For Safety’s Sake, Traffic Camera Will Prevail
Dear Bay Weekly:
In your July 18 issue [Vol. X, No. 29] Calvert County Commissioner Parran boasts that he won by defeating traffic light cameras.
Seat belts, airbags, children seats, divided highways, highway overpasses and underpasses, clover-leaf and slip-on access ramps, motorcyclists’ helmets, dump-truck covers and even traffic lights are part of a long list of well established safety devices that have saved countless lives. All were fought by people like Mr. Parran. People with concern for their fellow man got them but adopted.
Parran won one small battle. It’s the war that he’ll lose. Time isn’t on the side of those who fight against highway safety.
— Robert E. Wolf, St. Leonard
In Praise of Chesapeake Country’s Trees
Dear Bay Weekly:
I’m a lifelong Californian. Though I’ve traveled quite a bit, I got the biggest surprise of a world of travel adventures visiting friends in Chesapeake Beach.
When my friends and their children moved here from California, they bought a house in Chesapeake Country. They told me how green and woodsy it was. It sounded pretty, and I thought I knew what green was from childhood summers in Minnesota and a visit to the Blue Ridge in the first week of spring. But what I found in this quiet little pocket of Maryland along Chesapeake Bay was beyond any description.
Arriving after dark, I had a hint of what was to come from the intense dark of night. There were no city lights, just a stretch of two-lane highway in the car headlights.
The next morning, I was more than amazed. There were trees everywhere, big, full tall trees. Beautiful, lush green trees reaching into the sky. More than I’d ever seen in a neighborhood where people lived. I’ve been to Yosemite and seen giant sequoias, but this was different. People live here in this amazing woods. Coming from a city where the river is encased in concrete and where I go miles down streets with no trees at all, this was heaven for my urban eyes.
Along country roads, I saw more trees and wooded areas and a few farms. I took photo after photo so my eyes would remember this incredible beauty when I had to go back home.
I wonder if all the local residents know what a precious and beautiful gift they have in these trees, this earth and the Bay nearby. I hope so. And I hope they make the choice to preserve and protect it.
— Maryrose Hopke, Culver City, CA
Editor’s Note: Hopke works for TreePeople, a non-profit organization that plants trees and educates children about the environment.
Wye Oak Owner Seeks Historical Society
Dear Bay Weekly:
Where is the Calvert County Historical Society? We have a Wye oak and I would like to register it, as I read about in your Letters to the Editor [Vol. X, No. 26, June 27] but there was no address other than Linden.
Help, please.
— Marian Lewis, Olney
P.S. We have a boat at Herrington Harbour where we always look for an issue of Bay Weekly. It’s a good read.
Editor’s Note: write to the Calvert County Historical Society, Box 358; 30 Duke St., Prince Frederick 20678.
We welcome your letters and opinions. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to us at [email protected].
