but the wallpaper? Is this the scariest public health crisis of our time, or an exaggerated Democrat-driven charade to bring down the greatest president of all time and destroy the economy at the same time? Should we believe the leading medical experts in the field, or some self-styled pastor/blogger/conspiracy theorist from Rabbit Whiskers, Idaho, who is suddenly trending on right wing media sites?

As we ponder these important questions, we’re also trying to figure out what to wear for our Zoom meetings, how to keep our kids motivated to do their schoolwork with no teacher within 40 miles of them, how to incorporate exercise into our incredibly busy, binge-watching, Facebook obsessing non-days, and what home improvement project we can tackle without having to venture out to Lowes, when any venture at all off of our own property feels like a scene out of Mad Max.

We’re going to have a while to figure all of this out, unless Pastor Rabbit Whiskers gets his way. In my house, we’ll be sticking with science for a while longer, I reckon, and staying at home. And staying at home some more. And defrosting things that have been in the bottom of the freezer for a long, long time.

(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher. jchriscox@live.com)

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written by Ingles Dietitian Leah McGrath Ingles Nutrition Notes One Dish, Multiple Meals #QuarantineKitchen Many of us are looking for easy to prepare dishes with multiple uses, and chili is definitely one of them. Whether you make chili at home or you buy a canned version, and whether you make chili with ground beef/pork/chicken or meat-free; there are lots of things you can do with chili beyond just having it in a bowl with cornbread.

• Top a baked or microwaved potato or sweet potato with chili • Use chili in quesadillas, enchiladas or tacos • Top your macaroni and cheese with chili for “Chili Mac” • Make nachos and top your baked chips with scoops of chili, sour cream, chopped tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and salsa. • Oven baked chili “fries” using potatoes or sweet potatoes. Cut white or sweet potatoes into thin wedges and roast in 450 degree oven on a baking sheet until crispy. Top with chili, cilantro, jalapenos and sour cream.

DO yOu have MOre creative ways tO use chili? let Me KnOw!

Leah McGrath, RDN, LDN Ingles Market Corporate Dietitian @InglesDietitian Leah McGrath - Dietitian 800.334.4936 Ingles Markets… caring about your health April 1-7, 2020