Larry Douthwaite is a pastor in my old hometown of Littlestown, PA. He’s also spent the past fifteen years serving the local public school district as a crossing guard. He can usually be spotted at the corner of North Queen and East Myrtle streets, and he usually is spotted… because he has a propensity to wear some pretty crazy hats.

Not only does this help drowsy drivers pay attention to the school crossing in the morning, but seeing him in some zany headgear had a way of cheering even the grouchiest commuters.

All that may be changing, though, thanks to borough manager Linda M. Hess.

In a story that has garnered national attention, with Larry appearing on FOX & Friends two days in a row (this past Wednesday and Thursday), Linda apparently saw a driver swerve near Larry’s intersection one morning. She then decided Larry’s crazy hat was to blame, and sent a letter off to Littlestown Chief of Police Don Baker to order the end of the “crazy hat” era. (Ironically, Chief Baker doesn’t seem to have a problem with the hats.)

“I’ll get you, my pretty… and your crazy hat, too!”

I’m wondering a few things, not least of which is this: why did Linda Hess write a letter to the Police Chief and have him speak to Larry, instead of first speaking herself directly with Larry… or at least with the school superintendent? It really seems like a passive-aggressive power play to me. And it’s in stark contrast to Larry’s response, which was to immediately schedule a meeting with Ms. Hess to try and hash things out mano-a-mano.

Larry’s been beyond reproach in the whole thing, to the point of urging others not to criticize Linda for her decision. But he didn’t say anything against criticizing her for her approach to the situation. Personally? If I had to guess, I’d say it sounds like the hats have irritated Ms. Hess for a while now, and she finally got her chance to order their permanent removal. Makes me think of Miss Almira Gulch, if you know what I mean.

So feel free to send an e-mail to her at lmhess@littlestownboro.org (according to Littlestown’s official web site), and let her know what you think about the crossing guard who went the extra mile to make sure motorists paid attention.

Nicole and I took the kids out to Longs Park on Sunday afternoon. We had a good time just relaxing, goofing off at one of the playgrounds, and hanging out at the petting zoo. Yes, I said “the petting zoo.” At a park!

This is just one of the many reasons why I love Lancaster County.

I took Katie with me this morning (she’s almost a bigger Ron Paul supporter than I am; she says he’s her “favorite President ever”) out to my local polling place. Now I think it’s weird that the State government is using a religious institution’s building to run a government function, but hey–I’m one of those weird “separation of Church and State”rs. Outside the building was a table where a guy had a sample Republican ballot, as well as this handy-dandy little reference card:

FYI: 100% of the identified Ron Paul supporters (three of the four candidates in each list) are “NOT ENDORSED” by the Republican Committee of Lancaster County, PA. Those candidates are listed at RonPaulPA.com.

You know, this just seems odd to me. I can see a special interest group endorsing certain GOP candidates before the GOP primary, but why would the GOP itself be endorsing particular candidates before the primary election?

Why should their a priori endorsement matter to me? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?

Sorry, I’m just a little bit angry about this. If they’d given reasons for the endorsements (or lack thereof), I might feel better about it. But when they do something like this, aren’t they implicitly saying “those candidates aren’t ‘Republican’ enough”? Fine, make that claim… but support it if you want me to take you seriously!

Just handing over this card, though… party officials are literally dictating to area residents how to vote?! How would it look if your county’s Democratic party was telling all the Democrats to vote for Obama? That’s what this looks like to me.

The purpose of a primary is for me to tell you who to vote for, “Party Officials”; not vice-versa.

Ooh… it just burns me up!

• Marietta, PA
  Yup, I moved to a small town with its own website. Would you expect anything else from me?
• Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce
  See that photo above? I pass by that sign coming home each night.
• Marietta Factsheet (Wikipedia)
  Just in case you want to know what the latest census figure were.
• Marco’s Restaurant and Motor Inn
  Love the food and the atmosphere here. Wish they had a web site.
• Borough of Marietta, PA
  Okay, now it looks like this is the official web site. (Added May 13th, 2008.)