SPEAKOUT

Do unto others...

MONDAY I was at a local grocery store in line to check out. I can't believe how some people treat other human beings. A customer was upset because of store policy. The checker called the manager over. He said let the customer have what he wanted. After that, she told the customer she had to ask the manager, it was not her place to say. The customer told the real nice sales clerk to shut up. He said it two or three times, you just shut up, just shut up. I felt sorry for the checker. Then after that, he said if you drop any of my glass jars, my groceries, you will pay for it. I was next in line. I told the customer you should not talk to another human being like that. I would just like to say to that rude customer: Jesus loves you.

License logo column

I WOULD just like say I thoroughly enjoyed the column Mark Bliss wrote about the logo on the Missouri license plate. Good job, Mark. Keep it up.

Old hospital's future

CAN YOU tell me why people don't want the old St. Francis tore down and make it look like a wonderful building to be proud of? St. Francis saved many a life, and I think that is a disgrace for that building to be in the shape it is in the first place. If Cape Girardeau would of had some common sense, it should have taken the old St. Francis Hospital and made a beautiful senior citizen home out of. But now it's too late. It's been damaged, and now it should be torn down and make a nice building there that we all can look at. Why not clean up that end of town? Why not put nice buildings in there? I think it needs a pickup. And why put it up north or south, close to the river and places like that when that place needs to be picked up too? I think it's about time people wake up in Cape Girardeau. I know. I used to live there, and that is an eyesore, and it makes you sick to think of the old St. Francis Hospital in such a condition.

Gas-price competition

I WOULD like to add my voice to the comments on the markedly increased gas prices here in Cape Girardeau. I've just traveled to St. Louis and also to Memphis. Arkansas gas prices, for years, have always been four to six cents higher than here in Missouri. Well, Cape Girardeau is the highest gas price I paid for gas in all my travels, by some four, six, even nine cents per gallon. What we need in Cape is more competition. Come on, somebody, go into competition with these guys. You'll make plenty of money.

Throwaway kid

I DIDN'T know Alice Canfield, the 13-year-old who died recently at Cottonwood. She was a throwaway kid. No political connections, no financial resources. She experienced some type of abuse in her life that caused her serious psychiatric problems and landed her in Cottonwood. Her arms were held so tightly behind to subdue her she could not breathe or speak to tell her holder that she was in trouble nor move during the take down. It would seem that sometime during that 20-minute episode there were indications she was losing consciousness. But lo and behold, no charges have been filed by the prosecuting attorney. Oh, well, she was just a throwaway kid. At least today people who will read this will think about Alice and maybe think about their own daughters.

Inquisitive retailers

IN MARC Powers' column in Wednesday's paper, he complained on business people asking too many personal questions when purchasing merchandise. He admitted that college buddies used names other than their own to cheat tape and CD mail-order companies. Maybe retailers should give credit checks to weed out these cheating thieves. Come to think of it, maybe your good old buddies used your name, and now you're on a don't-pay-your-bills list.

President is fine man

ABOUT SEN. Bond's comments about President Clinton taking credit for the Republican agenda. I've been around here for 80 years, and I know Democrats in their right mind would do that. We have a fine man as president and the sorriest Republican party. They want no health care, no raise on minimum wage. Every Democrat who occupies the White House as president has more trouble with the Republican Party than the foreign countries. Their main goal is to get them out anyway they can. We can't have that.

Great things at Central

A BIG thank you to the cast, crew and orchestra for the superb presentation of "Oklahoma." Great things are happening at Cape Central High School.

Tragedy shows incompetence

THE RON Brown tragedy is just an example of the Democrats' incompetency. Nobody knew where anybody else was, how they got there or even where they were supposed to be. Now that's a shame that that's the type of heads of government we have right now.

Uniform colors

I'D JUST like to say that I think the kids wearing uniforms at St. Vincent's look really sharp. But now they've sent home letters regarding the kelly green Bobcat sweatshirts. True, it's not part of the uniform, but kelly green has been part of the uniform for how long now? Also, what about those people who did not order the hunter green sweatshirts? Come next school year, they're just out of luck. If you're going to be sticklers regarding color, at least have the product year around or find someone who can, preferably someone in town.

HERE LAST week they were talking about the price of crude oil and how that raised the price of gas. Well, I just came back from Dexter, and gasoline is $1.05. At Charleston, gas was $1.01. And here in Cape it's $1.15 to $1.16. I saw one of the delivery trucks down there dumping gas from right here in Cape Girardeau, and he gets it down here at Scott City at the same pump plant. I think something needs to be checked into. Crude oil can't make a difference from $1.15 to $1.16 in Cape and in Dexter and Charleston $1.01 to $1.05.