Seeing green: Renewable energy, our legacy

So, here’s a not-so-fun fact: 2023 was the hottest year on record since 1850, when global records began. Yes, 1850. Now, let’s look at 2024: Hurricanes Helene and Milton were unprecedented — devastating walls of wind and rain that left people stranded without even the barest necessities. It’s not hard to see that we have a climate crisis on our hands.

Right now, North Carolina’s application for Home Efficiency Rebates, part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, has been approved. A portion of the $369 billion in federal funding dedicated to clean energy will be allocated to us by 2025. It is our responsibility to take advantage of these tax incentives and rebate programs, making the switch to reduce the impact we have on the very environment in which we must live.

Surely, it isn’t too political to leave behind a habitable Earth for future generations. Let’s leave this place better than we found it.

— EJ Repsher
Salisbury

Guns’ place in the home?

What has our country devolved to when people are so paranoid about the danger posed by their fellow human beings that they carry a handgun strapped to their hip in their own home? The risk of being confronted in one’s home by an armed burglar is extremely small and the risk of being physically assaulted during such an event is even smaller, but as the Salisbury Post reported Nov. 25, the risk of having a loaded gun in a home is very real. The two-year-old who shot his father could just as easily have shot and killed his eight-month-old sibling instead. It is well documented that guns kept in the home for “self-protection” are far more likely to be used by a household member to commit suicide or by a child to accidentally shoot someone. And how do people think kids get the guns they bring into our schools?

— Thomas Strini
Spencer

“A Drive Across Town”

“A Drive Across Town” is a book you will want to read. One would think it is the tale of the Crawford House on Innes Street to its home on South Fulton Street. But…it is so much more. Mark Wineka has written a history of our community, Salisbury and Rowan County. Using the 1976 move to preserve this older brick home, he weaves happenings and history throughout its 292 pages, using this drive across town as the vehicle to make history happen for the reader. And happen it does, sentence after sentence, photograph after photograph, quote after quote.

Even more than the pages of history, he makes people in Salisbury come alive. So many characters appear to tell the story of the drive, but more importantly, the history of our town and the desire to save and preserve beauty. Some are outspoken, some are eccentric, some are driven with desire and some are angry, thinking this move  folly. But these different personalities tell the story of where we live. You will enjoy every page.

Mark Wineka is the author of this book you should read, but he gives credit to Ed Clement and Andy Mooney. Both were important to the book content. But its cover and the map, ” The Crawford House’s Drive Across Town,” are Andy Mooney’s. Andy was my student, but he could teach me more than I ever offered him.

This book is available at South Main Book Store and on Amazon.

— Julie Singley Pinkston
Salisbury

‘Tis the Season does it again

Wow! What a great crowd. I was honored to be in the Salisbury Christmas parade. It has been my pleasure for over 30 years to be in this wonderful event. For 25 years, it was with the Oasis Shriners Steel Drum Band. Now I’m with the Oasis Ragtops. A big thank you to the parade committee for allowing the Shriners to be a part of this great parade. We were so grateful for the warm reception we received. We look forward to next year’s event.

— Marty Wilson
Charlotte