Better Late Than Never: An Open Letter to the White Sox regarding the Legacy of Dick Allen

A lot can happen in 3 years.  3 years ago I started the below blog post and for whatever reason left it in draft status.  Earlier this month I saw this announcement on the Baseball Hall of Fame website.  Seeing that  Chicago White Sox legend Dick Allen was again being considered for enshrinement made me want to do something on his behalf.  Then, I remembered I already did, well at least I started.  A lot can happen in 3 years.  

Aside from correcting multiple grammar and spelling errors, the de-mothballed post is the same as when I started it three years ago. The only exception is that I have color-coded the first three paragraphs, put important statements in bold, and italicized the entire tome (Not Jim Tome; that's a Hall of Famer of a different spelling). The green indicates that the statements are still valid some 1100 days later. The red indicates they are not. I'll be back at the end to further my point.

Dear White Sox Organization: 

 First and foremost, I would like to wish you a joyous and happy holiday season. Secondly, I would like to congratulate you on the fine baseball season you just finished. It is truly an exciting time to be a White Sox fan. I have been a Sox fan going on 50 years. I can not emphasize enough how the accomplishments of one player brought me into the White Sox fan base.  A  player who sadly I don't think your organization has spent enough time heralding his accomplishments while on the South Side.  This player is no other than Dick Allen, The 1972 AL MVP in his first year for the White Sox.

There are two things I'd like to see the Sox organization do to honor Mr. Allen's legacy.  The first is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his MVP season in 2022.  The impact of Dick Allen on the White Sox is legend.  He revitalized the team mobilized the fan base and squashed all the talk of moving the franchise from Chicago to Florida.  His homers at Old Comiskey Park especially those rooftop shots are why a 7-year-old boy raised to be a Cubs fan flipped allegiances and spent his days wanting to emulate his new heroes like Bill Melton, Wilbur Wood, Bucky Dent, Jorge Orta, and especially Allen himself.  

I hope you guys have something like this in mind because a celebration on the scale that I'm thinking should have been planned years in advance.  

Secondly, I would love to see the White Sox publicly champion the HOF candidacy for Mr. Allen.  In my opinion, Allen is the most deserving player in White Sox history for enshrinement in Cooperstown.  Actually, I believe he is the most deserving former player in the entire league who is not yet been voted in.  I was very happy when Minnie Minoso got in this year on the Golden Days Era Ballot..This may seem like blasphemy at 35th and Shields but I feel Allen is more deserving than Minoso for a spot in Cooperstown.  I understand that looking at the advanced metrics bears my thoughts out.  I was heartbroken when Allen missed out by 1 vote again this year.  He now has to wait 5 more years before his case can be reviewed again.

A lot of this heavy lifting needs to be done by Allen's first team the Phillies.  He played the brunt of his career there and I am glad to see that there is a greater acknowledgment of the racism he endured while in Philadelphia.  What I ask of the White Sox is that in the next 5 years, they begin stating Allen's case every time they have the opportunity.  There are still very many White Sox fans of my generation and the generation previous to mine who understand the impact Dick Allen had for the Southsiders in the early 70's.  I ask that the management of the Sox while continuing to look to the future and endeavoring to bring more pennants and World Series championships to their fan base also look back at the past especially the accomplishments of Allen and celebrate what he brought to the team and lobby for his accomplishments to be recognized and honored by the powers that be at Cooperstown and beyond.

A few years back Jerry Reinsdorf lobbied hard for the HOF candidacy of Harold Baines.   I have long been a proponent of Baine's inclusion in Cooperstown.  Reinsdorf did the right thing by helping make the case for Baines.  Reinsdorf had seen firsthand the impact of Baines on the White Sox and knew in his heart that Baines was HOF material.  Dick Allen was long gone when Reinsdorf became owner of the Sox.  Reinsdorf and the White Sox need to understand that although they did not experience it Allen's impact on the White Sox and on baseball in that era was actually far greater than the impact Baines had.  Baines had HOF teammates like Carlton Fisk and Frank Thomas.  

That is where I left things off in 2021

Dick Allen (Circa 1965)
Public Domain

Here in the present (11/23/24) Dick Allen is a candidate once again for the enshrinement in Cooperstown that eluded him in his lifetime.  Having missed out on the highest individual honor in baseball by only 1 vote in his last 2 elections, he again is considered a front-runner.  This year he is joined by Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris, Tommy John, Dave Harris, and Luis Tiant.  All these players are certainly worthy of consideration, and many deserve their own plaque in Cooperstown.  I would still argue that none of these players are more deserving than Allen.  

