By John Estridge
It is the morning after the Brookville Town Council meeting where the golf course was purchased – not officially as we were all instructed – but it was purchased.
I am sitting on my front porch. It is a beautiful morning if you call 100 in the shade with 210 percent humidity before 9 a.m. and not even a wisp of a breeze beautiful, but I will take summer over winter any day. Sleep came easy, and it was a very good sleep. I was surprised by that when I awoke this morning. I thought it would be a sleepless night where I would be unable to turn my brain off. But I believe a clear conscience and God allowed that peaceful sleep to happen.
In my PARTIAL EDITORIAL, one of the things I said had to happen before I could write my COMPLETE EDITORIAL was I had to cool off.
This EDITORIAL may be lengthy and rambling so I apologize in advance. Here is the second of the ramblings. Talking about a summer morning was my first.
When I was training for my wonderful time I get to spend in the History and Genealogy Department at the Brookville Public Library — that’s a misnomer as I am still being trained — I researched my family. Prior to this, I thought one branch, my paternal, came from Southeastern Kentucky. I was mistaken as both branches come from Southeastern Kentucky. It really explained a lot about my intransigent grudges. That is the land of blood feuds. To go back even farther I am Scotch and Welsh. Anyone watch Braveheart? And the Welsh may still not admit they are part of the once great empire of Great Britain.
There are many reasons old St. Pete may bar the gates of Heaven to me, but I believe my grudges are the first thing he is going to mention. The once sports editor of the former Whitewater Pub and dear friend, Tyler Whittamore, who had the misfortune of sitting next to me at the Pub, once told me when speaking about my grudges, “If you get to heaven, those gates are going to be wide open.”
I can’t shake the grudges even though I have prayed many, many times about them. An example of one of my stupid grudges is going back to when I was dying in December, I allowed myself — from my hospital bed in the worst pain I hope to ever experience and in the fog of some very heavy pain medication — to watch an NFL game on TV for the first time in years because I had boycotted them over the kneeling during the National Anthem. I dearly love sports, and I dearly love football at all levels of play, but I really love watching an NFL game and all the different strategies applied by both teams, probably with the exception of the Bungles during the Marvin Lewis era where his only strategy seemed to be the Prevent Myself from Winning Defense. I allowed myself to watch those games on that Sunday because I thought I probably would not live out the day, and I was alone (COVID restrictions), and it brought me some comfort the few times I was conscious.
I may have hidden it well during these long EDITORIALS, but I hold a grudge against the present Brookville Town Council members.
So, I have cooled off to a point that a person with all that in my genes can cool off.
Since the meeting, my phone and Messenger have blown up. I have read that terminology before and this is the first time I have personally experienced it and understand it. I want to thank everyone for reaching out. I guess there were many more people watching various video feeds of the meeting than were at the meeting.
Before the meeting, I prayed to God that He would not let me get emotional. I prayed that I could keep a cool, level head about myself during the meeting. However, if you need to, please read once again about my lineage, my genes.
I blew up, and it did no good except to make myself look foolish in front of the audience, those watching on video and especially to those arrogant people sitting at the table in front of the audience. And I really hate I lost control in front of those arrogant (fill in the noun of your choice here).
In fact, not one thing any of the taxpayers and residents of this town who came to the meeting said or did at that meeting made any difference to those arrogant, smirking (put another noun of your choice here).
And at first, when all of that became apparent to anyone at the meeting and probably those on the video feeds, I silently chided myself for asking all those people to show up and voice their opinions.
We are now owners of a failing golf course where we cannot discover the true nature of the business’ financials, but go on the proven truthfulness of BTC President Curtis Ward, that all is wonderful up on the rutted, burnt brown, failing Snob Hill golf course that the LLC wants to unload RIGHT NOW.
We are to believe the nine lots very near the golf course in question that Curtis purchased on July 7 does not figure into the necessity of purchasing the golf course RIGHT NOW or at all.
And not only that, but we are going to own the Zimmer property even though council members have not been told how much it will cost to remodel it, and there is no plan – according to Curtis on Facebook – to there is a multi-facetted plan we are not privy to, to fill the empty Main Street storefront, the police department moving will cause. And that multi-facetted plan was devised between the weekend of the Facebook post to Tuesday, August 24. Please believe Curtis. He is so sincere.
And annexation is something as inevitable as everything else. Dave White purchasing Million Dollar Hill and parceling it out, Curtis and the nine lots, and other moves we probably are not aware of will tip the balance even though the majority of every-day property owners up there are against it.
Those of you up on Snob Hill who have been complacent about all of this, you had better read the Brookville codes. Codes cannot be randomly enforced. Listen to police chief Terry Mitchum when he says he does not care who is breaking the smallest Brookville code, he will hold them accountable. That has proven to be true in Brookville where we really have to watch everything we do on our property and with our property. And I mean everything.
That is coming to you in the very near future. Enjoy your personal freedom while you have it. It is not a velvet glove Terry and the Brookville police wield down here.
I am sorry that the experience for everyone at the town council meeting last night was so frustrating for everyone who came to the meeting and wasted two hours of their lives they will never get back. But I want everyone who was there and especially those who were not there to think about two women, Lora Crockett and Mary Alice Helms, who were there and who spoke.
Lora Crockett came up to the podium with cane in hand and collapsed in the stifling heat as she was addressing the board. Through mounting blood pressure she monitored as she spoke and a pounding headache, even sitting in a chair brought to her, bent over in pain and fear, eyes closed, she continued to tell the council members of her displeasure in their pending decision.
It did no good.
Mary Alice, who I consider a very good friend, did a lot of research and composed a very good report about how the town park is diametrically the wrong place to put a Frisbee golf course. I do not think she would mind if I describe her as a person who has seen more than a few years on this earth. All of her effort was met with disdainful silence and disrespect.
Thus, it did no good.
But they were there. They and the others in the audience who spoke their opinions or who clapped and cheered after the opinions were voiced were there.
It was not in vain. Everyone who did not come to Tuesday night’s meeting as well as those who were there, need to come to the next meeting and the next meeting and the next meeting. And at every meeting from now on, people need to get up and speak their opinion and to cheer and clap when those opinions are voiced.
That is America folks. Although Brookville is in a Twilight Zone away from sanity and all that is good with this country, it is still America, at least for now. And while we still can, each and every one of us should go to that podium and tell those arrogant, unfeeling (noun of your choice here) what we think of them and their ideas to spend our money.
Thank you.
