posted March 23, 2008
Dear Congressman Wamp:
Mother always told me it wasn't polite for a lady to tell her age after she reaches 21. With that in mind I'll be celebrating the 34th anniversary of my 21st birthday in about two months. I've raised three children to their age of majority, with much restraint on my part from time to time when they were teenagers.
My oldest is 28 and the youngest is 24. One of them is a U.S. Marine like his father, my husband. We own a small business. We employ others and make a payroll every week. My children are all gainfully employed, elsewhere. We're current on all of our bills, including our home mortgage, and need no assistance or "government bail outs" of our finances.
Although we are not currently your constituents, we own property in your district and will be residents in the next several years so we will be, or we'll be constituents of your successor.
We lost my father last year, in 2007. Daddy always said he had raised me and my brother to be our own people, but that in my case he may have created a monster. That being stated, I don't like riding a bicycle. I don't like to exercise just to be exercising, but have been known to wear teenage girls out when playing shop-til-we-drop. They drop. I drive them home.
At 5'2" and 106 pounds, I don't believe I really need to be concerned with my weight. If others need to be concerned about their weight or physical condition, that's their concern not mine or anyone else's. It most especially is not the concern of the federal government.
It is a waste of time and taxpayer money to even think about a federal law dictating when, where, how, how much, or why a citizen shall ride any mode of transportation than what they want to ride.
I'm a big girl, Congressman Wamp. My husband and I have raised our children. We don't need anyone to be our nanny at this stage of our lives and neither do the citizens of this country.
Maybe I had better correct this last statement, most of us do not need a nanny. Some will ask to be taken care of, but maybe those need to be told to grow up and stand on their own two feet like an adult. If they don't want to stand on their own, well, maybe they need to go ask their mothers to take care of them again.
Thank you, Mr. Congressman.
Barbara Fields
Stallings, N.C.
Barb1217@bellsouth.net
* * *
If a person doesn't want to ride a bicycle, fine. I have in the past, but prefer to exercise in other ways. Just remember, even though you weigh 106 pounds and can shop until you drop, that doesn't mean you are in good physical shape. It just means you are skinny.
That being said, I'm glad you have accomplished everything you have, but just remember, unless you homeschooled your kids, I as a taxpayer with no kids have funded their education. Also, you can rest assured I have never regretted it, either. Educating our kids is one of the best ways we can make sure we have a future as a nation.
Another way we can assure our future is to wean ourselves from finite dwindling energy resources. Fact is, sometimes we need to be reminded of it, too. Using less energy, fighting childhood obesity, and having nicer air to breathe are all byproducts of more bicycling. That was the intent of the resolution and I guess it was intended for those of us not as perfect, independent, or successful as yourself.
Wes Ellis
Hixson
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