On December 8th a 16-member Hall of Fame Panel will convene at the Baseball Winter Meetings to decide if any of these players will make it for 2025.  Anyone receiving 12 votes or more from the committee will become a Hall of Famer.  Anyone who doesn't will have to wait until 2028 to even be considered to be a finalist again.  Dick Allen shouldn't have to wait that long.

He actually shouldn't have had to wait this long.  Allen was not the malcontent nor rabble-rouser that people portrayed him as.  He had been vindicated from most of that in his lifetime.  Some of it remains from the atmosphere of racism that followed his career and his BBWAA-era candidacy.  If you're not aware of Allen's experiences as the first professional black baseball player in then-segregated Little Rock, Arkansas while a Phillies farmhand in 1963, this article is a good place to start. Moving to Philadelphia in 1964 and having one of the greatest rookie seasons in MLB history, didn't stop the unfair treatment.  He wasn't allowed 548to go by his preferred name Dick but was relegated to becoming the diminutive Richie, a move which can only be construed now some 60 years later as a thinly veiled attempt to keep him in his place.  

His place is in the Hall of Fame. Yes, injuries shortened his career and certainly, he would have been helped by a longer body of work, but what a body of work.  The 7-time all-star, according to Baseball Musings, Day by Day database the 1964 Rookie of the Year and 1972 MVP in his first 6 seasons (1964-1969) was ranked 20th in at-bats. but ranked higher in 9 other offensive categories  including 5th in runs, 3rd in triples, 8th in both home runs and RBI, 9th in walks, 10th in batting average, and  1st in slugging percentage. Allen's slugging percentage was .555 in that 6-year time. Here is a list of the 10 fellows directly behind him.

Frank Robinson      .552   HOF

Willie McCovey      .551  HOF

Hank Aaron             .548  HOF

Willie Mays             .539  HOF

Harmon Killebrew   .535 HOF

Roberto Clemente    .511 HOF

Willie Stargell          .510 HOF

Reggie Jackson        .508 HOF

Carl Yaztrzemski     .507 HOF

Ron Santo                .505 HOF

This is just one example of Allen's on-field accomplishments putting him among the elite players of his generation.  Allen is also revered by many players who played alongside him.  One is Hall of Famer Allen's former White Sox teammate Rich Gossage.  I'm going to end this post with a quote from Gossage for a 2014 USA Today article about Allen and the Hall of Fame.  Goose puts it more eloquently than I ever could.  

"I've been around the game a long time,'' Hall of Fame pitcher Goose Gossage tells USA TODAY Sports, "and he's the greatest player I've ever seen play in my life. He had the most amazing season (1972) I've ever seen. He's the smartest baseball man I've ever been around in my life. "He taught me how to pitch from a hitter's perspective, and taught me how to play the game, and how to play the game right. There's no telling the numbers this guy could have put up if all he worried about was stats. "The guy belongs in the Hall of Fame.''

An Open Letter to Alyssa Milano

 Dear Ms. Milano,

I am writing to you and to an extent all the signatories of your recent open Letter regarding HB 481 to Georgia Governor Kemp and Speaker Ralston and to anyone else who reads it, but ostensibly, I am writing to you.

First of all. let me begin by saying by saying how I appreciate how passionate and articulate you are. I really do commend you that you took a stand on an issue that you are passionate about and related it to your current work situation. I appreciate how you gathered like minded people in the same situation to express your opinions. Expressing social and political concern is everyone's responsibility and I for one am glad to see you doing it, regardless of whether I share your concerns or not.

In this world we live in our opinions can often be expressed in hashtags. #HBIsBadforBusiness seems to express yours. I take a differing view. If I had to express myself hashtagedly, I might say #HBisGood4Babies. The bill ,which I hope Governor Kemp signs into law, protects unborn babies at the point that their heartbeat can be recognized. In my mind this shows them to be something different than a part of the mother, to be disposed anyway she sees fit. We may well fundamentally disagree on this point, However a distinct heartbeat is more than adequate medical evidence to make me think that my view is the correct one.

