Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Crestwood named the best place to raise a family! (click here for the story.)

Now were talking! This is a real honor that we can all share in. I think that if the economy ever comes back they way it should, Crestwood will be attracting Lot's of developers which is exactly what we want!

Remember, "retail follows roof top's" and in this case, well who wouldn't want to live in the "BEST PLACE TO RAISE KIDS IN MISSOURI?" Well done fellow Crestwoodians, we have arrived!

Tom Ford

NO. 964

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The "sales tax pool," How should taxes be split? (Please click here for the article in the St. Louis Beacon.)

As many of us are painfully aware taxes in the county and city are on the way up. What many do not seem to realize (or have never been apprised of) is that Crestwood is a "point of purchase" city. You see years ago some "do good" Mayors in the county met with the then county executive and caved into his demands that cities with large retail sales give to cities that do not "share" the same revenue.

Needless to say Crestwood was then enjoying the Plaza "where the big stores are," and our forward thinking Mayor and Board decided to "share the wealth" so to speak. That's how we ended up giving over $940,000.00 of OUR tax money yearly to places like Jennings and Wildwood! Yes Wildwood where you can't build a dog house for less than $100,000.00 by the looks of the homes out there.

Well times have changed for the worst here in Crestwood but we still send the poor downtrodden neighbors OUR tax revenue anyway. Mayor Dennis Hancock of Fenton has fought to change this but no one seems to be willing to back him, or even bring it up in polite company, so on it goes. Now is the time to revisit this, and get OUR tax monies back into Crestwood where they should have stayed all along.

Now for a pool of a different sort, namely the Crestwood aquatic center. In a rather stunning decision by the Board last Tuesday night we see that the non resident pool fees have been raised. Good? Well no it's a really bad idea as the non resident pool pass sales have out paced the resident ones for the past couple of years. Now we have placed ourselves in the unenviable position of having the highest non resident pool pass cost in the area!

Alderman Duchild tried in vain to point out the fallacy of this but the "tax and spend" crowd went with the idea anyway. So what you say? Well we now "enjoy" the highest cost for less than anyone else in the area, so how do we attract the non resident sales under those conditions?

Now I am not a Wharton Business School graduate by any stretch of anyone's imagination but if they are making really lame decisions on things like a pool pass, how can we ever trust them to complete a viable budget? This isn't exactly rocket science, if we need more money, attract it, don't run the customers away right? And while your at it get the "executive" salaries under control and STOP SPENDING for things we really do not need!


Tom Ford

NO. 963


Saturday, November 26, 2011

A dog named hero, rescued by a fallen soldier in Iraq. (Please click here for the story.)

All of us will get the chance to see this on 20-20 this Sunday night but I thought I would bring it to you now so you remember to watch it.

Amazing? Or just the Lord working in mysterious ways? I have my opinion, but I would like yours please.

Tom Ford

NO. 962

The "new work place," or why were now ALL expendable. (Please click here for the story.)

Well for once being a tried and true member of the "senior citizen" group is not the worst thing in the world. The article states were now moving into a society where people who do not possess the skills needed by the employer are "expendable!"

Every day we see this in play, for instance you now buy concrete, roofing materials, and lumber with or without a salesman to help you. The "with" part is of course more expensive but you have the security of knowing your order will be just what you need or it's their fault, no salesman, you own the problem.

In my line of work the major suppliers of HVAC equipment are now in the big box stores with a kiosk that allows the home owner to do their own load calculations and equipment selection thus eliminating the need for a trained sales rep to do it "right."

progress now days means that you have the ability to do every job in the company, and do it very well or it's likely that your "progression" will be out the door. I pray that the people now in school fully understand this as I really doubt it will ever return to the "good old days."

As for me, well "what me worry?" Nope, I am now in the 70 year old bracket which means it's "over the side" any time now, I just have to make up my mind as to when.

( with thanks to a reader who forwarded this article to me.)


Tom Ford

NO. 961

Friday, November 25, 2011

Crestwood "hidden" war Memorial on Fox Two News, (please click here for the video and story.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have been featured on Fox Two news 9:00 PM broadcast Wednesday night. Several of our war memorial volunteers and Police Chief Mike Paillou discussed the plans for the improved version that we hope will be forthcoming soon.

