Some scattered thoughts from an aging editor:

Jordan Houston – who is doing a fine job in my humble opinion – recently wrote a story about a movement in Agawam to allow “backyard chickens.” The idea is that people with a typical suburban backyard have enough room for a small number of chickens.

If you can have a vegetable garden in your backyard, why not have a chicken coop?

Critics will list a number of reasons that include the management of chicken manure and the noise a rooster can make as negative factors.

Being a farm boy, I can concur that roosters will crow at times that will disturb a night’s sleep and that chicken manure does require some thought.

As a teenager who cleaned out our barn, chicken manure was on high on my manure hierarchy – yes, I developed such a listing – and the higher you went the more disagreeable it was.

In a perfect set-up, a person could compost the manure to create a rotted product that would be great to use on your garden – a sort of closed eco system.

Many people, though, are not the most caring about their neighbors and their own civic responsibilities. I understand a certain reluctance when it comes to allowing the guy with a quarter-acre lot to have a flock of chickens.

Still there is something about having a greater level of self-reliance that appeals to me. Going out to the backyard to gather eggs is appealing to me as going into the backyard and gathering vegetables from the garden.

Perhaps I’m being nostalgic. I should remember what chicken manure smells like on a hot summer’s day. I might change my tune.

Can’t have it both ways

I get it. The message is heard loud and strong. The people of Chicopee voted to approve the sale of adult recreational marijuana, but the powers that be really don’t want it.

What the public wants and what government officials want seem to be two different things.

Although the City Council initially commended the city’s law and planning departments on their job creating an ordinance regulating how and where legal pot should be sold, they changed it at their most recent meeting.

The Commonwealth has said cities and towns cannot zone the shops out of the communities, but Chicopee took a step that would put them in position for being criticized for just that.

Apparently as one councilor said they are willing to take their chances with the Commonwealth.

I know the sale of pot is frightening to many people in a way that the sale to alcohol is not.  It’s the law in Massachusetts and one has to accept it.  Like alcohol, if you don’t approve of it, don’t indulge.

The simple truth is if the price of legal pot is competitive to the price being sold by your neighborhood dealer communities with pot shops will be making needed additional revenue.

It’s a new world and we need to make it work for us.

I didn’t make up the rules

I feel the need to clarify for our readers what goes on when a reporter interviews you. If you don’t describe that something is off the record, the reporter will logically assume the statements made can be used in a story.

An interview subject must say to a reporter that a statement is off record before the statement is made. You can’t assume a reporter will read your mind and understand that something is off record.

And you can’t say something outrageous and then later on in the conversation ask those statements be considered off the record.

You also have to accept that a reporter will ask when your remarks are back on record.  A reporter will probably ask you if there is any part of an off the record comment that could be re-phrased and used on the record.

Is that clear? I’m here to help.