Opinion 

Quick! What is the number one cash crop in America? Cotton is the number one crop, but could that change if more states legalize marijuana sales as Colorado has done?

Estimates vary, but NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) touted marijuana as the number four cash crop in a 1998 study: NORML Report on U.S. Domestic Marijuana Production. Other studies place the marijuana cash crop value at fifteenth place, at least that’s according to a team of researchers and public policy experts from Carnegie Mellon University, Pepperdine University, UCLA and the RAND Corp.

This 2006 chart ranked marijuana as the largest cash crop, with an estimated value of 35.8 billion dollars! If you continue to scroll the chart, you’ll find how marijuana compared to other crops by state using production figures from US Department of Agriculture and estimated figures for marijuana, but here’s the breakdown for Virginia:

Virginia:
Hay                 $ 304.8 million
Marijuana     $ 191.8 million
Soybeans       $ 106. 7 million

What does all that mean? Well, 50% of the population think legalizing marijuana is a good idea and 50% don’t. So 50% of American people will use these figures to show the potential for profit and taxable income from marijuana and 50% of Americans won’t care what the value is, they just will not agree it is a good idea to legalize pot.

Thinking about this after seeing a raft of photographers record the moment, left me with a lot of questions. I wonder about driving while impaired. We know the legal limit of blood alcohol and there’s a page full of questions and answers at the DMV web page. Driving while impaired seems to be the outcome, whether it is by drugs or alcohol, but what is the equivalent of a Breathalyzer for marijuana?

There is a device called SensAbues developed in Sweden and it is believed capable of determining if the driver has smoked marijuana, or used cocaine or methamphetamine. The technology is available to ensure drivers are not driving while impaired, and I hope that gets put to use whether pot is legal or not.

There were several recurring themes I encountered while I was researching this topic:

1. We are spending $8.7 billion a year nationally in law-enforcement costs to arrest, prosecute and jail marijuana violations by about 750,000 individuals. Legalization would not only save a ton of money, it would free up a lot of time devoted by law enforcement and courts.

2. Legalization creates jobs for the “good guys” (store owners, clerks, accountants, farmers, et al) while removing income from the “bad guys” (criminals and drug dealers)

3. Taxation at a rate similar to tobacco and alcohol would result in revenue of approximately $8.7 billion according to this study The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition.

When people protest legalization, the arguments generally follow a line of logic that includes: “Marijuana is a gateway drug!”

There really are very few studies that prove that statement to be true.  A Yale Study does state that adolescents who use alcohol, tobacco and marijuana are more likely to use stronger drugs as adults, but considering that over 1.5 million teenagers are smoking pot, I think that train has already left the station. I also think teens using alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana already have an addictive personality and that must be addressed.

So, what do Potomac Local readers think? Is legalization a good idea or not?

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Opinion 

Have you ever said, “Whew! I’m glad this year is over?” I think that phrase has been uttered by most adults at one time or another. After a string of bad luck, medical crisis or financial meltdown, maybe you were relieved when that hateful year ended. Perhaps you lost a friend or a family member or maybe one of your parents died and you consider that whole year as a devastating loss in your own “Book of Life.”

I imagine you have also experienced wonderful years, filled with promotions and great grades, maybe a wedding or the birth of a new baby. That’s when you look forward to another year and hopes of more of the same grand events.

There are probably some years (more likely if you are middle age or past) that are not really memorable at all. Nothing spectacular occurred to fix that year in your mind good or bad enough to designate a year described as “good” or “bad”.

I have had cancer twice, but both times the treatment was excision, so was spared the more horrible treatment methods used to combat the disease.

One thing cancer breeds is the dread the disease will return. We survivors are continually beset by the knowledge we were lucky once or twice, but maybe three times is too many.

When my mammogram came back last month with “inconclusive results,” I was asked to reschedule for another look. That mammogram showed a “shadow” and the lab requested I return yet again for a sonogram.

As I sat in the cubicle, waiting for results, I remembered being in that dressing room before. There are many curtained “closets” for women to change from their street clothes to a gown, then wait for a technician to bring them the news. I recall hearing women sobbing and the out of control sensation that your entire life is suddenly in the hands of some unknown, unseen force.

After an interminable wait, I had the sonogram and the technician was able to see the “shadow”. It is a cyst, not a tumor and my relief was nearly embarrassing. I hugged this woman, whom I’d only just met and thanked her for her effort.

She was nearly in tears, too, as she said, “Last month, I told my husband I was thinking I should retire. I began this position as an x-ray technician and migrated to sonogram when they were first put to use in cancer detection. In November, nearly every procedure I administered showed cancer. I got into this field because I wanted to help, but I seldom have any good news to report.”

 I went back, got dressed and as I stepped out, I was eager to get the heck out of there, but there was a young woman, seated in the “holding pen” quietly weeping. I sat down to ask her and she told me “I’ve had cancer once….”

Please take a few minutes to watch this video. I shared it with a friend who faced his own struggle with cancer, but it applies to all of us.

Last week I wrote a post entitled: Home Values Rebounding, Prince William Needs Housing Solutions. Someone left me a thoughtful comment that included this phrase:

“Those of us in older neighborhoods who were comfortable and safe in our homes for decades and paid mortgage on time had nothing whatsoever to do with the bad mortgage/foreclosure, etc. mess yet our home values have suffered greatly because of the actions of others.”

I am typically ready to share responsibility for our plight with everyone, whether it is government, business or residents. I must say, though, that comment resonated with me, in fact the whole post sounded like the kind of rumble in the back of my head that I hear on a regular basis!

I (and the person who wrote that comment) paid my bills. I made my payments and I went without vacations and I SACRIFICED to pay off all our debts! My husband and I worked long hours and we continue to work for our neighborhood and our community.

It is not my fault there were unscrupulous lenders, nor is it my fault people bought houses they couldn’t afford. It is not my fault that banks won’t keep up their vacant properties and it is not my fault that a large portion of Prince William County residents and a few of our elected officials don’t seem to recognize the plight of people like me and the person who wrote that post.

It is definitely not my fault that sequestration occurred and it certainly isn’t my fault that my husband is still unemployed. Since I’m all riled up now, though, I’m going to blame somebody!

In October, I read a devastating article in the Washington Post about leaving $7 billion worth of equipment behind as we withdraw troops from Afghanistan. (We’re not just leaving it behind, it’s being reduced to scrap!) On Monday, I read another Washington Post article about the Air Force wasting $600 million by retiring a small fleet of planes only six years old and mothballing five more planes that haven’t even been produced yet! Why? The Air Force and the National Guard are having some kind of power skirmish.

Then I read about Senator Coburns’ “Wastebook” where he outlines $30 billion that the government could have saved!

I watched the school board allocate funding for a school that will total in excess of 110 million dollars and require debt service for many years, knowing, the overcrowded classrooms, and low teacher pay will continue.

So let me see if I can explain this in a way that everyone understands. People like me, who have been careful and cautious and thrifty all our lives are now in pretty dire straits. The home that we spent money to purchase, money to remodel and money to preserve is going to contribute very little to our retirement. (Thanks to those low housing values I shared with you last week.)

We didn’t save enough when we were younger because we were busy paying off our bills and our home. We were being responsible.  Now, in the last working years of my husband’s career, when we should be saving nearly every bit of income…there is no income.

So all this waste is making me very testy. I’m having a hard time thinking in terms of sharing the wealth when others are wasting it…and it’s not my fault!

In 2007, my nice, middle class neighborhood had begun to deteriorate in obvious ways. Tall grass was everywhere. Houses stood empty. Vandalism and graffiti began to emerge. Prince William County created the Neighborhood Services Division in response to the issues that were arising. I attended my first Neighborhood Leaders Group in 2008, with the hope that I would explain the problems occurring in my neighborhood and the county would fix them. (The county was way ahead of me!)

Most housing in Prince William County has recovered, but my home, here in Lindendale, while it has recovered some value, (from a high of $411,000.00 in 2009 to a miserable $136,000.00 one year later in 2010, to today’s current assessment of $231,000.00) that assessment has gone from being an acceptable median price to a value nearly $100,000.00 BELOW the current median price!

As I watch the birth of a new Woodbridge and the rising of the Potomac Communities, I’m left to wonder what will happen to my neighborhood in Dale City and others like it. I see homes being built in the 22193 zip code, like these beginning at $437,000, and these, ranging from $519,000.00 to $ 670,000.00, and I am grateful these homes are not tax negative constructions. (These higher priced homes pay for services like school, police and fire from their assessed taxes, ergo “tax positive”, as opposed to homes assessed at lower values are “tax negative”. 