This is a great project that was started by Ms. Jackie Stock and the Chief when they noticed that the memorial (in front of City Hall) was not viewable from the driveway or sidewalk any longer due to bushes.

A Gold Star Mother, Ms. Mae Chasteen had placed flowers on the memorial (her son was killed in Viet Nam) and that was the catalyst for the project.Ms. Chasteen served as an honored guest on the podium for the first Veterans day remembrance. Other honored guests included Judge Charlie Berry (featured speaker) and members of the first committee.

Since that first remembrance an AD HOC committee has been formed to raise funds to improve the memorial setting and add bronze plaques to the wall behind the granite stone (see plans at City Hall.). I assisted John Morrisett last Saturday at Crestwood Courts during the art festival in collecting donations for the work we hope will be able to start soon.

Crestwood needs ALL of us to donate our time, efforts, and money for this extremely worthwhile project, so please contact City Hall with your donations (pledge cards are also available) so our town can have a proper memorial to those who gave all so we could enjoy the freedom they fought and died for.


Tom Ford

NO. 960



Thursday, November 24, 2011

A Thanksgiving history lesson for all. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

With thanks to a good friend D. Aird for sending it to me.

Over the River &

Through the Woods




It’s the only popular song written about Thanksgiving.

Its history is just as unique...

Over the River and Through
the Woods

by Thomas Fleming
New York, New York

Think of a Thanksgiving song. A few hymns come to mind: “We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessings,” or “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.” By far the most popular tune is “Over the River and Through the Wood.” Hum a few bars and you’re on a sleigh hurtling over white and drifted snow. Visit Medford, Massachusetts, and you can see the very bridge that goes over that river. But can you name the author of those enduring lyrics? Few can, and yet she was one of the most remarkable American women of the nineteenth century.

Lydia Maria Child was born in Medford in 1802. Maria, as she preferred to be called, was the youngest of seven children of a baker. It is said that her mother set out a groaning board of pies and puddings on Thanksgiving Eve and invited the poor. Certainly that feast served as an inspiration for Maria’s later verses. It also must have inspired her lifelong passion for the less fortunate.

Her first book, written at age 22, was a historical novel—the first published in the United States—the story of a Native American brave and a colonial New England girl. Maria’s fame spread. She went on to write a second novel and start the country’s first magazine for children, Juvenile Miscellany.

Her interests took a more serious turn after her marriage in 1828 to David Lee Child, an idealistic Boston lawyer. On the Fourth of July in 1829 David attended a speech by William Lloyd Garrison denouncing slavery and demanding its immediate abolition. Moved, David became one of the first members of Garrison’s New England Anti–Slavery Society.

Maria disapproved of slavery, but the demand for immediate abolition struck her as radical. She changed her mind after meeting the charismatic Garrison. “He got hold of the strings of my conscience,” she explained to a friend.

Maria’s next book was a full-length attack on the evils of slavery. Bostonians were outraged because she pointed out that some of the city’s largest fortunes had been built on the slave trade. Maria found herself shunned by old friends, sales of her books slumped and her children’s magazine was forced to close down. One member of the venerable literary association the Boston Athenaeum hurled her antislavery book out the window, using a pair of tongs to avoid touching it.

“I am aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken,” Maria wrote, “but though I expect ridicule and censure, it is not in my nature to fear them.”

She wrote a second book on the subject, then joined her husband in a project aimed at reducing the profits of slaveholders. David bought a farm in Northampton, Massachusetts, and began raising sugar beets. The sugar would be sold as a substitute for the cane sugar produced by slave labor in the South.

The experiment was beset with problems. The Childs spent the next three years living on the edge of poverty. Maria took a job in New York as editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. She supplemented her salary by writing short stories and magazine articles. It was during this period in the mid 1840s that she wrote “The New–England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day.”

Living in New York, far from her husband, she must have found it comforting to imagine the dapple gray leading the sleigh over that familiar bridge and through the woods to a feast like her mother’s. Through the magic of her pen, Maria could reminisce about the holiday as it was celebrated in her native New England. The lyrics were set to music and her words were then sung by children all over the country who had never even heard of pumpkin pie, heretofore a strictly regional delicacy.

