Published: August 27, 2008 06:52 pm            

LETTERS: August 28, 2008

Reader responds to flower letter



As a former president of the third largest flower company growing in Colombia, I have elected to respond to Sunday’s letter from Skye Smock regarding the Colombian flower industry.

I have made 30 trips to Colombia while involved in the flower business. I have had the privilege (and struggle at 9,000 feet of altitude) of walking every hectare of these farms, because of the intense pride taken in their work and the cultural sleight felt by hard-working families if their “area” was not included in the visit. I have observed the chemical suits, ‘Peligro Fumigation” signs and the extensive precautions taken by managers to prevent chemical exposure in their work force.

The flower business in Colombia was founded by three U.S. citizens while working for the Peace Corps in the late 60’s. The entire business plan was centered around improving the lives of indigent Colombian citizens left out in the Spanish colonial business model.

Complete families, including parents and their children, are picked up by company busses and arrive at 6 a.m. due to the need to cut and prepare flowers in their “bud closed” state, and because the sun always rises at 6 a.m. near the equator. The entire family is fed breakfast, at company expense, and the kids attend schools on the farm while their mothers and fathers work. There are medical facilities at each farm staffed with a nurse, with access to a doctor, for the care of the complete family. Everyone is fed lunch on the grounds at company expense. The workday and school day end at 3 p.m. every day, at which time sports activities, socializing, music and dancing, and fellowship are shared by the employees.

Each farm has company soccer teams played on grass fields meticulously manicured by hundreds of professional horticulture employees. There is no NFL stadium growing natural grass in the USA with better turf than what is found on these farms. There are leagues, for both women and men and for all ages, between farms with company transportation to away games.

But most important, there has been a civil war fought in Colombia for 30 years. The flower companies provide the best available jobs in the area and people who work for these companies have the highest standard of living and are the least likely to work for the drug cartels or join the F.A.R.C.

I have experienced seeing a coworker of mine being told that his father had just been executed by the F.A.R.C. It is something you will never forget as an American guest in a foreign nation.

Buy flowers — yes — buy lots of flowers. You are improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who would have nothing if you did not!

— Dan Stallings, Floyds Knobs



River memories come back

Recently my cousin, Sherman, and I hiked along the Ohio River to where his father and my grandmother grew up as children.

The 1937 Flood destroyed their home with so many others and the government built new homes for them on Valley View Court. In 1939, our great-grandfather died. The new home he moved into after the ‘37 Flood still sits there on Valley View Court, along with the other newly built homes at that time.

There is little that remains from our family’s home along this stretch of the Ohio River, a few old medicine bottles and old foundation stones. Just upriver from where our family’s old home was prior to the ’37 Flood, is where the old Rolling Mill was in operation, the steel mill, sitting between West Third and West Seventh Street in New Albany.

I’m told that temperatures reached 110 degrees inside the mill.

As we hiked along the river’s edge, we could still see the iron slag that was dumped there from the mill in the early 1930’s and prior. The iron slag, which I call it, lays up and down this stretch of the river just below the Sherman Minton Bridge. Still visible are old wooden posts that were once a loading dock for the mill. The cobblestone street that the horse and wagons used is still there, though some of it has eroded away from past floods or was salvaged.

I’m also told that the cobblestone street still runs under the flood wall all the way up to Main Street.

From the river’s edge, you can see it best when the river is at its lowest. The photographs show what remains of the steel mill’s discharge/drainage area covered with creekstone. Though the mill may have pumped water from there to cool the hot iron or possibly it was cold water discharge. Some of the old iron rings have since disappeared with erosion or treasure hunters.

I’ll try to go back again soon when the river is down to take more pictures of the old posts from the loading dock, before the rest is lost in future floods.

As far as our family’s old homeplace, there is nothing there now except part of the land that has not eroded yet. Quite possibly our family’s foundation may be preserved under years of sediment.

Maybe I’ll come across something that once belonged to our family to keep as a memento.

It was an interesting hike, and I’m very grateful that Sherman showed me where the family’s old home was prior to the ‘37 Flood and shared his stories with me.

— James R. Hardin, New Albany



Open letter to Good Samaritans



On Wednesday evening, Aug. 20, I was walking to the end of my driveway to retrieve my garbage can. I am an 88 year- old woman and have no business pulling a heavy garbage can, but I am independent by nature and was determined to try. Well, you know what happened next. I hit the driveway face-first and cut myself pretty badly. I was lying in the driveway, confused and frightened. In no time, two cars had stopped and there were two lovely young ladies who were assisting me to my feet. One even took me into my house, called my son and 911, and waited with me until the EMS got to the house. In this world where we tend to hear only the bad things that people do, I wanted to publicly thank these two wonderful people. Who knows how long I could have been on the ground had they not chosen to do the kind thing. I only regret that I did not, get their names and addresses. I would love to send them a card of thanks. So, if you two ladies are out there reading this, please accept this as my personal and well-deserved thank you!

— Jane Peers, New Albany

        

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