Letters to the Editor

Thanks for help with Jackson Christmas parade

Dear Editor,

The Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce's Christmas Parade was a great success. As we were preparing for the parade line-up I could feel the "Christmas Spirit" in the air. The children were waiting anxiously to see Santa and the adults were just as excited.

As the parade progressed, I began to reflect on all of the special events and workshops the Chamber hosted this year. Most people don't realize the long hours and dedication it takes to get prepared for such events. Without the support of our citizens and business community, none of it would have been successful.

I realized just how blessed I am to be a part of such a wonderful community. A place where people matter and a community where people grow together. Jackson is a community that cares and that is what makes us so unique.

The Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce would like to encourage you to "Shop Jackson" this holiday season. Our local economy depends on it.

Thanks to the following for their contributions to the success of our parade:
Kim Bailey
Brian Raybon
Police Department
City of Jackson
Santa Claus
Parade Participants
Downtown Merchants
Pine City Ambassadors, sponsors
and parents
Chamber Board of Directors

Thanks for community support

Dear Editor

We would like to thank the mayor, Councilman Robert Marks, city council members, businesses and all our supporters in Jackson.

We the executive board, coaches, players and parents gratefully thank each and every one of you for your donations and support in helping us to go to the Turkey Bowl in Baldwin County. Even though our kids didn't win, the experience was one that they will never forget.

Jackson Pee Wee Football

Association

Should parades have parental rating?

Dear Editor,

In reference to the Christmas Parade in Jackson on Friday, Dec. 7, 2007.

We take our children to watch a Christmas parade to see the floats and to awe at the beautiful decorations. This parade had some "R rated" scenes that we had to turn our heads from seeing. It's sad in our society when girls walk down the street, choreographed by adults with

So many times as Christians we turn a blind eye to things that we're exposed to daily that our God would not think favorable to. Television and movies have a parental rating. Do we need to put a parental rating on our town parades?

Lisa Taylor

Jackson

I wish you could know…

Dear Editor,

I wish you could walk just one day in our shoes and understand what we do and why we do it. I wish you could comprehend a wife's horror at 3 a.m. as I check her husband of 40 years for a pulse and find none. As I start CPR anyway, hoping against hope to bring him back, knowing intuitively it is too late but wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done.

I wish you could be in the emergency room as a doctor pronounces dead the beautiful 5-year-old girl I have been trying to save for the past 25 minutes, who will never go on her first date or say "I love you, Mommy" again.

I wish you could understand the frustration I feel as I sit in the front of the ambulance responding to a call, the driver with his foot to the pedal, sirens going as you fail to yield the right of way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us however, your first comment upon arrival will be, "It took you forever to get here!"

I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a family from their mangled automobile and what if this were my family or yours? I wish you could understand how we feel as you watch us work on your family. I wish you could understand what it feels like to have a little boy tugging at your arm asking, "Is my Mommy okay?" And, not being able to look in his eyes without tears forming in your own eyes and not knowing what to say, having to hold back a friend whose buddy is having rescue breathing done on him as they take him away in an ambulance, knowing in the end his chances are not that good. These are sensations that I have become too familiar with.

I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my parents and family, not having the heart to tell them how close that last call really was or to understand how it feels to go to school or work having spent most of the night running run after run.

I wish you could feel my hurt as people verbally, and sometimes physically, abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their attitudes of, "It will never happen to me!" I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or missed meals, lost sleep and forgone social activities and missed holidays, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have viewed.

I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping save a life or being there in times of crisis, or creating order from total chaos. Unless you have lived this kind of life, you will never truly understand or appreciate who I am, what we are or what our job really means to us. I wish you could!

Jacqueline Long,

EMT Basic McIntosh Rescue Squad

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