Mill Creek board: Spare the trees, don't spoil the forest

Mill Creek board: Spare the trees, don't spoil the forest
EDITOR:
Spare the ax.
The other day we took a walk in Mill Creek Park with Lucky Kaiser as our guide. Responding to an article in Sunday's Vindicator, featuring a photo of Lucky framed by recently severed stumps of trees, I telephoned her for her comments on that article. She asked my mother and me to accompany her on a short stroll around the area where the proposed bike/hike path will cut a wide swath (850-foot long, 10-foot wide) through wildflowers, 100-plus year-old trees, secure nesting habitats of migrating birds, and through carefully tended, non-native plants and flowers, such as the Star of Bethlehem, planted by the pioneer Truesdale family during the Connecticut Western Reserve Land Grant period of the early 1800s.
My mother, Lucky, and I descended well-worn but sturdy stone steps to the dirt path below, which was bordered by purple, white and yellow violets; spring beauties; Jack-in-the-pulpit; May apples (no apples yet!); something called flea bane, and pot scrubbers. While we marveled at nature's beauty, we gazed in wonderment as a great blue heron with a fish in its mouth swooped past us over the creek to a quiet, protected cove-like spot not 100 yards from the proposed asphalt path.
Nearby, north of the boat dock area, there is also a flowering plant called the toad shade trillium, which is a beautiful purple bloom, emerging from dappled leaves, and is so rare that people come from near and far to view it.
Although the park officials insist that the proposed path is for pedestrian and bike safety, Lucky states that a 3-way stop sign off the intersection of Sheban Drive and the road to the wetlands (boat docks), combined with sidewalks on ShebanDrive, would be the most economical and ecologically sound solution to securing the whole area for posterity. We are concerned that this fragile ecosystem will be so disturbed by the proposed bike/hike bridge path, that these species of flora and fauna will be lost forever in our beloved Mill Creek Park.
ANN ENTERLINE KURZ
and MARY COURTNEY
Canfield
War in Iraq, the cradle of civilization, produces an added casualty: culture
EDITOR:
Wars kill, and modern wars kill many more civilians than combatants. The war in Iraq painstakingly continues this bloody legacy of death and destruction. That's an expected horror. However, this war produced a totally unexpected and unforgivable horror, one which will haunt us long after the mourning over the slaughter of innocents ends.
This ugly war has extended its deadly reach into the very dawn of civilization and killed the material embodiment of a people's soul across nine millennia. Tens of thousands of priceless artifacts and precious manuscripts giving form and substance to the highest aspirations and most brilliant artistry of our ancestors in the cradle of civilization were intentionally left unprotected and openly permitted to be consumed by professional thieves and proficient monsters. The hatred for culture behind such organized war crimes is colossal, as is the damage inflicted upon us all.
This horrific war will forever be associated with cultural patricide and literary matricide. A more potent weapon of mass destruction than that is hard to find.
Rev. WERNER LANGE, Pastor
Auburn Community United Church of Christ
Chagrin Falls