Letters: Finding the right words after confrontation; Appreciative to firefighters after false alarm

Finding the right words after confrontation

Some days ago, I was puttering around on my driveway in my wheelchair, deadheading flowers , etc. Out of nowhere, two young boys walking by with their parents yelled at me, calling me a cripple and telling me to get out of my chair and get a job. I was stunned and so didn’t respond, just turned around and came back into my home. I let this experience percolate for a while because I didn’t want to address it while really angry.

Now I’m ready. I am not defined by this chair or my walker or by my ever-so-white hair. I am defined by these descriptors: I am a mother, grandmother, sister, step-daughter, good friend and listener, two-time breast cancer survivor, wife, lover of bad jokes and lots of color, and more. I know I have a disability but it has not ruined my life, nor will I let it do so.

I have lived in a lovely community, Dalevue, for 30 years. I’ve never heard a disparaging remark from anyone until this time; in fact, my neighbors have been unflagging in their support for me during some tough periods. So I’m hard pressed to figure out where these boys came to their thoughts. My hope is not from church or school. So I must go to conversations at the kitchen table, and if that is true it is sad.

I have a suggestion for their parents, who were with the young men but with their own ear buds and concentrating on their cellphones. Why not pay some attention to your offspring, if even just for a short amount of time? I would say this to your faces if I saw you again.

Appreciative to firefighters after false alarm

My wife and I went to sleep on Sunday night fulling intending to sleep in. At 5:11 a.m. we are startled awake by yelling and lights in the hallway. I instinctively reach for the quick access gun safe on my nightstand, until I realize that they are not intruders but are in fact firefighters.

The firefighters explained the smoke alarm from the basement triggered an alarm. We checked all the alarm sensors. There was no fire. There were no dangerous gasses. Everything was OK. A false alarm, thankfully.

Once the crowd was gone, we checked the second-floor bathroom window the firefighters used to gain access. The undamaged screen had been carefully placed next to the unbroken window. A broken window, broken lock, or broken door would have been expected, but these volunteer professionals took a ladder to the back of our house to an open window and did not even damage a screen.

To the firefighters and police who responded this was probably just another annoying false alarm. To my wife and me, Monday was a stressful but enlightening experience. Fortunately, it was just a faulty smoke detector, but it could have been a disaster. These first responders were on our front porch in less time than it takes me to be capable of forming coherent sentences in the morning.

We learned something important that morning. That is, the all-volunteer firefighters of Bellefonte are quick, thorough, professional, and refreshingly courteous.

Short-term rentals should be inspected

As someone who has rented private homes in State College so I could attend football and basketball games, I was dismayed to learn that these homes do not receive regular safety inspections.

How can the borough allow people to rent their properties over and over for short terms, like weekends, and not make sure those properties are safe?

I’d like to know their reasoning on this.