A brief comment regarding the reaction to the recent comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.:
My wife and I were traveling with a group in Indonesia at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The news we received was skimpy, but we all knew something immensely terrible had happened.
That evening, our group discussed the implications of the day’s events. A prevailing sentiment was the concern that Muslim Americans would be stigmatized and discriminated against, much in the way Japanese Americans, many multigenerational, were in World War II. (My sister, who is half Japanese, remembers vividly the taunts directed at her on the school bus in rural Pennsylvania.)
Omar was not focusing on the horrors of 9/11, which she clearly acknowledges, but rather the stigmatization of Muslim Americans that followed and which President Donald Trump has seized upon as another divisive tool, among many.
She was also re-emphasizing what it was about America that inspired her family to come here and become citizens.
A heartening part of that Indonesian trip was how the Indonesian citizens, who are predominantly Muslim, were concerned about and sympathetic toward us. There is still hope.
STEPHEN JORDAN
Sunapee
After reading Jim Kenyon’s column about the closing of the Orient restaurant (“Digging into the demise of Hanover’s only Chinese restaurant,” April 14), it seems like the only responsible reaction from the community would be to boycott all of the Rubenses’ properties.
Perhaps then they will learn to be kinder and less avaricious landlords.
BRIAN CUMMINGS
Bar Harbor, Maine
(formerly of Lebanon)
A few months after the Battle of Gettysburg, on the battlefield in Pennsylvania where some 50,000 Americans were killed or wounded fighting one another on July 1-3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave the most memorable speech by a president.
It lasted just a few minutes. Lincoln had less than two years of formal education.
Today, politicians hire speechwriters with extensive, expensive college degrees.
The politicians read these long, long discourses that no one remembers.
In 50 years, I’ve not heard one of our leaders make a statement that comes close to matching Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
ROGER SMALL
Claremont
I’d like to share my package-delivery adventure from a recent Saturday.
I was expecting a package on Friday with basket-weaving material for a class I was scheduled to teach on Saturday afternoon.
When it didn’t arrive, I checked the tracking. It said the package was in Lebanon at 8:05 a.m. on Saturday.
I assumed that meant it was at the post office, so I raced there as soon as it opened at 8:30.
An employee there, Steve (with the patience of a saint), took my information and told me he would let me know when the package came in. By 10:30 I had not gotten a call, so I went back.
Steve was still there and, after looking into the tracking information himself, determined that the package was not at the post office but actually out being delivered — a problem because I usually don’t get packages delivered to my home until later in the day. Now what could I do? Well, Steve told me to come back at 12:30 as the carrier making deliveries that day would be at the post office for lunch. Well … I needed to be in Fairlee at 1, so how would this work?
I didn’t want to arrive at class without my materials, but I didn’t want to be late, either. We were making Easter baskets, so this was a very time-sensitive class that couldn’t be rescheduled. I decided it was better to show up with the materials and be able to do the class.
I got to the post office parking lot a little earlier than 12:30 and talked with another carrier. He said he would find the carrier who had my package.
In a short time, along came another driver with my package!
I arrived only 10 minutes late to my class, with all my materials, and the day was awesome.
In summary, at least five Lebanon post office employees made this happen. Thanks to all who took the time to help me.
I appreciate all of you and will be by soon with lunch. You all rock!
ROSE SMITH
Lebanon