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Voice of the People
It was a beautiful day. My 14 year old son and I were riding the bike
trail. We headed west from Chesterton enroute to Portage. Almost everyone we
passed gave us some type of acknowledgement and friendly greeting. We saw
cyclists, roller bladers, joggers, walkers and a friend pushing her son in a
stroller.
We turned around at Samuelson Rd. in Portage and headed back. When we got
back into town to 19th St. we decided to part our ways since my son had
other commitments (as most teenagers do!). I took my bike home and decided
to go back and walk the trail since I lived so close. I walked east, again
from 19th St. towards Jackson Blvd. when I came upon the building on the
north side of the trail, and I thought of all of the visitors we get using
the trial from other towns.
Imagine this: you start your journey from the west end of the bike trail,
(forgive me if I’m wrong, but I believe is somewhere in or near Hobart, IN)
or from anywhere west of Chesterton. You want to go all the way to the east
end of the trail (and, of course, back). You are almost to the end. You pass
19th St. and your face lights up at the sight of which appears to be a nice
building that probably is a restroom with a drinking fountain. As you pull
up or get to it your face turns from joy to a look of disappointment and
then disgust. You see the doors deadbolted shut and covered with graffiti
and the drinking fountain that looked so good from a distance was filled
with garbage and obviously not maintained for quite some time. They say to
themselves, “This is Chesterton?”
Is this the welcome we want to give our visitors, our guests? I can’t
imagine it is. For that moment I couldn’t say that I was proud to be a
citizen here.
I can only hope that this message will reach the proper people in this town
and that it may result in an improvement that will benefit not only our
visitors but us as citizens also.
Concerned citizen
Gwen Lane
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Posted 7/3/2006
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