Letters: Readers discuss Chiefs excitement, term limits and Bob Dole’s leadership
To the teeth
It has been 50 years since the Chiefs were in the Super Bowl, so this is an exciting time for the people of Kansas City.
Everyone is expressing support for the Chiefs by wearing red, and I’m taking part by having red rubber bands put on my braces at the orthodontist the day after the AFC Championship Game.
Go Chiefs — with a perfect smile.
- Dylan Shemitz, Leawood
It’s historic
Congratulations, Kansas City Chiefs. I’ve been hoping you would make it this year and carry on the mantle of the AFC West. As a Denver native and Broncos fan since childhood, I’ve always found the Chiefs-Broncos games some of the best over the years. Now that Denver is, shall we say, in a rebuilding phase, I decided the Chiefs were worthy to be my AFC West heroes.
Now I live in Portland, Oregon, but could never be a Seahawks fan, with them originally starting in the AFC West and me being a die-hard Broncos fan. No, I’ll go with the Chiefs as my placeholder team until the Broncos are up to championship standards again.
And as a lover of American history, I have more. The 18th-century connection among Kansas City, the Santa Fe Trail and San Francisco seems especially poignant right now. The Broncos played the 49ers in a preseason game every year for years down the street at the University of Denver field. Denver was named after a former territorial Kansas governor, back when you could get a Wild West town named after you for services rendered.
- Laurel Lawrie, Portland, Oregon
A great gift
On Jan. 10, 1970, my husband, Joe, and I were married. We went to Las Vegas for our honeymoon. Being Italian, we had received “envelope money” at our wedding reception. Joe bet it all on the Chiefs — and we won, big time.
We moved to Florida in 2009, but we were born and raised in Kansas City, and our children and grandchildren all still live there. Unfortunately, Joe passed away two years ago.
The best anniversary present I could receive is for my Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl 50 years later.
- Catherine DiGirolamo, Naples, Florida
Make it limited
Never before have I been more in favor of term limits for members of our U.S. Senate and House than now. The constant bickering, partisan whining and tantrums thrown by both parties have worn me out.
I feel so sorry for the freshman senators, congressmen and congresswomen who had high hopes and aspirations when they were elected, only to be belittled and bullied by all the fossils still holding office.
It’s no wonder we can’t find competent, eager and ambitious candidates to run for these offices. Eight years is more than enough.
- David Greenwood, Shawnee
Why bother?
The Royals’ pitching is so bad that the Houston Astros didn’t bother stealing signs when they played them.
- Gary Groninger, Olathe
A new kingdom
Please watch closely and pay attention. The president and his enablers — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with his rules to govern the Senate trial, Attorney General Bill Barr and the others — have now made us witnesses to history as they transform our country from a democracy into a monarchy.
- Gene Troehler, Overland Park
Need another Dole
Alan Guebert’s perceptive comments on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food stamp program, now called SNAP, recalls my time in the 1970s when I worked in Washington on then-fledgling food assistance and nutrition initiatives. (Jan. 20, 9A, “The USDA’s own numbers about food assistance prove it works”)
Sen. George McGovern came to our agency one morning and told a story about seeing a TV news report about the school lunch program of the time. A reporter asked a student how he felt as he sat and watched schoolmates eat their hot meals. The boy said he was mostly just embarrassed because the other students looked down on him and his siblings.
McGovern, watching at home, asked, “He’s embarrassed?” and threw his egg-smeared fork across the room. McGovern told us that he was the one who should be embarrassed — a U.S. senator allowing such a situation to exist.
Shortly thereafter, he approached Sen. Robert Dole about enhancing and modernizing the food stamp program. They and other colleagues enacted the “free and reduced price” revision to the school lunch and breakfast programs.
It seems we could use some senators like McGovern and Dole today.
- Larry Heffel, Lenexa