A disenting view from an irate reader.

From: Allison Nicole Ashley alley_cat5183@yahoo.com
Subject: The only stink in preble is you!
Date: December 24, 2003 6:38:46 PM EST
To: frank@prebleny.com

In case you haven't realized Preble is a farming community, and has been for many years. The farmers in the Town of Preble have done more for the community than people like you. If you are so concerned about the Town of Preble, why don't you get involved in the community, instead of whining about everything. What do you do for the Town of Preble other than complain about everything that goes on? Are you in the fire department? Are you on the recreation committee? Maybe you should move back to wherever you came from because this town has survived for many years without people like you.
Also if you haven't ever heard, if you have something bad to say about a farmer then don't talk with your mouth full.

Let's see if you put this on your web page!

Here you go Allison. And Merry Christmas to you too.


Note: This may be a bogus person. An email reply was returned with the following:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

alley_cat5183@yahoo.com
SMTP error from remote mailer after end of data:
host mx1.mail.yahoo.com [64.157.4.78]: 554 delivery error:
dd Sorry, your message to alley_cat5183@yahoo.com cannot be delivered. This account is over quota. - mta118.mail.sc5.yahoo.com

However, as the email, bogus or not, represents a view held by others I have decided to publish it and my reply below.

Dear Allison Nicole Ashley,

I am very aware that Preble is a farming community, or rather it might be better to say it 'was' a farming community. In the twenty or so years I've been here the farmers have been selling off their land so people like me can buy it and move in. The land is still dominated by farms but I'm guessing that there are more non-farmers here than farmers. Preble is changing, like it or not, and there is nothing that you or I can do about that. For the last few years I have worked to keep Preble like it is and have tried to prevent bad things from coming here that would destroy Preble. Bad things like Flying J. But what have I done besides that? I was the VP of the Song Lake Association for two years and President for another two after that. I've maintained this site to inform people like you about what happens in Preble. It was this site and my efforts that informed everyone about the Nitrate problem so they could take measures to protect their health. No, I'm not on the fire department or the recreation committee but I could join. How about the Garden Club or the 4H Club? I could join them all and go to their meetings. Let's get serious, do you really think they would like me looking closely at what they are doing?

But you are right about one thing, and that is this town has survived without people like me. It has been run by a small group of people that do things that enrich themselves to the detriment of everyone else. I'm trying to stop that by exposing what they do. You call that whining. You would like me to leave and go back to where I came from because you don't like what I write about here on the site. Why do you read it then?

And your last comment about talking with my mouth full. Yes indeed farmers do provide all of us with food to eat. But they couldn't do that without engineers to design their tractors, factory workers to build them. Oil workers to provide fuel, doctors to take care of their health, druggists to provide medicine. Need I go on? We live in an interconnected society where everyone is important and no one is more important that anyone else. But to answer your question directly, I make teeth, crowns or caps as most think of them. And if it wasn't for me your farmers couldn't chew that mouthful of food. Doesn't that make me more important than them? No, of course not. We all need each other and the sooner everyone realizes that and stops trying to be held above the rest of us the better.

I am but the messenger of bad news, not the cause of it.

Frank Hogg