My Dad used to say to me my right to wave my fists in the air ended squarely at his nose. This is how I feel about abortion and reproductive rights. A woman's reproductive right ends squarely at that cute little babies nose. A fetus with a heartbeat is a far cry from a mass of cells invading a woman's body. 2 years ago my wife had a mass of cells invading her body. Since it was my wife, my opinion was get those nasty cells out of her body anyway you can. Now, my wife wasn't pregnant, she had breast cancer and her cancerous cells certainly did not have any chance of ever becoming viable on their own or having their own functioning beating heart.

Ms. Milano, I would not be surprised at all if some of those disagreeing with your and your fellow signatories opinion might propose boycotting your artistic endeavors. I think that's a bad idea. As strongly as I feel about these issues this does not mean that anyone who disagrees with me needs to be punished economically. I certainly wish you the best in all your endeavors. I hope you in time can come along to my way of thinking that it is babies that need your protection and eloquent defense much more than reproductive freedom ever did,

Dave Roller

An Open Letter to the NRA

Dear National Rifle Association.

I am sure that your leadership is viewing the events at Sandy Hook this past weekend the same way the rest of the country is, tragic, horrific, needless and sad.  Many of your membership are educators and countless members parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts of school children.  I am sure you will mourn with the families of the victims as they are laid to rest this week.  Then I imagine you will go on the defensive as you prepare for a governmental and public outcry to restrict your second amendment rights.

I write you today to discourage the last action.  Now let me explain that I am neither a gun or anti gun zealot.  I am only zealous for a few things,  like Homeschooling, The Chicago White Sox and Sterzing's Potato Chips and not zealous enough in others like personal holiness.  That is to say I usually don't have a horse in the race which is gun rights.

However, since I do have a wife who is a school psychologist who sees caring for the children in her school as one of her callings for God much like the School Psychologist killed at Sandy Hook and since I have a first grader who loves to draw and encourage people like at least one of the 20 first graders shot multiple times at Sandy Hook and since I myself would do anything in my power to protect and shield children from danger like the heroic educators living and dead at Sandy Hook, I am putting a horse in this particular race.

It is important and fundamental that the N.R.A. be at the helm of protecting  not only your right to bear arms but also the safety and well being of the citizenry that you bear arms for.  Last year I attended one of your young hunters traiining classes with my son.  He was trained in orienteering, archery and other hunting skills.  He was also taught gun safety and the idea that guns, bullets, bows and arrows are tools to be used properly.

That educational wing of yor advocacy group not the legal wing need to be in the forefront in the weeks and months to come after this national tragedy which  hopefully is  not just another domino in the gun related tragedies of recent memory. 

And when it comes to the legal wing, surely some concessions can be made for the saftety of all.  If the N.R.A became known as a force for regulating gun use along side advocating the safe use of guns for recreation, by,   provision for and protection of our loved ones this would go a long way into strenghting your image in the 21st century.  The time for carrying a big stick will come, now is the time for walking softly.

Love,'

Dave

An Open Letter to Tim of Families Again

I really like The Men's Monday Meme that appears each week at Families Again. I feel sympathy for Tim, as it seems that very few people participate each week. No one hardly ever participates in my Things Fortnightly. Perhaps a week from Thursday, he'd like to give it a go (Subtlety has never been my strong suit.)



I don't always know how to set up my answers. Should I just have you click here to read Tim's article? Should I spend a few paragraphs explaining it? The main point of this week's rant (his words not mine) was that churches seem to judge some sins and turn a blind eye to others. His questions for any men to answer this week were:



What do you think about my above rant? Am I being to harsh on churches and Christians? Are there certain folks that should not be allowed into a church because of their sinful behavior?



As you may have surmised by the title, I have decided to answers Tim's questions directly this week.



Dear Tim,



Thanks for mentioning me in your post last week. There have been a few of your meme's I have wanted to participate in over the past few weeks. I just have not had the time or could not find the words to express my feelings appropriately.



This week's post really got me to thinking. It made me think of my college years in the late 80's early '90s. At the time, homosexuality was much less accepted even by the non Christian public than it is now. Each year on our campus the Gay Student group would participate in an event called Denim days. You were supposed to signify your acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle by wearing jeans. I always thought this was a bit of a trick since jeans were (and probably still are) the clothing of choice on a college campus. It would be like telling a group of motorists to signify their support of a tax hike by having air in their tires. In order to "speak against" homosexuality many people had to plan their attire in advance.



