Good News for a Change

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former U.S. senator from New York, said that when a country’s newspapers are filled with only good news, its jails are probably filled with only good people. Having lived in a Communist country for two years, I can confirm the monotony and uselessness of a good-news-only newspaper. Fortunately I managed to stay out of jail and thus avoided obtaining inside information on the make-up of the inmate constituency. But I suspect Moynihan’s observation applied.

Let no one accuse Making Waves of relaying only good news! In the last article the word “doomsday” was used six times. But this is Lake Mills Festival week—time for good news!

What’s good about Lake Mills? This is not an all-inclusive list; merely a few things that come to mind: outdoor band concerts downtown, sometimes more assets than debits in “Police Beat” (last week two bicycles and one set of keys were found, none were reported stolen), kids walking down the street with fishing poles over their shoulders (you know they are NOT up to no-good), a library building so attractive that no one can resist reading, and the inclusion of Lake Mills in Milwaukee Magazine’s July issue list of Great Small Towns.

But what’s the best about Lake Mills? Rock Lake! Even though RLIA wants the warnings about the possibility of deterioration taken seriously and acted upon, we are aware that Rock Lake is still a clean lake, most people are considerate of others on the lake, the PWC users seem to be staying in the middle of the lake more this year, and the ski boats seem to be operating more carefully. Permanent and summer residents are proving to be good role models for the day-users of the lake. Increasingly people realize that going beyond following the rules to always thinking, “What’s best for Rock Lake?” is what maintains a healthy lake.

There. I’ve used “doomsday” only once in this article. Oops. Twice.

Making Waves,
June 21, 2002
Johanna Chworowsky