The abolitionist movement grew. When Maria learned of John Brown’s misbegotten attempt at a slave uprising in 1859, she wrote to the governor of Virginia asking to be allowed to visit Brown in prison to dress his wounds. The governor made the request public, and she was deluged with angry letters.

One letter, from the wife of a Virginia senator, defended slavery as a benevolent institution. Southern women, she noted, were kind to slaves when they gave birth. Maria responded with an acerbic letter in which she pointed out that northern women were also kind to women in childbirth, but “after we have helped the mothers, we do not sell the babies.”

The correspondence was published as a pamphlet and sold 300,000 copies. With the advent of the Civil War, Maria helped an ex-slave, Harriet Jacobs, publish her memoirs and later edited an anthology of prominent African-American writers. All the while, her Thanksgiving song was still being sung. In fact, the very idea of a national day of thanksgiving was becoming more popular.

At the end of 1863, a year of bitter losses for both North and South at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chancellorsville, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for a national holiday “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” A time for families to make that trek over a battle-scarred land to give thanks to God.

Maria died in 1880 knowing that her battles had not been in vain. Today, little of her antislavery writing is remembered, but we still sing her lyrics, even if our sleighs are now cars and airplanes. And at the end of the journey we bow our heads in prayer to the source of our bounty and the freedoms for which Maria fought. Or, as she wrote, “Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!”

The above article originally appeared in the November 2003 issue of Guideposts Magazine.

About Lydia Maria Child

Lydia Maria Child - A Boy's Thanksgiving Day

Over the River and Through the Wood - Lydia Maria Child



Over the River and

Through the Woods

Written By: Lydia Maria Child

Music By: Unknown

Over the river and through the woods
To Grandmother's house we go
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh

Through white and drifted snow

Over the river and through the woods
Oh how the wind does blow
It stings the toes and bites the nose
As over the ground we go

Over the river and through the woods
To have a full day of play
Oh, hear the bells ringing ting a ling ling
For it is Christmas Day

Over the river and through the woods
Trot fast my dapple gray
Spring o'er the ground just like a hound
For this is Christmas Day

Over the river and through the woods
And straight through the barn yard gate
It seems that we go so dreadfully slow
It is so hard to wait

Over the river and through the woods
Now Grandma's cap I spy
Hurrah for fun the pudding's done
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!






Friday, November 18, 2011

City Administrator Eastman calls for raises for the City employees.

In this case I agree whole heatedly with that assessment. It has been two or three years since our valued employees had a raise or a bonus at the end of the year, and it would be the right thing to do to give them one this year.

This year we have seen a meager increase in residential and commercial taxes, and if we manage our funds correctly, and cut back where we can I believe it's doable. Now where can we lay our hands on at least $20,000.00 plus to get the ball rolling?

Well one very reasonable place to cut would be the salary of the Public Works Director. You see Mr. Eckrich is receiving a salary of over $93,000.00 per year plus benefits, and he has a "take home car."

Mr. Eckrich himself (when he was the C/A) told the past director in a memo that the job was only worth $67,000.00 per year (no mention of a "take home car" was made either,) and that we could find very qualified persons to take the job at that salary.

I agree, we no longer approve plans in house so we do not need an engineer for the position, and we certainly can find a host of qualified persons to take that job Monday morning.

To that end I am recommending that we take Mr. Eckrich at his word and pick up $26,000.00 (not to mention gas, maintenance, and insurance costs on the "take home car,) thus giving us a leg up on the much needed salary increases for our employees.

Your thoughts please?

Tom Ford

NO. 959

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Up date on the now famous "bridge to nowhere," or why do we need this if WE cant use it?



Take a look at OUR $750,000.00 in action folks. here we have a bridge that spans a ribbon of water you can darn near jump across that was deemed necessary by the BOA after an Alderman ran up and down the Dias waving paperwork and demanding we save the City from a "canopy fire!"

Now as most of you know our fire chief stated that they have not the resources to put out a canopy fire, but that didn't sway the Alderman one iota! You see someone at City Hall wrote a grant request for a bridge, and by the Almighty we were to have a bridge "come hell or high water" (neither of which as ever happened in Crestwood.)

At any rate this is all "water under the bridge" or soon will be if the debacle is ever finished. Oh, by the way, you and I cannot use that bridge to drive over as it is for the sole purpose of transporting City vehicles to ?

