You Really CAN’T Get There From Here

By

Mike Scinto

 Columnist

Appearing in Kettering-Oakwood Times-Times Community Newspapers

          I’ve sat in amazement and watched video accounts of climbers pushing forward to the peak of Mt. Everest; losing limbs, suffering frostbite and even losing their lives. I’ve viewed accounts of brave souls who traversed the rain forests, by river and through insect-plagued jungle trails, to get medical supplies to remote tribes around the globe. And as a 16 year old I remember heading back to my hometown of Memphis, to travel with family members on their annual jaunt to Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming. While I loved my traveling partners, and the rodeo was awesome, the trip was somewhat less tolerable. Arkansas, at the peak of summer heat, is almost unbearable. We traveled in a Ford Fairlane with NO air conditioning across Arkansas and Oklahoma. Because of allergies, my Aunt couldn’t have wind blowing on her. While never measured, I’d bet the temperature in the car had to eclipse 120 degrees.

          While all of those journeys were painful and treacherous, none held a candle to the trip I took last week. I had to drive from my home in God’s country, a little bit south to the office of my newspaper to pick up a package. The trip took me through the heart of Kettering, Ohio; no path for the faint of spirit these days!

          This once gorgeous suburb of Dayton has become a maze of orange barrels and hard hats. At least three main thoroughfares are traps of barrels, ropes, machinery and dirt (mud). Since my visits are few and far between now, I planned to also stop at my favorite bakery, a restaurant where a good friend is the manager and a grocery store second to none. Needless to say, after traveling hours and hours to get a few blocks, those additional stops were scrapped. I’m not sure how the businesses even keep their doors open.

           It was all I could do to pick up my package and escape with my sanity! Combine the construction with drivers who quite obviously cut classes on Driver’s Education days and it was a nightmare. These hooligans behind the wheel cutting in and out of lanes, deciding to turn at the last second and sitting through multiple traffic lights to turn left, not realizing they could have proceeded into the intersection then turned when oncoming traffic moved through.

           None of the planners from Kettering asked me but if I were in charge we would take a section of one main roadway and intersection, concentrate crews there, repair it and move to the next section. Instead they strung out crews from Wilmington to Dorothy Lane and on to Woodman. Those are the only ones I SAW. There may be more. And of course they tied up all those intersections too. There is no “alternative route”. In fact there are multiple driveways into my paper and it was a game of bumper cars trying to get in and out.

           I can only imagine what would go through the mind of a business man planning to relocate who’d heard such great things about the area and surveying it in his car with potential investors. Or what about the family relocating to the area and wanting to buy a home in a nice, quiet suburban community?

           It’s too late to “re-plan” it now but maybe next time they’ll realize there are better ways of doing things. By the way the Headline for this column was not my idea but fit perfectly. I hesitate to attribute it to the person who “donated” it to me since they spend a great deal of time in Kettering and might end up with a crew working in front of THEIR work or home for the next year or two as retribution. I sure hope none of the other 48 contiguous states are in need of orange barrels; they’re all in use in Kettering!

The Golden Rule is Alive and Well

By

Mike Scinto

Appearing in Kettering-Oakwood Times-Times Community Newspapers

     All too often good deeds go unnoticed and unappreciated. I intend to make sure that doesn’t happen for a couple who exemplify how we all should live. They’re from Tipp City and their names are Tony and Sue Sutton.

     They will quickly tell you they are Christians, retired and appear to be enjoying life. What did they do that set them apart from other folks and drove me to write about them in this column? They found my wallet and returned it to me with every dollar bill, credit card and piece of paper intact (at least the same shape in which they found them).

     One morning this past week, following a night of only a couple of hours of sleep, I was dozing off in the late morning. The door bell rang, or at least I awoke thinking I heard the door bell. I looked out and a gentleman was standing in the doorway. He asked if I was Mike Scinto. There was no gun drawn, he wasn’t wearing an “Obama or Bust” t-shirt nor was he accompanied by Dog The Bounty Hunter so I responded in the affirmative.

     He then reached his hand toward me and asked if I wanted my wallet. Still wiping sleep from my eyes I wondered when I gave this man, who I had never seen before, my wallet. I took the billfold that looked like it had been run over by a car with some of the cards broken and cracked. It looked that way because it had been run over; apparently all night long, with the contents strewn over a major thoroughfare next to Tony’s (the man at the door) home.

     It was a good test of this (rather costly) wallet that I had to beg my wife to allow me to buy just months earlier. After it was cleaned up it looked as good as new. Every card (but one) was in there, as was a sizable amount of cash. That was unusual for me because I am on the plastic standard now and rarely carry cash.

     It seems Sue, Tony’s better half, was gardening in the early morning and saw the wallet and contents in the road. She and Tony proceeded to search for as much of what was originally in the wallet as they could find. They did a great job!

     After gathering it all together Tony saw our address on the driver’s license and brought it back. I followed him home and Tony, Sue and I tried to reconstruct my travels the night before and I realized I had, in fact, driven down that road a couple of times. I have a bad habit of laying things on the bed cover of my pickup truck and forgetting they are there. I assume that’s what happened the previous night.

     There were a couple of ironies in the event. First, just prior to Tony coming to our front door I had been in a discussion with Dayton residents on Facebook about how different things are in the suburbs. You have to lock and guard your possessions in the city and in our community things are just the opposite. This proved my point. I hate to say it, and I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t wager much that this would happen on a street in the Gem City.

     The second irony was that, as I mentioned, there was one card that the Suttons didn’t find. Sue had told me this event was God-driven and as I approached their home to thank them again, a light colored object caught my eye on the road. It was the missing card. So I had everything back, in working order and my wife wouldn’t have to kill me for being so careless.

     Just as we are bombarded by headlines of shootings, armed robberies and muggings, two wonderful people reminded me that if guided by Faith and conscience, we really can treat others as we would hope to be treated. So Tony and Sue, thanks for being the kind of people who really do answer the question WWJD; What Would Jesus Do?