The Independent-News, Volume 87, Number 27, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 4 July 1963 — Page 4

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— THE INDEPENDENT NEWS — July I. 1963

OLD "23" NEVER DIES IT JUST LOOKS THAT WAY

Another summer is here and in a couple of months will be fleeing again and still th ■ landmark of our area. State Hoad Indiana 23, remains unmarked by any type of improvement This much negle< ted section of highway lias received more promises than th' young las< about to partake in the ceremony of matrimony. Road 23 is one of thi oldest cement highways around to have lasted all this time without the aid oi help. Oh yes, every so often the crews of the state highway department get a bunch of trucks, twice as many men. a couple of flag waveis and tw^ shovels, one man with a little can of tar and away they go filling in the chuckholes that have been engraved in th? coni rete over the v> ars. This is usually done at a time when nothing progie<sive can be* done to a road. and so the weather is against them and certainly not the right time 10l satisfactory road i< pair. After the grana and glorious job ot patching Is done, the chuckholes are gone . . ■ and replaced by little mounds of freshlly laid asphalt fill that is now a chuckhole in reverse. Then comes the poor motorists who travel this antique stretch of highway and after a few day. the rain that is bound to follow unless it is snowfall, the little patches begin to disappear and soon there is that lamiliar chuckhole again. A couple ot years ago a hearing was held in iSouth Bend with David Cohen, the Indiana Highway Chairman newly appointed to the job he now holds. The complaint was one thing, the deplorable condition of Indiana 23. People turned out from Stat Me county, Walkerton, North L berty. individuals representing different county groups and even the retail merchants of South Bend to see if some satisfaction could b? derived from

TAX DIVERSION - A BAD POLICY

Highway taxes for highways. This makes sense, particularly to the nation's 90 million motorists. However, this fact though it makes sense isn't always treated with respect as more and more, states are trying to pull highway tax money from highway use and use it to patch holes in other budget defomiaties. This could happen in Indiana. Our neighbor to the west, Illinois, is going throug i thi. phase right now. -Their legislature is in the process of diverting $32 million in gasoline taxe to underwrite an increase in state aid to local school districts. This isn't a direct "gift" to other tax funds, but a loan. How ver. the Illinois Senate has already approved a year's extension on repayme?? of another sl7 million that had previod. 6l / been borrowed from the gas tax fuh'!. Today, a S3OO million roadbuilding program tor 1963 in Illinois is far behind schet ule. less than one-third completed by mid year. The bo rowing from the fuel tax fund s just a myth as many know it will never be repaid. This isn’t new t< Indiana In

from fl Is IMPURUM DAHS AND hIMI FROM HSHRYtARS * f^vi P. Morton, the American Minister, formally accepted th* Statue of Liberty from Count de l-esseps, in Paris, July 5, 1884. The ftrM all t. Ikie movie, “Lights of New York,” was shown 1* Neu York City, July fl, 1928. Construction I egan on Boulder Dam, July 7, 1930. Women were first impaneled for service on a grand jury in Laramie, Wyoming, July 7, 1870. The Liberty Bell cracked, July 8, 1835. American expedition com» tnanded by Commodore Perry arrived in Japan, July 8, 1853. Organized resistance ended on Saipan, July 9, 1914. Soviet Russia adopted a written Constitution, July 10, 1018. Th* temperature reached 134 degrees in Death Valley, California, July 10, *43. The famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burp pub place, July 1L IMH,

the Indiana Highway Commission. Pictures were taken and displayed of many stretcher of tins road and many individuals got up am’, spoke their piece* along With the county commissioners. Mr Cohen promised a complete field inspection of the road to see what could be done and then the annoumcement of the highway program was made that explained to the group that highway rebuilding work was planned several years in advance and at least another year from that lime would be concentrated on work that the previous administration had planned. Tins sounded stable enough as resurfacing a road is no small and inexpensive job. Am' think of the many promises that had been made to politicians who evidently had more “Friends" and pull than tho-e in this area. From time to time, the Indiana State Highway Commission fires out a long range plan for resurfacing of roads. To start with the segment from Mayflower Road to North Liberty was earmarked for 1963. Then in the long range plan from 1965 to 1967, it was supposed to move from North Liberty south to Waikerton. Meanwhile back in the State Capital, things were changed. The 1 f>63 promise was moved back to 1961 but still the long range plan through 1967 stayed firm. Let's hope that this doesn’t get lost in the meantime because thing's arc getting restless back at the old corral. The part that makes the Indiana 23 situation so ridiculous is to look over the regular mailings of the Indiana State Highway -Commission and see what roads are getting the repair. Many sections of state highway Commission and see what 1 quite a few times while the “old landmark" still remains in 1 its original structure. ' i

