Nothin ever gets done!
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
I was in the midst of working very hard at the former barbershop building in downtown Ramona with paint from ear to here when someone stuck their head in the door and said, "What are you doin' about the dogs running loose in town?"
Now I must admit that while we'd been hunting for errant dogs earlier in the day and I'd talked to owners the previous night, at the moment there wasn't a dog in sight and I wasn't even thinking about dogs. I was painting! We were getting ready for the opening of the Barbershop Gallery in Ramona.
Before I could get my brush out of the paint bucket, my visitor fumed on, "Nothin' ever gets done around here!"
Whoa! Nothing ever gets done? I stopped doing what I was doing (which was definitely something) to attempt attending to this complaint (about nothin').
"Would you like to help catch the dog that's loose and return it to its owners?" I asked.
They didn't!
It took me awhile to get that "nothin' ever gets done," comment out of my system. I just decided to switch my focus and look instead at what had been accomplished in the past year — it's one of those old therapeutic tricks I learned in grad school.
We all know that forward progress in a community takes an immense amount of work, patience, far-sightedness, determination, and the wisdom of Solomon. When a problem looms — especially those with four legs, a tail, and cold nose — citizens get weak in the knees. They hope against hope that someone else will take care of things.
At the end of 2005, I sit back and think about what's been accomplished in Ramona this past year. While there may be a dog loose every now and then and while we are all challenged by high taxes, we've discovered that we always can do something about any issue — all it takes is willingness.
Meanwhile, we sure have been busy in Ramona! Without being reminded, city officials keep the bills paid, the budget honed, and the streets cleared of snow. And, for three years in a row the mill levy has not been raised. We just tightened our belts and volunteer a little more often.
Energetic folks in town (especially Ramona's city officers) have planned parades, introduced ragtime in the park, built haunted houses, and organized scarecrow events, church anniversaries, hunter breakfasts, fund-raisers, and Christmas lighting wonders. We actually got an award in Ramona from Representative Moran and this citation was read into the Congressional Record. Santa Claus was in town at least twice this month! Now, that's really somethin'.
Here's my advice for the new year — if you are ever tempted to think nothin' is being done, in your family, your church, your community, your state, then YOU VOLUNTEER TO HELP! Hands on is the best way to discover what's being done on another day in the country.
