Dear Santa:
Best
I can remember, my last letter to you was in 1956. Even though we didn’t have a
chimney, you always managed to
land your sleigh and slip into the tiny apartment in the back of my dad’s
funeral home.
One year, you
left an electric vibrating football game and a big bag of plastic army men
under the tree. The next year, I
promised myself to stay awake to see whether you’d roll in a red bike with fat
whitewall tires. I even slept on the top bunk so I could spy on you through the
narrow glass transom above my bedroom door.
My
plan didn’t work, but I did awake before daylight. Yes! You had read my letter. I was too excited to eat my oatmeal, so I
bumped down the steps and set sail on the sidewalks of West Orange Street
toward First Street. I didn’t stop
pedaling until I had made that round-trip four times.
I
will never forget the thrill of discovering what you brought on Christmas
mornings. These days, I don’t wish for
toys. However, I have some requests for
you to consider. These gifts aren’t for
just me. They’re for thousands of
friends who love our hometown as much as I do.
You
see, Santa, we are very concerned.
Actually, a better word is alarmed. Unless a giant waste-management company
changes its mind, our small community is going to be burdened with a very big
environmental threat—a danger that will last forever.
When
I was a boy, my parents shared stories of their childhood Christmases. They were warned that if they weren’t “good
little boys and girls,” Santa would leave them a bag of switches and lumps of
coal in their stockings.
Santa, we don’t
believe Wayne County has been bad enough to be punished with millions of tons
of toxic coal ash in the Broadhurst landfill.
Why should our great-great-grandchildren’s great-great-grandchildren be
“switched” with that poison?
So, Santa, what
we really want this Christmas can’t be crafted by your elves in their North Pole
workshop. Our wish is for the world’s
richest man to use his influence, as the largest shareholder in Republic
Services Inc., to encourage the corporation’s leadership to rethink its risky
plan for our ultrasensitive ecosystem.
Deep down in
Bill Gates’ heart, we don’t believe he can support the harm toxic coal ash can
do to our community. And we certainly don’t
think he needs the money. Please, Santa,
will you share a copy of my letter with him?
And, Santa, we
would be grateful if you would bring the foresight and fortitude to some of our local leaders so that they will not be
intimidated by this multibillion-dollar corporation.
Santa, we
recognize the emotions and complexities wrapped up in this controversy. But in the spirit of the holiday season, I
think both sides of the issue should remain open to searching for an amicable,
“good-neighbor” resolution. Indeed, a
worthy goal would be “peace on earth and goodwill to men” … starting right here
in Wayne County.
Thank you,
Santa, for reading my letter. Staying up
past midnight is even harder now than it was in 1956, but I will leave a glass
of milk and cookies for you.
Merry Christmas,
Dink NeSmith
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