Our home is now 37 years old. In most places, that is not particularly old. This page states the average age of homes in all the surrounding counties. Our home is twice the average age for Prince William, but age is not the problem. I tracked those values on Zillow:

Average Sales Price:

• Manassas (20112)       $427,300.
• Gainesville (20156)    $424,000.
• Dumfries (22025)        $336,000.
• Lake Ridge (22192)     $297,900.
• Woodbridge (22191)  $264,000.
• Dale City (22193)        $258,000.

Dale City, and, in fact, most of Prince William County, was built as a bedroom community — a place to escape the crowded cities. That is who we were. Today, with a population of more than 425,000, we need to acknowledge who we are.

We need to search for solutions for aging housing, aging residents, and aging infrastructure. We can’t just continue to build new, ever more expensive homes to attract proffers and increase property taxes. That is not working, as evidenced by the problems we are encountering with our schools.

We need plans to incentivize homeowners to invest in remodeling with low cost or no cost loans. We need improvements to our communities that engender pride of place. While I am delighted to see plans for the magnificent new libraries in Montclair and Gainesville, I know our Dale City Mini Library is about the same square footage as my home and yet serves a population the size of every other magisterial district. (Yes, I know, the Chinn Library and Woodbridge Library are regional libraries and we in the Neabsco District use those.)

Our Dale City Farmers Market has long been a blessing to our community and provided a unique experience since 1987. Last year Occoquan started a Farmers Market and Tackett’s Mill in Lake Ridge will be boasting their own Farmers Market in the spring. You can visit Farmers Markets in Manassas or Bristow. That’s great for residents of those communities, but what will the competition mean to Dale City? One of our only unique assets is no longer unique.

I am grateful for our amenities like the Prince William Ice Center and Waterworks at Andrew Leitch Park. I’m not discounting the value of the Sharon Baucom Dale City Recreation Center. It’s great we have a public pool at Birchdale, but none of those are bringing up our housing values.

I don’t want to whine with “woe is me” theatrics. I just want some ideas that work; some suggestions that will help and some acknowledgement that residents in older communities deserve solutions to the low housing values.

Opinion

Do you watch television? I bet you think that’s a funny question. Your response was probably something like, “Of course! Doesn’t everyone?” In fact, last year, the cable, satellite and telecoms providers added just 46,000 video customers collectively, according to research firm SNL Kagan. That 46K is a pretty small percentage of 974,000 new households that were created last year.

That’s not to say people aren’t watching anything that is televised, but it does mean that less people are signing up for traditional subscriptions and more are resorting to services like Netflix or Hulu. I don’t watch regular television at all, but I do watch TED on my computer. I also watch the Prince William Board of County Supervisors meetings.

I found last week’s meeting to be particularly interesting, as the discussion on the Bi-County Parkway resulted in several motions after presentations by county staff and fervent citizens. I’ve avoided making a public statement on this topic because up until this week it seemed to me to be a battle between residents and transportation officials and each side has seemed well armed to make their own arguments. I’ve followed the discussions through “Say No to the Bi-County Parkway” on Facebook and read the prodigious amounts of information sent to my inbox.

I read the blogs, but usually as a kind of barometer to gauge the sentiments of those vocal folks and their admirers and detractors. I don’t usually comment, but if I do, you will always see my name. I made an exception to my “almost never comment” policy when my friend, Al Alborn, made this post.

I was moved to respond, because that post resonated with me. I don’t want to keep doing things the same old way to achieve the same old results. Haven’t you ever asked yourself, “Why, if we keep building roads, does it keep taking longer to get to our destination?” On Al’s blog, I mention self-driving cars and drone package delivery. Transportation is changing. Whether you believe it or not, whether you want it or not transportation is changing.

This story from Grist talks about a decline in driving. This story from the Washington Post states Americans are driving 7.6 percent fewer miles per year than they did in 2004. All across the United States, people are actually driving less miles per year and that’s after removing variables like the recession.

We’re building miles and miles of hiking trails, walking paths and bicycle lanes and guess what? People are using them. People who used to have to drive to an office five days a week can now work from the comfort of their home. There is more public transportation available. The price of cars, insurance, repair costs, gas and time lost in traffic are outweighing the private automobile.

We keep adding roads, lanes, lights, signs and striping…what if we’re doing that all for nothing? Many cities are experimenting with no signals. It sounds inconceivable, but it is certainly working in Poynton, England where they have made an effort to revitalize their community.

The way we build homes changes as we use more Earth-friendly products. The super large houses of the last decade make way for smaller more comfortable homes for today. Cars change, people change, ideas change. Everything changes, whether it’s television, computers, telephones, hair color or road building.

