Painting the Playground

As a one-day-a-week child-care provider for the lovely Madelyn Simone, (her Nana days), I’ve spent many a spring and summer afternoon at the many playgrounds scattered between Canton and Ashland. Many still resemble the playgrounds of my youth, with swing sets, metal slides and merry-go-rounds, although we haven’t encountered a teeter-totter in our explorations. Remembering the blistering hot temperature of the slide against my bare skin, and a massive wipeout at Veteran’s Park when I missed my connection with the merry-go-round, I issue words of caution as we undertake our playground adventures. However, I also know that a skinned knee is small payment for the socialization experiences and the large motor skills being honed at the playground.

What I’ve discovered is that play areas for children in at least some municipalities and school districts have suffered from lack of funds and/or attention in recent years. I’m not suggesting that every playground needs modern equipment, as Madelyn is content to swing on the swings until the cows come home, but many would benefit from a new layer of mulch or a fresh coat of paint.

As my problem-solving mode kicked into gear, I began to think about how we could gather people together to spruce-up our local play areas, even checking out the Kaboom! website for potential funding options.

But wait a minute. I’m not talking about play areas like the Salvation Army Kroc Center, funded and maintained primarily by private dollars. No, nearly all of the playgrounds we’ve visited are either city, county or school-based, paid for by your tax dollars and mine. But since local communities and school districts are squeezed for money, the needs at the bottom of the priority list (like parks and playgrounds) may not get the attention they deserve. We make the same decisions with our personal budgets when we opt for home safety repairs rather than cosmetic touch-ups.

What does government do when there isn’t enough money to paint the playground? It either decreases spending or it raises taxes. In an incredibly complicated system of taxation (income tax, capital gains, gasoline, sales, real estate, specific levies, etc.), one way is relatively simple: raise the rate at which a person’s income is taxed. Little by little, the piece of our income pie that goes to fund government services gets bigger. Unless the size of our personal income pie increases, our disposable income shrinks, a sliver at a time.

Another way for government to increase its revenue is to enact a sales tax. Have you checked out your cell phone bill recently? A tax of about 6% is withheld, along with the Federal Universal Service Charge, the OH TRS Surcharge, and the OH Reg Fee. Fill your gas tank – pay tax. Get a tattoo or massage – pay tax. Use natural gas to heat your home – pay a gross receipts state tax that increased to 4.987% last September. Apparently the gas company had difficulty with that multiplication too, because they just dunned us to make up the difference between the old rate and the new.

Those in the know determine that Americans pay about 30% of their income in taxes. This percentage is up from the 5% rate in 1910, but has allegedly remained steady-ish for a number of years. In contrast, residents of France pay 53% of their income in taxes, so scratch a proposed relocation to Paris. 

With an increase in municipal income taxes proposed for the ballot in November, along with the struggles the country is facing, we as a community are faced with this question: what should government provide for us? And how big a slice of our income pie should the city, county, state and feds enjoy?

There are no easy answers to funding the services we’ve grown accustomed to and can’t provide on our own. Unless we can somehow entice LeBron James or Johnny Football to move into town and float the city budget for us, we do need to pay our fair share to maintain a safe community. But how much is too much, and what should we expect from paying our fair share? Here’s hoping for some open dialogue before we head to the ballot box in November.

Sheep and a Shepherd

In spite of my flourishing garden patch, I am definitely not a farm kind of girl. I grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, and worked most of my adult life in the urban sprawl of North Jersey, the narrow streets of Philadelphia, the ghetto of Cleveland, and the changing face of Canton. Life in a more rural Ashland has been quite a contrast for me, even though I live “in town.”

I also have not been much of an animal person over the years. Yes, there was the escapee hamster that terrorized us with his nocturnal wanderings for a few nights, and Spartacus, our son’s dog with a perpetual sense of wanderlust, but, apart from my grand-dogs, my involvement with animals has been as limited as my farm experience.

So it was with a slight degree of trepidation and much curiosity that I visited Hado-Bar Farm, the home and workplace of Judith Toth Bigham, a regular attendee at the Kroc Center writer’s group I facilitate on the second Thursday of each month. Participants are invited to read their work-in-progress, and so I’d had a glimpse into Judi’s vocation as an all-breed stockdog trainer through her writing. But it wasn’t until I actually stepped foot on her Nova farm that I realized the full scope of her work, day in and day out.

Here’s the secret to stockdog training: you need sheep, a herd of sheep. Currently, Judi has about seventy sheep, a working flock of Cheviot, Barbados Blackbelly, and Katahdin crossbreds, along with a few lambs not ready to be put to work – and each one has a name.

As we walked into the barn at feeding time, I was astounded at the sound echoing off the walls. We’ve taught the lovely Madelyn Simone that the sheep says baa-baa, but I never realized the volume of sound that seventy hungry sheep could produce, and the variety of their pitch and intensity created a symphony of sorts.

Just as Mary had a little lamb who followed her to school one day (even though it was against the rules), Judi has a little lamb who follows closely at her heels. Moxie was rejected at birth, and Judi nursed the fragile lamb through its precarious first few days in the warmth of her kitchen with feedings around-the-clock. As a result, Moxie has claimed an exalted status on the farm, a celebrity, not just one of the flock. Although still smaller than the other sheep, Moxie doesn’t hesitate to claim her rightful place in the farm’s pecking order – at the top.

Judi has written about Moxie in her recently completed book, “The Lamb that Lived: Moxie’s Story. If Judi schedules a book signing, she may not want to tell a particular sheep about it, or Moxie will be tracing M-O-X-I E in the barnyard dust in preparation.

I came away from my visit to Halo-Bar Farm with a great appreciation for the life of the farmer. Scattered throughout Ashland County is a multitude of farms where the rhythm of the day is marked by the crow of the rooster, the lowing of cattle, and the bleat of sheep. While I may linger in bed on a day off, my brothers and sisters across the county are rising at dawn to care for the livestock and tackle the chores of the day.

My time with Judi and her sheep gave me a precious gift as well. As both a clergyperson and a follower of Christ, I’ve often read the words of Jesus in John, chapter 10: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” Now, however, when I read of a good shepherd and his sheep, it will be with a richer understanding of my pastoral role as shepherd, and the care of the Good Shepherd for his sheep.

Sarah Ban Breathnach reminds us: “Every day offers us simple gifts when we are willing to search our hearts for the place that's right for each of us.” As the sun set over the pasture that night, I was grateful for the simple gifts of that day, carefully tucked away on an Ohio country road.