This was a very emotional time on campus and many unchristian and hypocritical things were voiced or acted out against homosexuals. At the time, I wrote many op-ed pieces for the campus newspaper. I decided to write a piece that pointed out the hypocrisy of using the Bible to condemn one sexual sin when a vast amount of students were practicing other more conventional ones. I argued that all sex outside marriage between and a woman was sin and not just the same sex ones.



In my article I did speak out against homosexuality, but since I also spoke out against other sexual acts and hypocrisy, many in the homosexual movement embraced my article. I was even asked to read it at a campus gathering on the issue.



So, Tim, I must say that I understand and agree with your rant. We can't pick and choose what sins are horrible and what sins are just bad. Now I Corinthians 6:18 does say: Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. (NIV) However, I think that is a reason to flee from sexual sins, not a reason to say that those sins should be considered better or worse when compared to other sins.



After all. all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and not everyone has sinned sexually. The result of any sin is death (Romans 6:23) and Jesus died to forgive sins (1 Corinthians 15:3). He didn't have to die twice for the sexual sinners and only once for the liars.



In answer to your question as to whether you were being too harsh. I think only you can answer that question. If handled improperly, blogging could become a platform for the kind of gossiping you and scripture rightfully condemn. Personally, it doesn't sound to me like you were gossiping, because a) you didn't name names and b) you gave general examples. However, If there are specific people in your church who are committing the sin of gossiping, have you brought it to their attention following the scriptural model?

I will answer your question as to whether there are certain folks that should not be allowed into a church because of their sinful behavior once I've made a distinction. The church is not a building, the church is a body of believers. I Corinthians 5:9-13 says

9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders?Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13God judges those outside."Purge the evil person from among you."

Too often we judge those outside of the church. It is those that claim to be believers and continue in sin that we are to remove from the body, not from the building. The purpose of this removal is always repentance. Earlier I referenced the Biblical model of addressing sin to a believer. As I am sure you know, it is found in Matthew 18:15-17. In the NIV it reads like this:

15"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

I think Biblical discipline intertwines Matt 18:15-17 and I Corinthians 5:9-13. Such a model was used at a church I was a member of a few years before I got married. At the time, I was involved in sins that no one at the church was aware of. When the church followed this scriptural method on a friend of mine involved in a similar pattern of sins, it was the first step God used in bringing me to repentance, restoration and eventually marriage as the forces of darkness were using my sinful pattern of behavior make me feel unworthy of God and marriage. I left the state to court my wife prior to finding out what happened to my friend. But the process of expelling an immoral believer had a profound impact on the spiritual life of myself and many others in my church. More so than gossiping or judgemental hypocrisy ever could.

Thanks Tim for bringing up such an important topic and reminding me of the power a Biblical acting church can have on a believer in persistent sin.

Dave (Home School Dad)

Next Time: Good Help and a Good Book is hard to find.

Dear WFMW

I haven't participated in Works for Me Wednesday for quite a while. Today's WFMW is a backwards edition. In essence: you state what doesn't work for you and hope the blogosphere will help you resolve it. It reminds me a little of an advice column. SO I composed an open letter.

Dear WFMW,

My wife and I have been having problems recently with our four year old. Even though she has little to no trouble going to bed in her room. She regularly wakes up in ours. Between 4 am and 6 am she makes the commute and often wakes up my wife with requests for food and or attention. We have tried many things: bribery, a gate and several others. Nothing seems to work when we put up the gate, she either climbs over it or screams until I have to go and deal with her. What we'd like her to do is stay in her bed, or climb up on to her sister's bunk. But most nights she heads on over to our room. We did not have this as a regular occurrence with our first two children.

Is there anything that we can do? Because having our (mostly my wife's sleep disturbed each night) does notwork for us!

Sleep deprived in Suburbia

For more Backwards WFMW head on over to We Are That Family.

Next Time: Things Fortnightly

An Open Letter to Michelle of Psalm 104:24

Dear Michelle,

A year or so ago I discovered your excellent blog. I am not quite sure how exactly, probably through WFMW but maybe by some other means. You had a nifty little thing going called Three Things This Thursday. You would tell 3 things going on with your life including a Lost update and then give others in the Blogoverse the opportunity to share. 3TTT had me at hello. I became a frequent contributor and this Fall, due to a series of circumstances, you handed over the torch of your great little idea to me.