Let’s not build a road that changes nothing but just gives us more of the same.

Opinion 

Some of the many tasks performed by civic associations like LOCCA (Lake Ridge Occoquan Coles Civic Association) or MIDCO (Mid County Civic Association of Prince William) include courtesy review of plans, SUPs (Special Use Permit) and rezoning. These civic associations are volunteer groups, usually (but not always) with officers elected by a general membership.

Most of the civic associations have experts in their groups, with specialties like land use and transportation expertise. Many of these groups are also community stewards, protecting the environment and resources on behalf of their communities.

Some associations have been around a long time, like Dale City Civic Association. Some of our areas overlap as in OLR, (Occoquan Lake Ridge Civic Association.) Some of our districts abut and some of our challenges are the same, yet many of those challenges are unique. WPCCA was established in 2008 to address the Woodbridge and Potomac Communities and NAA was formed to address issues in, but not limited to, the Neabsco district.

There is a CDCA (Coles District Civic Association) that has no physical meetings and there is FOCAL (Federation of Civic Associations for Land use) that is composed of members of several of the above listed groups.

One of the unique conditions we review is proffers. Proffers are cash or non-cash contributions from builders and developers. There is oversight administration of proffers as a part of the Prince William County Planning Office that clearly defines what proffers are, what they are used for, and what benefits they provide.

One of the most interesting documents of all time (if you’re interested in land use) is this one, titled,
Monetary Contributions Report. If you really want to read the 33 pages, though, I recommend you download and save the document, then rotate the “view” feature on your PDF viewer to save your neck from permanent tilt!

One would think the proffer process is very cut and dried, since its acceptance in Prince William County in 1976, but often it is left to the civic associations to “negotiate” proffers, fine tuning what is possible with what is necessary to get the best for our communities.

Trying to explain this proffer process to readers in about 500 words is not going to be possible. I’m likely to bore you. (In fact, I think I found myself nodding off in the midst of this!) So, I recommend you start with an easy example of a courtesy review of an SUP and the ensuing proffer.

Visit our Neabsco Action Alliance web page to view the presentation by Frank Stearns on behalf of AT&T to erect a communications facility (a cell tower) in Keytone Park. By viewing the brief slideshow, you can see what is involved in the SUP. We (NAA and LOCCA) are reviewing the construction of the facility and have been advised by Supervisor Jenkins the proffers are two streetlights for Keytone Rd.

Let me know what you think in the comments or send me an email. You are also welcome to join NAA on December 10^th, (7:00 PM in Room 107 A&B, in the Development Services Building, 5 County Complex Court) when we host a courtesy review for a proposed auto sales establishment on Smoketown Rd.

Both these projects are located in the Neabsco District, but we welcome all Prince William County residents to our civic association meetings and we’d like to see many more citizens get involved with their communities.

Opinion

The exhumation of Lynn Family graves at the site of the soon-to-be-built 12th high school has been controversial and heart rending.

All week long, email has been exchanged, with friends, with colleagues, elected officials and reporters. Before I write another sentence, I’d like to thank Jill Palermo, writing for insidenova.com, who has produced a series of articles, beginning on August 23, regarding the gravesite at the proposed 12th high school.

If not for Palermo’s efforts, none of us might have noticed what was happening, the Lynn family may never have learned the whereabouts of their ancestors as Palermo wrote on Nov. 18 , and this loss of a piece of our history may have gone unnoticed. Her continued efforts and research culminating in this article from Nov. 21 captured the attention and helped Dr. Bill Olson, Chairman of the Historical Commission’s Cemetery Committee share his concerns about the site and the exhumation.

Our Potomac Local editor, Uriah Kiser, wrote about the situation on Nov. 18 and again on Nov. 19. WRC-TV reported on Nov. 18 and WUSA-TV posted this video report.

The video from the school board hearing may have answered some questions, but for many of us, the answers were not sufficient. PWCS has posted a lot of information on this page, but I am very much aware this information was not posted prior to the outcry of residents.

I thank Delegates Scott Lingamfelter and Rich Anderson for championing the citizens and the Lynn family. Our representatives of the 31st and 51st Districts and their staff have been extraordinarily helpful and I believe we may see some state regulation to ensure this situation is not repeated.

I am so disappointed, not only in the way this situation has been handled, but in the lack of direct communication from our local elected officials. I do appreciate Chairman Stewart and Supervisor Nohe’s efforts to enact a new policy to ensure no other gravesites are violated without proper notification of the family, but it feels like a case of “Too little, too late.”