the depression days of the early thirties, a transfer of sl7 million in highway user tax dollars was transferred to the general fund. With 90 per cent federal matching dollars available today, this could finance 170 milpd of new expressways if it had been repaid. (This diverting practice is a wide-spread act. Only 28 of 50 states have constitutional amendments preventing such di- ' version of gas tax dollars. Motorists pay a stiff price to finance the road building and improvement program of the states and nation. Hit and miss construction is a misuse of the taxpayers money. One example of this is the now open stretch of South Bend by-pass that was dedicated last week. This segment was originally scheduled to open several years ago and wit? 1 lUSt the 1.75 miles that is completed it is " *9 a d that almost leads to nowhere f‘‘om both ends. The completed project is now to be “rushed" through to completion by 1967 Wouldn’t it be nice if Indiana 23 were to receive ®ome help by that year also. m.-., >

INDEPENDENCE DAY, ■HL « IRKWB / OF \ wii ‘ k la HI j -«SI9K

(Editor"® Note: This Ls the fourth in a series of letters from Mary Ann Biusics, St. Joseph County IFYE Delegate to Greece.) t Dear Friends: Since I have been in Komun, I have seen many new things ami yesterday I decided that it was time for me to show my host family something new, something that would be truly American ami still be able to lend itself to the types of tiling's you would find in the ordinary Greek hom • After thinking and thinking. 1 came to the conclusion that a lemon meringue pie wonk! be just perfect. The idea may have been a good one. but I ran into my first problem early that was trying tc explain to my host mother what I wanted to d> However this failed to trouble me, am’. I plunged into the task with all the zest that a new bride has in attempting her first batch of biscuits. It was now that I suddenly realized that for the first time. 1 would be making a pie crust with olive oil and a type of dark whole wheat flour. By now it was too late to turn back, so 1 continued my work and just crossed my fingers. The second big problem that arose Tas that rolling out the pie dough. I finally Up with a makeshift rolling pin that was a small pole about I 1 a inches in diameter and about four feet long. Outside of being a little long, it served the purpose quite well However 1 was now faced with the question of what to put the rolled crust into. This was quickly settled, because my host mother had only one pan that fit her small round electric oven. The pan was 12 inches in diameter and five inches deep. Os course. I couldn’t put the dough inside a huge pan like that so I decided to turn the pan upside down, bake the crust on the outside of the pan and after the crust had cdok*d simply put it inside This might have been a fine idea on theory, but m practice it just didn’t work. For some reason, my crust decided to crack while it baked, and aft r it had cooled. I had not one but three huge pieces of pie crust.

Still not completely discouraged by all of the trouble that had beset my little project, I put the broken pieces of crust into the pun am! tried to arrange them so that there would be as few holes as possible. Perhaps, I thought, the one thing that would save my pie would be a delicious filling and a high, fluffy meringue. Fortunately, I was able to cook the filling without any major problems but have you ever seen what the filling for a niiw inch pie looks like in a 12 inch pan? It Ipoked as though I d railed again, but then I cemen^bered what some of the past IFYE’s had told us: "remember that whatever you make will be now to your host family, and if you make a mistake they won’t "know it." I tried very hard to remember these words as I put the nice, square -

*X. - si— * r—— — < wn /O'. ■ - -- - M ' Pv ' r O° —l"> ; gm 1 ‘ ; S . /s~H ‘ A •£=> j | , -^7 , ■ ”1 never saw anyone so determined to have a swimming pool I in all my life.”

cut pieces of my Lemon meringuq pie on the dessert dishes. My only hope now was that II would taste gpod to my host family and as little ten year old Johnny, with a delighted look on hLs face, asked for a second helping, I leaned back with a sigh of relief and thought “thank Heaven for little boys with big appetites.’* Mary Ann Biasics, 1963 IFYE in Greecq The man in tho automat kept putting nickels in the vending devices and kept gettig food. Finally he had two tables covere<| with a variety of items from soup to dessert. Wien he went to th< cashier to get more change, thq manager asked: “What’s the big idea?" The man replied: “Novq don’t get sore—just because I’m winning.” ,