Louis Roney: Thoughts for a New Year

• Here on the dawn of a New Year is a welcome time to get all the objectionable things (and people) out of our lives. Let’s move forward into 2014 with smiling optimism and only things and trustworthy people dear to us who inspire us with joy.

• Our hailed exciting inspiration at Christmastime is shared by many millions throughout the world, and viewed with dismay by others, who do not understand in their hearts what the “spirit of Christmas” portends.

• For 30 some-odd years I have been writing this article “Play On!” in the Observer. I love this newspaper very much and the kind of local articles it is able to cover in depth. Thriving small-town newspapers are, I hear, ever more rare, and the Observer’s longevity and positive outlook make me happy indeed.

• For many years I was a close friend of a man who was a powerhouse in Central Florida business and society. One day the local daily morning newspaper carried an article referring to a possible dishonest act on this man’s part. Before I left my house to teach at UCF, the phone rang and my friend said, “They have written something bad about me in today’s paper. You are the first person I have called to tell you that what the paper wrote is not true.” I answered, “I am flattered that you called me, but it was not necessary.” “Why not?” he asked. “Because I know you, Frank,” I said.

• I am glad to say that the Christmastime and New Year’s spate of football games on TV brings me much pleasure. Thinking back on my days in WPHS where I played football, I remember only an occasional Saturday afternoon radio broadcast of a single game from some college somewhere in the U.S.

• Remembering my many years of working in Germany where the practice of medicine is socialized, I recall that I was hard put to get medical treatment comparable to what we get here in America. Visiting a doctor’s office recently, I became aware of the plight of our own doctors who soon may be forced to practice medicine according to rules over which they have no control. I say, “Let skilled experts work on our cars as they see fit, and leave expert doctors alone to practice medicine as they see fit!”

• Everything the government “invents” seems to be a project that costs a heap of money, and starts a flow of expenses that never stops. People who are able to get politicians working on their favorite projects are usually turning on a spigot that sets up an unending stream of our tax dollars.

• We are still remembering the gratitude we have felt for the excellent doctors who delivered my b.w. from the throes of leukemia. She is now free of the scourge for five years, but there was a time when her life hung in the balance.

• Winter Park’s citizens have, since the late 1880s, considered their town as “something special,” a place to be preserved and watched over in ways that can hinder ugliness and suburban sprawl. There are few Park and Interlachen Avenues left in the U.S., and they conserve the best of yesterday and today without curtailing the progress that every healthy community needs.

• “If the public is bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” — Candidus, The Boston Gazette, 1772

Do you recognize any similarities today? The ultimate power in our land should be given to one who is good, natch, but also is the most capable person we can find.

Power is in many ways like money and sex appeal: “First you use it, then you abuse it, and finally you lose it.” — Anonymous. “The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.” —Lord Thomas Macaulay.

Amen!