There was a time when any one of us concerned citizens could pick up the phone or send an email and get a response directly from our elected officials. That seems to happen less and less, as responses now are often through a spokesman. I understand it is becoming near impossible to interact with every constituent with a problem, since each district now has a population over 65,000 residents.

Our county has grown too large, too fast. There is an enormous push to get this school up out of the ground. Economic Development is scrambling to get jobs here that are more than retail and restaurant.

State and Prince William County transportation officials are hustling to catch up with roads to transport all these new residents.

We continue to build homes at an alarming pace, we’re consuming all the old growth and wetlands with promises to mitigate or relocate…Isn’t that like robbing Peter to pay Paul?

I want to leave you with a thought that plagued me all week:

Tourism is the best idea for Prince William County. Tourism means people come here, spend their money, enjoy their visit and then go home to their own state or county, where their children go to school.

Our primary resource for tourism is our history. How horribly ironic it is that we have obscured this site. Worse still, how many times has this happened before the press, the citizens and the internet became the watchdogs of development and the protectors of our resources?

Opinion

My Grandpa said, “Trust has to be earned.” I believed him because I believed everything he told me. Today, though, I’m not sure that was accurate. I think we all start life trusting. Just picture the joy when you toss your toddler in the air! That child trusts you to catch him/her. If you missed, that child may develop mistrust, but it is not an inherent, natural part of childhood.

TRUST: noun: trust
1. firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.
“relations have to be built on trust”

What happens to change that trust? Does trust begin to erode when children discover there is no Santa, no Easter Bunny, or no Tooth Fairy? Do we stop trusting when Dad says he’s taking your dog to “The Farm”, when what he really meant was he was having your elderly friend euthanized?

Is trust something you lose all at once or is it bitten off a piece at a time when you look at the photo of the food you ordered and are faced with the sad imitation when it arrives on your tray? Does your trust diminish when you open a package that you think should be full and it looks half empty? There’s a caveat on the box that reads, “Contents may settle due to shipping.” Are you satisfied with that explanation?

So, perhaps it becomes our nature to be skeptical about people we should trust or used to trust. Certainly, when we read, “Canada says 386 Kids Rescued in porn bust” and discover among those arrested are teachers and doctors, our trust is tarnished. When we read about pedophiles in the Catholic Church or trusted child care providers abusing children in their care, it is no small wonder we have become jaded.

Add to the mix CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) Photoshop, magicians, and optical illusions.
Is it any wonder when we hear some declaration like President Obama vowing to eliminate homelessness for the current 62,000 veterans sleeping in the streets by 2015, we doubt? (It seems especially doubtful after the healthcare.gov debacle.)

So, when Prince William County Schools contract to exhume 13 graves, without investigation by our top notch experts on the Cemetery Committee of the Prince William Historical Commission, and after posting the most minimal of notice in the Washington Post Classifieds, is it any wonder we feel mistrust?

What could possibly be the big rush to move these remains? Why couldn’t this be delayed until adequate public notice was given? I have been told the state only received two objections to the exhumation. I don’t think that is surprising, since practically no one knew about this in time to take any action to delay the proceedings. Why is there no attempt to alter the plans, fence the cemetery and show respect to the dead as we have done in so many other locations in Prince William County?

There are quite a few of us asking questions now. We’re asking the School Administration, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, our School Board Representatives and we’re asking our elected officials. To date, I have received a response from Prince William County Executive Melissa Peacor stating the county’s School Board is ultimately responsible for school projects.

Peacor’s response was polite, but not satisfying.

School Board members have asked that we just be patient until Prince William schools officials respond and another told me she shares our concerns and will be seeking more information.

Unfortunately, since exhumation began on Veteran’s Day, we may all be too late. 

Opinion 

I heard a rumor today. There’s a possibility of snow next week! All right, I didn’t actually hear a rumor, but I did read several Facebook posts, like this one from WMAL Radio and another from accu-weather.com. After the last few years, it seems early November is too soon for snow, but if we know anything about NoVa, it’s that you never know what’s coming next.

To be prepared now will mean no last minute panic with everyone racing out for their typical “bread, milk toilet paper and snow shovel.” Today is as good a day as any to find your shovel. If you can’t find it, maybe you need to clean out your shed. (This happens to me all the time. I set out on a mission and get side-tracked.

While looking for the snow shovel, I see all the cobwebs that have accumulated in the shed. Next thing you know, I have dragged all the lawn equipment out onto the lawn!)

