Letters to the Editor

Thanks for the help in Lynnwood

We live in Everett. On Dec. 29 my wife (Dee) and I were going to Half-Price Books in Lynnwood right after lunch. I went to one section and she looked somewhere else. She came to where I was. She got down on her knees to help me look. I decided one book was enough and helped her up as she was complaining about her leg. I took her arm and started to the counter. We were one person away when she started to go down. A gentleman behind us found a chair for her.

We only parked 60 feet away from the door. She thought we could make it to the car. Thirty feet from the car she went down to her knees and sat on her feet. I still didn’t know what was wrong with her. We had drawn a pretty good sized crowd. Someone got her a chair. A man lifted her up on to it. Someone came with a water bottle.

She is a Type I diabetic. Since we had just had lunch and her blood sugar was 112 before lunch, I didn’t think it was her sugar. I gave her two glucose tablets anyway. A woman got a blanket to keep her warm. Someone called an aid car. It came. They checked her sugar right away; it was 38. They got her into the aid car, gave her some orange drink. I went and got her a sandwich as per their instructions. She acted like a different person in a short time.

I want to thank anyone and all of you who helped us (including the aid car crew).

They were all wonderful. Thank you very much.

Don G. Kirkpatrick

Everett

Neighborhoods paying the price for growth

I moved back to this area 40 years ago when I was 15. I was a lonely and confused kid. I met my best friend in high school in the woods surrounding our neighborhood. My first girlfriend was his sister. As we hid behind the trees during a game of hide-and-seek, we kissed for the first time. I was still confused, but I wasn’t lonely.

I’m raising my own family in Edmonds. We live very close to a forested green belt that draws neighborhood kids of all ages. On Earth Day we come together and clean out the rubbish from the forest. Mothers push their babies to the playground at the elementary school adjacent to the woods. We love our neighborhood.

The neighborhoods in Edmonds are changing. Ninety-six percent of all developable land in Edmonds has been developed. The last four percent is in ravines and on hills covered by trees. Most, if not all, of the trees have been cleared for Planned Residential Developments (PRDs).

Zoning laws have been changed that allow three houses where two stood before. The greater density in the single family residential areas yields more traffic and noise. More traffic is dangerous for our children because the city can’t afford to build sidewalks in neighborhoods.

Growth is inevitable. However, if we must grow, let’s not grow at the expense of our neighborhoods and the woods where our children play. We can sustain our growth and keep traffic out of the neighborhoods by redeveloping outdated strip malls and buildings into mixed use developments along arterials where transit buses run.

Electronics do not teach social skills or prevent loneliness for kids. Safe neighborhoods do. I’d like my boys to have the opportunity to create great memories they’ll never forget. Let’s save our neighborhoods.

Don Kreiman

Edmonds