And It just tanked! Well, that's not quite true. But I feel like under my watch, it did not blossom in the way, I hoped it would. So, this winter, I did some tweaking.


At the beginning of 2010 I changed the name from 3 Things This Thursday to Some Things This Thursday so people would not be limited to 3 things. That name didn't stick in my mind, So I have been calling it Things This Thursday. Over the past few months this feature, which was a great joy when you were doing it, has become increasingly burdensome to me. It seems each week I am up against a time constraint and it gets in the way of other blogging I want to do.

So, Michelle, I know you think you know what's coming that I'm saying goodbye to good old 3TTT. In a way, I am. I have decided to make a change that will allow me to continue giving random tidbits but not be tied into it on a weekly basis. I will be publishing my "things" on a biweekly basis. I am also making one more (hopefully final) name change. The new name? Things Fortnightly. Catchy, huh?

If you ever decide that you want 3TTT back you can have it and I will gladly continue TF on a day other than Thursday. In that case, I would probably link my things to yours as that was always my favorite part.

I hope you are doing well. I have a meme to continue so I will bring this fake letter to a close.

A Fellow Blogger in Christ,

Home School Dad.

And now here is the first edition of Things Fortnightly . . .

1. I love the word fortnightly.

Maybe it's the Jane Austen fan in me, but for whatever reason I love the concept of a fortnight. I used to be hyper vigilant on it's use (or in this case misuse). My SIL who is from a part of the world that fortnight is still in the vernacular once used fortnight to refer to something other than an exact 14 day period. I was quick to correct (incorrect) her and I don't think her Irish eyes were smiling when she informed me that a fortnight is generally used as a period of approximately two weeks not exactly a 336 hour event. Yes I know how many hours are in a two week period by rote. They don't call me, scary math guy for nothing.

So when I decided to do things every other week I jumped at the chance to use fortnightly in the title.

2. Lucyism

The other night Amy asked Lucy, What do you want to be when you grow up?
Lucy says: I don' t know, maybe a ballerina, or a teacher? I know, I want to be everything! Wait, I don't have the clothes for that...

3. Chuck Update

It is great when a television program hits it's stride. The action, direction and story telling all come together until it seems that each week the show is the best it's ever been. I have been watching Star Trek the Next Generation season 3 with my kids and season 3&4 is when that show hit it's stride. The British T.V. program Robin Hood hit it's stride for me in season 2. I remember watching episode after episode on d.v.d. and I would just shout out to the t.v. "This show is great!"

This past Monday night, Chuck hit it's stride. The Star of Chuck, Zach Levi, made his directorial debut in the episode Chuck Versus the Beard. If you have not seen it you can watch it free on Hulu. This episode has it all hilarity, secrets revealed, suspense, and action, action, and more action. It is easily the best Chuck episode I've ever scene and the ending gives me every reason to believe that the best can be improved on.

4. D.C. Talk -

Our trip to Washington D.C is inching closer and closer. We are getting excited. One thing we will be doing on the way there is making a side trip to the "Walton's Mountain" area where the writer of the book that inspired the Walton's grew up.

Today we are heading over to visit where our bunny will stay when we go on our trip. He will have another homeschooled boy bunny to hang out with, so that place will be hopping.

Those are all the thing's I've got going for this edition. Se you in 2 weeks for the next fun filled episode of Things Fortnightly.

Feel free to share some things of your own by linking your post below.

Next Time: Get thee to a Bakery

An Open Letter to My Narnia Classes

Dear Narnia Students.

30 years ago I embarked on a journey. I heard my first Narnia story. I am not sure whether it was how Aslan died for Edmund, or how Eustace turned into a dragon or how Aslan changed him back. It may have been about a mouse's courage, or a horse's boy. Those stories that I heard read to me, or later read myself, had an impact on my life.

An impact that continues to grow to this day. It has been my delight to share those stories with you. It has also been a joy to see the impact these stories are having on you. I can see how much Narnia means to you from your involvement in class, the projects you've done and the stories you've written.

C.S. Lewis was able to put important spiritual truth in a fantastic world. Aslan, as you know, represents God. Here are examples based on what we read this semester.

