Delmar DustPan

Once again I am having computer problems. Posting may be intermittent.

Our former Delmar Delaware Mayor, John McDonnell, will become the new Fruitland city manager. Should be a change for him going from Mayor to City manager but I am sure he will do a great job. Congratulations John.

The man that created Thunderbird and Ripple wine died at 97. Ernest Gallo was leader of one of the world's largest winemaking empires. His wines have created some great times.

There was a nice write up in yesterday's paper about Judy Hearn's art class painting portraits of orphans in Honduras. The 24 students each selected an orphan, painted the person's portrait, and sent the picture and a letter to the person.

Verlina Odeh of Wilmington was sent to prison for three years and five months on Monday. She stole $1.3 Million dollars from Chase Bank over 4 years. The Judge said she would have to pay the money back at $250 a month, which would take her 43 years to pay back the money. Lets see, if she is 42 now and spends 3 years in jail, with a payback time of 43 years, so when she is 89 years old she will make the last payment, if no interest is added to the $1.3 Million. Looked at another way if she does 41 months in jail for $1.3 million, she made $31,707 a month. More than I will ever make. They say they don't know what happened to the money, but there were wire transfers to her husband in Jordan. Maybe due to poor internal controls over the money in Chase Bank, Chase Bank may be financing the next 911.

Delmar, Delaware is well blessed with churches. Some are more humble than others. If the quantity of churches is an indication of morality than Delmar, Delaware is one of the must moral communities on the Eastern Shore. With at least ten churches (Those storefront go and come so quickly I may have missed one) and a population of 1,400, than we have a church for every 140 people.

Opening Day
As you might expect I am not a fan of Stock car racing and NASCAR. In particular I am not a fan of Delaware International Speedway, outside of Delmar, as I listen to the noises and smell the exhaust all through the night in the summer. However I do recognise the momentary impact it has on Delmar. As such I will list this website for those who do not already know about it redbud

I was looking at the Bankruptcies listed in the News Journal today and two of them stood more than the other ones. Filing Chapter 7 was Bruce and Leslae Southard of Rehoboth Beach with $21,470 in Assets and $447,024 in Liabilities. This is a ratio of 20 times as much liabilities as they have assets. The other bankruptcy was Michael and Ruth Ann Gulyas of Georgetown filing chapter 13 with $7,835 in assets and $180,272 in liabilities. This about 23 times their liabilities as their assets. The question is how do you get in that position? I know there are times when hard luck falls on people, they become sick, lose their job etc but a logical person, I would think, would allow for those events and start taking corrective action before it reaches a stage of a ratio of 20 to 1. I blame the government for most of this as they can not control their own spending (God knows we are owned by the Asians in the bond market) and it just sets an example for individuals. Easy credit does as much harm as it does good. My daughter recently graduated from college. She was lucky enough not to have any student loans, but I know a number of her friends who are carrying $40,000 to $60,000 in loans that once they graduate they will be burdened with those loans for a number of years. Just as scary is the way the credit card companies are giving out credit cards. I must receive two or three credit cards a week in the mail. All of us will bear the cost of these defaulted loans by way of higher interest costs and service fees.

Unless indicated otherwise all meetings at Delmar Town Hall
March 6, 2007 Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. Delmar Revitalization Committee
March 7, 2007 Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Parks and Recreation
March 8, 2007 Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Sussex County Planning and Zoning meeting The Arion Development is on the agenda at the Sussex County Council Chambers, Administrative Office Building, in Georgetown.
March 8, 2007 Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Concerned Citizens
March 10, 2007 Saturday at Camelot Hall a Spaghetti Dinner 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. Adults $7, Children 6-12 $3.50, Children under 6 free

Rat Killing Week

No it isn’t a week to hunt your favorite blogger down and kill him, although I am sure a number of people would like too. Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s each town would have a week in which they hunted rats. Rats were much more prevalent then, as they are now, and like trash week in Delmar, a combined civic-minded town effort would be made, usually in March or April, to kill these rodents. Remember, this was a time when residents kept chickens, and various livestock in their backyards. Feed for the animals was available for the rats. There was also a town dump just on the outskirts of town. An article in the Bi State News announcing that Rat week was to be March 21 to March 26, 1938 in Hurlock is shown above. I am sure I have an article about Delmar Rat week but I can’t seem to find it.

In the first couple of months after I was elected to the Delmar Delaware Town Council in 1984, we had a rat breakout in a ditch over by Hearns Flower shop (on the Maryland side of Town). In a joint Council Meeting the Commissioners and Council people were talking about various ways to get rid of the rats. One suggestion was to send the Delmar Police Force over with shotguns and pistols and shoot the rats. Does everyone have images of the glass greenhouse at Hearns Flower Shop being shot all to hell? Another suggestion (seriously) was to find a World War II flamethrower and go in and burn them out. When I heard this suggestion I know I had found a home in Delmar government. As I recall we resolved the problem in a less dramatic fashion and had an exterminator set traps for them. On occasion you can still see a rat running down the gutters in Delmar today but they are rare.

Back in the 1960s when I was dating my wife and I lived in Pocomoke. The dating practice was to go to the Pocomoke Town dump and shoot rats at night. Your date held the flashlight on their shiny little eyes and you shot. If you killed a hundred in one night it didn't put the slightest dent in the rat population. Ah yes! Date life on the Eastern Shore.