Opinions

New Year’s Resolutions are hard enough to keep when you are by yourself and nobody is going to see if you cheat or not, but this one can be even more difficult when you are in the company of others. Others who have the same bad habit you are trying to conquer. I’m talking about smoking and the things we all go through trying to rationalize our bad habit while, at the same time, trying to escape it.

If you’re like most of us, you’ve already fudged a little on one or more of the resolutions you so bravely made just a few days ago. We all like the feeling of being able to wipe the slate clean and start the new year fresh and guilt-free. But too often those well-meant promises we make to ourselves turn out to be a lot harder to honor than they were to make. I’d like to pass on some thoughts about New Year Resolutions, things that I’ve learned from experience and things that persons much wiser than I have shared with me over the years.

Believed to have been invented by the 17th-century English poet Sir John Suckling, Cribbage remains one of the most popular of all card games. A virtual playground for mental math, the game offers numerous ways to pile up impressive point totals from just five cards. A perfect hand totals 29 points, and that’s just the point count from the cards in one hand of play; there are several opportunities to score additional points during play by taking advantage of the cards played by your opponent, as well as the order in which cards are played.

So wrote poet Robert Graves, but then he went on to say there is no poetry in money, either. Only the most naive, inexperienced poet expects to make his fortune through his published verses. About all that can be hoped for is a little prize money gleaned through contests, or perhaps a small check from Reader’s Digest for a particularly clever snippet of rhyming wit. Other than that, most poetry is published at the poet’s own expense and purchased mainly by the poet’s friends and relatives.

I am a Solon resident, tax payer and voter. I’m asking why the Council is in a hurry to vote on this Gallery Acres West (GAW) project. We don’t even know the exact proposal, let alone the costs. I feel Council is irresponsible towards us. I’m afraid this is about money and development. We have a right to all information– ­legal opinions, cost/benefit studies– that Council has. If this information doesn’t exist, please tell us that, and WHY it doesn’t exist. I understand we paid $7,000 recently for a consultant to look at parking downtown.