• In The Magician's Nephew, Aslan creates the world and puts into motion a plan to save Narnia from the evil Digory brought into the world. In the book of Genesis, Jesus creates the world and God puts into motion a plan to save us from the evil Adam and Eve helped bring into our world.
• In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan dies for Edmund and comes back to life because He was innocent. In the Gospels we see how Jesus died for the sins of the world and how God brought His son back to life, because he was sinless.
• In A Horse and His Boy, Aslan saves a baby in a boat and then uses that baby (as a boy) to save Narnia from destruction. In the book of Exodus, God saves a baby in a boat and then uses that baby (as a man) to save His people from slavery.

There are so many more spiritual tie-ins, but at it’s heart, Narnia is great stories told by a great storyteller. It has been my pleasure to share Narnia with you this semester. I hope you will join me next year to finish the series and take the adventure Aslan gives us.

To Narnia and the North,

Mr. Roller.

An open letter to the car behind me II

Warning: This article may contain sarcasm.

Dear Car Behind Me:

It happened again as it usually does on my first bike ride of the spring. It doesn't always happen the same exact way. This year, my wife dropped me off at the bike shop where my bike was being tuned up. I hit the bike trail for my first cycling of the year. Now I am not quite the cyclist I once was, but even in my heyday no one was confusing me with Lance Armstrong. Mainly because he was 6 in my hey day. For a 10 year period I cycled 100 or more miles a week. For the last 10-15 years I have biked less and less but for the past couple of years I have been getting back into it.

Now I am not one of these dangerous people. I wear a helmet, I mostly bike on trails and when I do bike on roads, I stay as close to the line as possible and when possible I bike on the shoulder. I use proper signalling techniques. I even stop at all stop signs which is uncommon for many cyclists. At 44, I can use all the rests I can get.

Yet that doesn't stop people like you from honking at me. When you honked at me I was no more than 2 inches off the line. Did you think a loud noise startling me from behind would be prone to keep me at a safe distance from you? If you ever have to take a field sobriety test ask the officer to blow an air horn halfway through your walk and see how you do.

Every year as energy and cost concerns increase, media outlets champion the idea of cycling to work. Who wants to bike to work while people are blaring their displeasure on us? Isn't that what awaits us on the job?

Please dear motorist, cyclists have a right to the road. During the cycling months you will just need to pay more special attention and pass us with caution. I mean, we're cyclists! You won't be behind us long.

Next Time: The Run Around Place

Random Postings: An open letter to the car behind me.

In 2001 I wrote the following letter for our family website:



Dear Car Behind me 7:30 p.m September 1st exiting Elk Grove Bowl Parking lot onto Southbound Arlington Heights,


Yesterday as my wife, daughter and I were heading home from dinner at the Rose Garden restaurant in Elk Grove we were making a left out of the parking lot of The Grove Shopping Center on the corner of Arlington Heights Road. We were joined by you on our tail. My wife, who is probably the worlds best and safest driver, was waiting for traffic on both sides to subside before making our turn.

This is when you, in your 2nd row mentality, decided that you could see the traffic better behind our minivan than we could ahead of you. So you blared on your horn, indicating that we really should be turning at that exact moment and make you wait no longer. Well, Superman, (A reference to your x-ray vision; being able to see past our car to the ongoing traffic) not 3 seconds after you honked, a northbound car barreled past us.

This means that if we took your horn blowing advice, and stuck our cars nose out in traffic, that most likely my wife, myself, and my daughter and our unborn child would be dead right now. My daughter would not have turned two today. The house in Carpentersville we moved into yesterday would have never been lived in by us, nor paid off by us, saddling our parents with grief and debt.

Fortunately, as disconcerting as your second row salute was, my wife did not go until the coast was actually clear. You, then had the audacity to catch up with us and give my wife a glare! Don't you realize, that if we did take your advice and got smashed up, you would have most likely been even further delayed than you were. When we both stopped at the light at Landmeier it was all I could do to not roll my window down and give you an earful.

This has happened to me so many times before. We live in an area of congested traffic, driving in front of people who honk the horn at us before the light turns green. If you guys are so quick on the draw, how come you generally are behind me ?

So car behind me, next time you are second in line behind somebody else: try to remember that it's not just a car you are behind, it is people!

Love,

Dave Roller

A little perspective: I sent a copy of letter to our local newspaper and they advised me it would be published on September 12, 2001. I don't believe the newspaper evcer published it due to more serious matters from that time period.

Next Time: Give me a Break