I couldn’t find my snow shovel. I’m pretty sure it’s because I don’t have one. I had one. I actually had three, but I believe they were worn out and I thought I would replace them at the end of the season.

I don’t think I actually followed through with that plan, though.

I am undeterred because I have a secret weapon! One year, for Christmas, my romantic, thoughtful husband bought me a snow plow! You may scoff. You may think, “What? How about a nice piece of jewelry?” Believe me, the snow plow is the best gift he EVER bought for me!

In our nearly 40 years of marriage, up until the snow plow blessed our home, Bill never shoveled snow. I would always get up before daylight and get the driveway shoveled so he could go to work. Then I shoveled the walks. I shoveled neighbors’ driveways. I shoveled neighbors’ walks. One year I shoveled an entire intersection after the snow plows left banks six-feet high and a single lane open. I worked all day until there were two lanes in every direction.

Most people who have survived winter driving in this area once, stay home the next time. I absolutely am afraid to drive in snow! I’m not afraid I will wreck. I have four wheel drive on a pickup and grew up in Indiana, where we had big snows and lived in Illinois, where we had even bigger snows. What I am afraid of is that someone else will hit me!

To help you brace for the coming season, here’s a video from VDOT to help you track where the plows are. I sincerely hope everyone who can stay home, does stay home when it snows and lets the emergency crews do what they need to do.

I am going to list a couple of my favorite recommendations for snowy weather. Add yours in the comments. Oh, and the reason that snow plow is such a great gift? My husband likes to use it!

Snowfall checklist:
If there is snow forecast, please get your vehicles off the street to let the snow plows do their best work.
When you shovel, please do not throw the snow out into the street! Throw it into your yard. The streets will clear faster with much less icing from freeze/thaw.
Get a weather radio and keep it turned on.
You should already have an emergency kit from tornado season. Be sure batteries are still fresh and add a warm blanket.
Check on older or disabled neighbors and clear a path for them.
What are some of your favorite tips for snowy weather?

Opinion 

Do you remember, when you were a child, how you were always waiting for something? It seemed like nearly every day was spent in anticipation of some glorious event.

We waited for school to begin or we waited for school to end. Birthdays seemed much longer than a year apart, especially those important years, like age 6 to start school (In Indiana, we started school at age six if you were born by December 31.) Pre-school and Kindergarten were virtually unheard of, at least where I grew up, so, six was a major birthday!

Thirteen was awesome because then we were teenagers! Age 16 was magic if you were lucky enough to have a vehicle to drive. Eighteen meant you were old enough to join the service. Twenty-one and you were finally an adult. (I have never forgiven the state of Indiana for lowering the legal drinking age to 18 in the year I turned 21!)

In between those mile-marker years were holidays and holy days. I always felt lucky to be Catholic because we celebrated lots more days than kids in public schools. We had eight Holy Days and nearly all of them fell during the school year. I was intrigued with All Saints Day, not only because occasionally we got a three day weekend, but that there were individual feast days for saints and then they ALL had a birthday celebration on November 1!

All Souls Day remained a little murky for me. Halloween and All Saints Day were filled with fun, candy and a celebration, so the prospect of honoring the souls in Purgatory and praying for their release was sort of a return to the solemnity that I typically associated with my religion.

I waited with gleeful anticipation for many events, like the birth of my children. I waited for my husband to make rank, because it meant a little more money in our military pay.

There are other kinds of waiting, not nearly so pleasant, like waiting in line at the commissary, waiting in the aptly named rooms of countless doctors and dentists through the years. There’s waiting in traffic that consumes our time needlessly and makes us irritable and late.

There’s the awful waiting for a diagnosis to be made. Our nerves become stretched tight, our fists clenched in fear and desperation for news we never want to hear. There’s waiting late at night, pacing the floor, agonizing over those same children you once waited for in gleeful anticipation.

Sometimes I have to stop myself. I have to say aloud, “Stop waiting!” Find something productive to do while you wait. Fill your heart with busy! Crowd your mind with the need to help others and soon, you’ll find you are no longer waiting.

Perhaps the oddest observation of all is as we get older, it seems time passes faster. One day you look around and find you are no longer waiting. Suddenly you wish you could slow everything down! So much of life is behind you and there is, for the first time, less life ahead. That happens to most people around the age of 45…I just noticed it today! 

So what? Halloween is over. Bring on the Thanksgiving Turkey! Get out the Christmas tree! Happy New Year!