Well were broke, but wow, look at that bridge, and just wait till the $5,000.00 worth of signage is added. This should be a monument to ridiculous spending, and Government waste for some time to come!

Tom Ford

NO. 958

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Crestwood Veterans day celebration will be on November 9, 2011 at 2:00 PM at City Hall.



Please join us in a ceremony to remember and honor the men and women from Crestwood who sacrificed so much to insure that Americans could enjoy the freedom they now have.

This Veterans day we are embroiled in yet another shooting war in the Middle east, and once again our volunteer force is doing whatever is needed to insure that Liberty remains.

I have limited experience with Military combat action, and that was during my two tours with the Navy off Viet Nam, but I like so many of us lost good friends there and to that end I would like to post some statistics from the Viet Nam Veterans Wall in Washington, D. C. to honor them.

May God keep my departed brothers and sisters close to him and give them the please they deserve.




Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall






"Carved on these walls is the story of America , of a continuing quest to preserve both Democracy and decency, and to protect a national treasure that we call the American dream." ~ President George Bush




SOMETHING to think about - Most of the surviving Parents are now Deceased.




There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010..




The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.




Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E - May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W - continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date in 1975. Thus the war's beginning and end meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle's open side and contained within the earth itself.




The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth , Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.




· There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.




· 39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.




· The largest age group, 8,283 were just 19 years old 33,103 were 18 years old.




· 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.




· 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.




· One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.




· 997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .




· 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam .




· 31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.




· Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.




· 54 soldiers on attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia . I wonder why so many from one school.




· 8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.




· 244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.




· Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.




· West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.




· The Marines of Morenci - They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little


Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.




· The Buddies of Midvale - LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam . In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day.. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.




· The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.




· The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 - 2,415 casualties were incurred.




For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created.. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wife's, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

Freedom isn't free, it must be nurtured and nurished with the blood of those who would maintain it.

Tom Ford

NO. 957

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Obama administration opposes FDR prayer at the WW2 memorial in D.C. (click here for the story please.)

Do any of you have any living relatives that served during WW2? If so bring this up and ask them just how they feel about an administration that would prevent a prayer from being displayed at THEIR MEMORIAL?

Recently the VA attempted to ban ALL prayers at military funerals in Texas! Those of us who are Viet Nam vet's and a lot of other veteran groups raised such a furor that the "order" was rescinded.

We have seen the faces of evil attempt to remove "In God we trust" and "One Nation under God" from the landscape, but to stoop so low as to ban a prayer that the Commander In Chief himself uttered in one of our darkest hours is the last straw! If you agree please write these fools and explain to them "Honor, Duty, Country" as this cannot be allowed to stand!


Tom Ford

NO. 956

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Crestwood art space tenants to be "out of space" soon. (please click here for the story.)

Indeed, the Crestwood Courts renovation soon to take place will displace the artistic community in favor of a theater and a bowling alley? I guess you could say (with apology's to William Shakespeare,) "the Bard giveth, and the Bard taketh away."

Now we have some idea of what were going to see in the near future at the Court's, but what of the rest of the property, the big retail spaces and empty shops? I don't have an answer, but we are supposed to have an "economic development" specialist on staff in Crestwood so maybe she can be of service to the owners in finding Tennant's.

If anyone has an idea as to what or how the management on Crestwood Courts could do to further fill the spaces why not call Nickie at City Hall and make your recommendations.

When we moved here over 40 years ago the rally cry was, "Crestwood plaza, where the big stores are!" What do we say now, "Crestwod Court's, where the bowling alley is?"

Tom Ford

NO. 955

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

The official list of the backers of the "occupy Wall Street" protesters. (please click here for the story, and the proof.)

Well for the first time we can see just who is funding and backing these ill advised, so called protests, and eye opening it truly is!

Well maybe not to those of us who pay attention to the political climate in America today it's not as "eye opening" as we have sensed this all along.

It is however a communist backed movement designed to render the very people who supply the jobs these people are looking for, "last years trash!" One wonders just who will be able (or want) to employ these children of a lesser God when all the furor settles down. I really don't see "protester" on their resume as being a leg up in the competition for any job myself!

Tom Ford

NO. 954
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