Tuesday evening I got a call to come to the store at 8:30 pm. Found two young people, one of whom had lived in the area for several years. Said he understood why his grandmother would not let him come to the antique shop as a youngster when he saw all the breakables. He was interested in marbles and got several while they were here. I really do not mind coming up after hours if I am home.
The first Wednesday of the month is the date for the Plymouth Village Board meeting. I went to the meeting as I always do but there was no meeting. The village clerk had not posted the agenda 48 hours before the meeting as required. Evidentially the word got out to some of the Board members because Michele Burton, Ernie Diseron and Bob Orris did not come while I was there. Dylan McCurdy and Michael Inman were at the village hall so they had not been told there was not a meeting. Kevin and Carolyn Bullard, Shelva Schoonover and others also came for the meeting.
Plymouth needs to get its act together. There have now been two “letters to the editor” saying how sad it is that Plymouth has just been let go. There are falling down buildings on the square that are dangerous and are awful to have to look at. This has been going on now for years. They must be cleaned up for the good of all. There are many houses with junk in the yards as well as weeds. We have ordinances that prohibit both. In order to enforce our ordinances, we need a police presence. I think that most people would clean up their properties if just asked to do so. For those that will not, they should be given a ticket and then let the laws take their course. I do not understand why one would spend money on a lawyer so as to not have to clean up their property or why any Board members would support property not being cleaned up. Please come to the Board meetings, if we can find when they are being held, and insist that Plymouth have a police presence and that the village ordinances be enforced.
Have had a few compliments of the new paint on my store fronts. Hopefully everyone thinks that they look nice and will shop locally!
Thursday Carol Rankin, Pastor Sheri Renner, Donna Niekamp and I headed to Peoria for the 2018 Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference. It is held each year in the Peoria Civic Center. Pastor Bruce Weiman, a former pastor at Living Faith, is always there and helps with the sound and video portion of the conference. It was good to see Pastor Bruce again and they did a wonderful job with the communications for the conference. One of the themes of the conference is “Our Conference, Our Kids”. I am impressed with the work that our five organizations are doing. They are not just working with “kids” but are working with the whole family to break the cycle of the problems. Chaddock in Quincy is one of the organizations doing wonderful work with children and families in the area.
Was also able to visit with my college friend, Georgette, who had a stroke in September. It seems that the stroke may have been a result of her car being rear ended earlier. She got immediate attention and did a lot of therapy and seems to be doing very well.
The conference ended about noon on Saturday so got home Saturday evening. Glad to be home and Prince Harry is glad too.
John Wesley showed up at the Conference too. That reminded me of one of his sayings that I used to use at the end of my column. This is a shortened version. “Do good, do no harm, stay in love with God”. If only all would do these three things, the world would be a much better place to live.