It’s the first of February and the boss (Jo) says I need to get a letter to the editor done. For our friends who read this down South, we are just coming off all time record lows here in Iowa. Last week we hit -30 to -35 with 20 to 30 MPH winds and in some cases higher than that for a wind chill of -50 along with quite a bit of snow. School was cancelled on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a late start on Friday for GMG. The week before GMG had teacher in service on Monday (the nicest day of the week of course) and bad weather on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so the kids have missed seven days so far and have gone to school only two days in the last 10. Rural roads were blocked everyday with snow plows not able to run some days. Fortunately, we didn’t have any fire or ambulance calls. By the weekend the sun was out warming things up and a lot of the snow has melted. On February 3 the temperature was 45 to 50 degrees. That’s about a 75 degree swing in a few days. We’ll take it – after all this is Iowa where the weather can change in a day. Mark Lowry and Scott Humphrey did an excellent job keeping our streets clean. I know that Mark was out every morning by 3:30 to 4:00 AM and some days he was still running the snow equipment at 7:00 to 8:00 PM. Thanks to both men for a job well done. Today, February 3, the Fire and Ambulance crews held an open house with an excellent pork loin dinner to show off their new equipment which includes two new (used) ambulances, two new (used) fire trucks and some new rescue equipment all made available to the community by grant writing and the very generous citizens of Gladbrook and the surrounding area. A big thank you to everyone for your generous support. Both the fire and ambulance personnel planned to put on a demonstration of the equipment but at about 12:30 in the middle of serving dinner, the firemen’s pagers went off. There was a fire east of town! All the men dropped what they were doing, grabbed their gear, loaded up the equipment they were showing to the public and in a matter of a few minutes four fire trucks and one ambulance were on there way to the fire. This was more of a demonstration than they had planned. They did what they had been trained to do. Some of the ambulance people not on duty stayed around and demonstrated how the new equipment works. One machine that will be used for CPR patients will give CPR for up to two hours if needed. We are so lucky to have these two volunteer crews here in Gladbrook. With President Trump wanting $5.7 billion for a border wall and the House Speaker costing our country $6 billion in revenue, closing our government for 35 days costs a lot of people (800,000 federal employees) their paycheck even though Congress still got theirs – who won? No one did. If our kids acted that way we would take away their toys, games, privileges and tell them to shut up! While I’m talking about the would be leaders of our country, how about those who make all kinds of laws to protect wolves, whales, pheasants and other wild animals from being killed but say it’s OK to abort a baby up until the time of birth. And if that isn’t bad enough if the mother decides during or after birth she doesn’t want the baby they can let it die. Jo and I have seen our twin granddaughters come into the world at 29 weeks and weighing in at around 2.8 lbs. and 3 lbs and have seen them grow into two very healthy kids. I’m so glad that those we elect to serve us here in Gladbrook and our town employees are people with common sense. I would not trade our council and city employees for any 10 of our elected people in our nation’s capitol. Now on the good side, your city council and city employees are working on the budget and they will get it done on time! More good news is that Justin Miller has applied for a $2500 Monsanto grant for use here in Gladbrook and he won. Thank you Justin! Last but not least, the Dodge Charger from the Fast and Furious movies is at Matchsticks. Because of this we will be open on weekends from 1:00 to 5:00 through February and March, then everyday from 1:00 to 5:00 from April 1 to November 30. Stop in and see this new creation from Pat Acton! Keith Sash, Mayor