A two-ring circus in Georgia

What a circus! The Senatorial Election that takes place in Georgia today is a two-ring act. The Republicans are convinced the world will end if their candidates don’t get reelected. The Democrats see that a win will better enable them to enact their socialist agenda in Washington. Promises that they know won’t be kept. Millions of dollars (from where?) thrown in to help each side. It is a total mess and a great example of why we ordinary Americans are totally frustrated with current politics.

Then there is an underlining fear from us all that the election count will be tainted with the great fraud, alleged by the Republicans, that was so successful for the Democrats in the swing states, including Georgia, in the general election. The mainstream media is of course all in for electing the two Democrat candidates both of which do not appeal to this old hard-core conservative. You dear reader will know the results just as soon as your columnist does. Good luck.

I see where our favorite Sandhills U.S. Senator Deb Fisher voted to overturn President Trump’s veto on the Defense Bill. I could agree with her in thinking that the funds should be available to pay our troops on time, pay ongoing military expenses and those that fund vital research. Still that bill is loaded with a great amount of pork and paying for unnecessary (my opinion) programs for our allies (?) overseas all of which the President objected to. I saw no effort on Sen. Fisher’s part to get those unnecessary things deleted before casting her vote in the affirmative. Hopefully, her replacement after her next election will do better.

I got myself in trouble Monday morning at the County Commissioner’s Board meeting. Hoof and mouth disease. Publisher Shary Skiles has a record of the meeting elsewhere in this edition of the Gazette. Both my folks and my mother-in-law spent their last days in our Hillcrest Nursing Home and they all received wonderful care. Since that time I have been a fan of our County-owned home. Don Harpst was a long-time administrator and he did a swell job. When I was a County Commissioner I was detailed to attend the Hillcrest Board of Trustees meetings as a non-voting observer. It was at that time when the assisted/independent living apartments in the lower level of the building were built and they have been a wonderful asset to the operation. Also, it was when a daycare went into operation which is a real boon for the young mothers who work caring for patients upstairs. In my role as Commissioner, I lent great support for both of those additions.

Then Don Harpst took a well-deserved retirement and we had a series of less than successful administrators which in my opinion ran the place very poorly since that time. I neglected to mention that the recent administrator Brad Cheek and the present administrator James Foster have and are doing a great job. So once again the institution is in good shape. The $800,000 recently granted to Hillcrest by the Cares Act for difficulties stemming from the China virus Pandemic has been a great help in making the operation financially whole currently.

A group of current Hillcrest employees was also in attendance and when I walked out of the meeting they descended on yours truly and straightened me out on how well their wonderful care home is now being run. They are entirely correct in that I should have excepted current operations in my short oration concerning the history of the place. I apologize for having neglected to point out how well it is presently being managed.

The Pandemic and all the current rules in place, no visitors, Covid testing for employees, and on and on has kept me and even more importantly family members from visiting patients. The Board of Trustees are evidently doing a good job of supporting the administration plus employees but I have no way of observing for myself as I have been kept away from the place due to the Pandemic. Enough said!

School vacation has come to a close and our grandchildren are back in school today. It is a mixed blessing as some are eager to attend classes with friends and some are less than excited. Not much different than it was when I was in school. I commented that it has been nice to have good weather during this winter break but the California grands were quick to point out that is how it is every day back home. Point well taken but the California lockdowns and their hybrid way of California kids attending classes seem far away and not important to my teenagers. At the moment it would be a tough place to live even with their wonderful weather.

Frustrations with the political world aside I still think we are blessed to live and enjoy this wonderful community that is Southwest Nebraska.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail