Dear Editor,

Taking a moment before the weekend bleeds into another workweek and an illustrative event is lost.
Back in the late afternoon January 7, I witnessed some bad behavior on Main Street, some excellent behavior on Main Street, and, finally, directly experienced dedication and kindness from our city manager.
First, the bad behavior: As I sat at my desk working to finish off my weekly updates, there was a very loud noise followed by a rather loud scraping noise out in front of our house.
My first intuition was that an automotive accident had occurred. But upon inspection, I noticed a large semi-truck, loaded with a taller than a normal shipping container, paused just past my driveway. Stuck beneath the rear trailer axle was a large branch, perhaps 6-8 inches in diameter. Rather than stop and investigate, he just continued, ignoring both the damage and the inconvenience he left behind, as the large branch now blocked the southbound lane on Main Street, as well as my driveway.
This was immediately followed by good behavior demonstrated by a young man riding in a car now stopped by the branch. While others behind the branch were impatiently honking or trying to go around, he leapt out of the passenger door and began dragging the branch off to the side. Upon noticing that the longer branches were beginning to get into my shrubs and landscaping he took time to run around and break those off to clear my landscaping. All of this happened so fast it was all we could do to get downstairs and shout thanks as he got back into the car and they drove off.
So with the traffic now flowing freely once again on Main Street, the sidewalk is blocked. As I don’t have a chain saw, I called the city offices and left a message for Jonathan Smith our City Manager. Since it was the end of the day, I did not expect much to come of it and put on my jacket and gloves to see what I could accomplish with my cordless Sawzall, thinking I could perhaps at least clear the walk and drive by cutting off a few of the smaller branches. I had no sooner started when a pickup truck pulled over, put on his flashers and Jonathan Smith came around and said, “Thanks for calling, don’t worry I’ll take care of this.”
Over the next 30 minutes, I watched from the comfort of my front room as he loaded his pick-up with the smaller stuff and returned empty a few minutes later, this time bringing a chainsaw. He made short work of the rest of it and then raked the remaining bits.
So this is a shout-out to our hands-on city manager.
Thanks for your dedication and kindness.

Sincerely,
Jim and Sandy Markwalder
Clarkston