Plymouth Area News for the week of June 29th, 2020, by Joyce Steiner

 

Very interesting week here  in West Central Illinois.  Who would have thought that there would be a black bear sighting in the western portion of Illinois.  Yet there is one which is taking its time traveling south through our area.  The bear first came to my attention when someone posted a photo on face book.  At that time is was headed south from Blandinsville.  The next day it was seen west of Plymouth.  And then it spent quite a bit of time in Augusta visiting the gas station and wandering about town.  It is well photographed.  There are lots of photos on face book, even some videos.  Some of the best photos were taken by Pastor Lingenfelter from Plymouth and his daughter Becky Perkins.  Becky posted a video of the bear swimming in a pond.  From Augusta the bear headed south again and was seen east of Golden.  Today there are very disturbing photos of people in groups very close to the bear as it tries to cross a highway.  This is a large wild animal and it should be left alone to continue its journey, possibly to Missouri.  I m so afraid someone will try to pet it or feed it and get hurt causing the bear to be destroyed.  That would be so very sad and unnecessary.

My solar panels went on line on Monday about noon.  A gentleman from Ameren came and inspected the job and turned on the switch.  According to my phone app, I have saved 178 pounds of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere, 15 dollars and two trees.  A really big thank you to Blue Stone Solar and Tom Ohnemus for installing my system.  He also installed cameras for me.  It is very exciting to try to do my part to help save the planet.

Illinois entered phase 4 of the Corona opening on Friday.  Hopefully people will understand that we still need to be careful.  Most of the customers in my store continue to wear masks.  It is also very easy to maintain a six foot distance between customers as my store is very large.  People from Hancock County, who have been very vocal and disrespectful of our governor, should take note of the rapidly rising numbers of cases in states which rushed to reopen or who did not take the proper precautions seriously.

Plymouth continues to be lucky in the weather department.  Just west of town, four inches of rain fell too rapidly to soak into the ground.  We only got 1.7 inches.  Nauvoo got a bad storm with damage and power outages. Quincy had a flood and tree damage.

The church council of Living Faith United Methodist Church met on Monday evening.  Again we decided not to open the building just yet.  Pastor Sheri will be having an outdoor service for everyone beginning on Sunday July 5th at 10 am.  This will be a trial run to see how it goes.  When we open the building, there still may be an outdoor service especially for families with small children who would not be good at wearing masks.  Everyone is invited.  Right now we are not sure what steps will be taken if the weather is bad on Sunday the 5th.   As other area churches are open today, our congregation will see how that goes then look again at opening the building.

I am very concerned about the financial condition of our state and nation.  My store pays sales tax quarterly.  It is normally a few hundred dollars.  June is the end of the quarter and I will be paying my sales tax.  It will not be a few hundred dollars, but will be a few dollars.  That will be true of a lot of businesses.  Just when the state needs money the most, it will not be coming in.  Then there is the federal deficit.  Everyone was very happy to get a check for 1200 dollars but the federal government does NOT have any money.  That is tax money.  Big corporations have received tax breaks and again the small people will not be paying much in taxes because of the shutdown of the economy.  The only solution I have at the moment is to think like Scarlett and say “I will worry about that tomorrow”.

Enjoy the great weather.  Hope you all have a great 4th of July though it may be difficult to find fire work displays.  Be kind and considerate of everyone you meet as we are all in this together.  Scatter Kindness.

Posted in Plymouth News